Richard Lewis; Special Investigator, Prosecutor

Richard Lewis, 72, key law enforcement officer and prosecutor in San Bernardino and San Diego. Lewis, the brother of Rep. Jerry Lewis of Redlands, was born in Seattle and grew up in San Bernardino, where he began his law enforcement career as a deputy sheriff. He moved to San Diego in 1969 as a special investigator in the district attorney’s office. There he headed the office’s investigation into the notorious Yellow Cab bribery and conspiracy scandal involving several members of the San Diego City Council. After graduating from Western State University of Law in San Diego, Lewis rejoined the district attorney’s office as a prosecutor, applying his street smarts to winning felony cases and mentoring younger deputies. In the early 1990s, Lewis became coordinator of the San Diego Metropolitan Homicide Task Force, made up of more than 30 investigators from the San Diego police, sheriff’s, district attorney’s and state attorney general’s offices. The task force, which disbanded in 1993 about the time Lewis retired, investigated the murders of 43 female prostitutes and hitchhikers, solving 26 of them. On Friday in Duarte of leukemia.