No Bail for Alleged Biofem Getaway Driver

An Orange County judge ruled Friday that a businessman charged with conspiring to murder an Irvine drug company executive must remain behind bars until his trial later this year.

Judge Francisco P. Briseno sided with prosecutors who argued that the release of Dino D’Saachs from jail would endanger witnesses in the case surrounding the shooting of Biofem Inc. CEO James Patrick Riley.

Prosecutor Ebrahim Baytieh told the court that a former employee who allegedly overheard D’Saachs discuss a murder plot months before the shooting was terrified for the safety of his family.

Friday’s ruling came despite appeals from D’Saachs’ attorney and family members, some of whom sobbed quietly in court after the decision. D’Saachs, 56, is charged with driving the gunman from the Irvine Spectrum following the Feb. 28 shooting of Riley. Prosecutors allege that a magazine from the gun used to shoot Riley was found in a van owned by D’Saachs.

D’Saachs has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to face trial in September.

In a court filing this week, prosecutors for the first time named Riley’s business partner, Dr. Larry C. Ford, as a co-conspirator in the case. Ford, who has been linked to South Africa’s Apartheid-era biological warfare program, committed suicide days after Riley was wounded in the face.

In the same court filing, prosecutors warned against allowing D’Saachs to leave jail, citing Ford’s connections to biological weapons research.

D’Saachs, prosecutors alleged, was acquiring information on how to “build incendiary devices while his co-conspirator was in possession of biological germs that could be weaponized by means of incendiary devices.”

D’Saachs’ attorney, Henry Salcido, said his client had no involvement with the development or research of biological weapons.