Mistrial Declared in Tillman Case; Prosecutor Faulted

A mistrial was declared Monday in the murder trial of Olympic boxer Henry Tillman after a judge found that the prosecutor failed to fully disclose the criminal record of a police informant who agreed to testify against Tillman.

“I don’t grant this mistrial lightly,” Superior Court Judge Steven C. Suzukawa said. “But the bottom line is, everyone is here to get a fair trial.”

Tillman is accused of murder and attempted murder in connection with a Jan. 10, 1996, shooting outside the Townhouse nightclub near Los Angeles International Airport.

His trial in Santa Monia Superior Court was entering the third week of testimony when it suddenly ended Monday with the mistrial. Prosecutors plan to retry Tillman, who remains in custody.

Attorneys took pains not to name the informant in open court, but he was identified in other court records as 39-year-old James Bolden Jr. The lawyers cited a gag order and declined to discuss details.

But court records indicate that Bolden twice escaped three-strikes prosecutions after he first spoke to police about the Tillman case in early 1997. And, the records showed, a perjury count against Bolden was dismissed as part of a plea bargain.

During the several days that his case teetered on the brink of mistrial, Tillman was offered a plea bargain, which he rejected Monday. Under terms of the offer, Tillman would have received a maximum nine years in prison for a manslaughter conviction. Because he already has spent four years in jail, he could have become eligible for parole within a year or two had he accepted the deal.

In court, Tillman spoke firmly, saying he understood the ramifications of his decision to reject the plea offer.

The stunning developments followed days of closed-door conferences involving the judge, prosecutor and defense attorney. The case was recessed Wednesday to allow the defense time to investigate Bolden’s background and consider the plea offer.

On Monday, the defense came out swinging.

“There has been a lot of hiding the ball with respect to this witness,” defense attorney Al DeBlanc said, demanding the mistrial. “To this day, I have not received all that I know is out there.”

Suzukawa cited prosecutorial misconduct as grounds for the mistrial, but stopped short of accusing Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Duarte of deliberate deception.

“If I believed for a second that Mr. Duarte intended to deceive me, I’d be calling the State Bar,” the judge said.

Duarte had hoped the witness would provide key testimony linking the 1984 heavyweight gold medalist to the nightclub shooting, which killed Kevin Anderson and gravely wounded Leon Milton, at the time a suspected drug dealer.

Duarte told jurors in his opening statement that the witness would testify that Tillman asked him to help find a new gun because he’d had his weapon melted down after he “smoked two guys at the Townhouse.”

DeBlanc, the defense attorney, said in court that police logs revealed that the informant agreed to cooperate in the Tillman matter on Jan. 13, 1997. After that, the lawyer said, he was given two “sweetheart deals,” although he was eligible in both for a third felony strike that would have automatically sent him to prison for 25 years to life.

In the first case, in Santa Monica, prosecutors never filed the case as a three-strikes matter. Later, they dismissed a perjury count against Bolden and allowed him to plead guilty to a relatively minor offense, telephone fraud. The case dealt with a falsified driver’s license and phone cloning. Bolden was released on his own recognizance and has been awaiting sentencing for 2 1/2 years.

In the meantime, he was arrested and jailed in an attempted grand theft case in Torrance. In that case, a judge dismissed the strike, saying the case was weak, and sentenced Bolden to two years in prison. Duarte said the prosecutor in that case strenuously objected to the strike being dismissed.

Duarte told the judge that Bolden was motivated to cooperate not by deals with prosecutors, but because his brother had been shot and killed in an unrelated case. He formally agreed to testify last August, the prosecutor said.

The next day, Duarte insisted, he told the defense about Bolden during a hearing.

Neither DeBlanc nor Suzukawa, the judge, could recall being told about the witness.

Suzukawa seemed most disturbed by the Santa Monica case, and defense attorney DeBlanc pointed out that Duarte himself made several recent court appearances as Bolden’s prosecutor, including a Feb. 4 hearing in the midst of the Tillman trial.

While Duarte insisted that he had told the judge and defense about the witness’ “pending” case in Santa Monica, the judge said he had no idea the man had been awaiting sentencing for 2 1/2 years, an extraordinarily long time.

“I was never told about this conviction,” the judge said.

Hoping to avert a mistrial as the testimony entered its third week, Duarte said he would not call the witness. But the judge said that was not enough of a remedy, and granted Tillman a new trial. Attorneys will return to court March 29 for a pretrial hearing.

Another prosecution witness, Lauri Meadows, also has engaged in plea negotiations with federal prosecutors while cooperating with Duarte, according to testimony and court records. Meadows, who is charged with possession with intent to distribute 13 kilograms of cocaine, testified that she hoped Duarte could help her when she is sentenced in the federal case.

She had recanted her identification of Tillman as the gunman at a preliminary hearing, but testified at the trial that she was positive he was the man who shot her friends.