Hells Angels Case a Trial for Veteran Court Reporter

It took a moving van for court reporter David O’Grady to deliver 638,000 pages of grand jury testimony to the Ventura County courthouse.

His bill for nine months of reporting the massive grand jury case against the Hells Angels motorcycle gang: a record $265,756.

The case resulted in the indictment of Hells Angels leader George Christie Jr. and 27 others on racketeering and drug charges.

The job was the biggest of O’Grady’s career--producing an original 11,000-page document and another 57 copies for the district attorney, the defendants and their court files.

For the 50-year-old court reporter hoping to make a little extra money to pay for renovations on his family’s house near Camarillo, the grand jury hearings appeared to be a “true godsend.”

But they quickly turned into a nightmare, causing O’Grady to fall thousands of dollars into debt, nearly lose his home and his wife, and finally go out on medical leave.

“Looking back, I would not do it again,” he said. “I didn’t realize it was going to be a monster. That’s what this was.”

From July to February, the papers piled up in O’Grady’s home and took over his living and dining rooms like ants. The testimony crept into his dreams, leading to nights of fitful sleep. The long hours of typing made his shoulders throb and his eyes weak.

The grand jury proceedings ended with 132 criminal counts against Christie and his associates, including tax evasion, conspiracy and the illegal sale of Valium and Vicodin to high school students in Ventura and Ojai.

O’Grady’s transcript fee for the case is the highest ever for a court reporter in Ventura County, officials said. In neighboring Los Angeles County, officials said they could not recall any court reporter there receiving that much for one case.

Gary Cramer, spokesman for the California Court Reporters Assn., said the price tag for O’Grady’s work was the largest he has heard of in several years. “If it’s not a record, it’s close,” he said.

A Ventura County management analyst had estimated the cost for all grand jury transcripts for the year at $37,500. When she heard about the total cost of the Hells Angels case, she went numb. Then she warned her supervisor that the bill was on the way.

“We knew that grand jury was involved in some proceeding,” Dorothea Forde said, “but we had no idea of the scope or that there would be 28 defendants or that the transcript would be such a massive document.”

Though reporters’ transcript fees are set by law, court and county administrators were still surprised by the cost of the Hells Angels case. Now they are at odds over who should be responsible for a portion of the bill. The county so far has paid about $144,000 to O’Grady, but said the Superior Court, a state agency, should pay the remaining $122,000.

O’Grady’s ordeal began last spring. He and his family had recently gone through a spate of problems, from his daughter getting hit by an uninsured drunk driver to his wife having hip replacement surgery and going out on disability.

So O’Grady, whose patches of silver hair and lines around his smile reveal his age, accepted the job.

After a few months, the job started to take its toll on him physically, emotionally and financially. He proofread during recess, edited during lunch and translated from shorthand at night. He worked up to 20 hours some days and didn’t quit for Thanksgiving or Christmas.

“I had no idea what I was getting into at the time,” said O’Grady, who speaks in a baritone voice. “Twenty-four / seven took on a whole new meaning.”

His shoulders ached. His hands swelled. He had trouble breathing. He bought stronger reading glasses.

There were also financial problems. He spent more than $32,000 of his own money on printers, computers, supplies and repairs. His normal salary covered the house payments, but he struggled without the supplemental transcript income. Family trips had to be canceled, household repairs delayed.

The strain spilled over into his relationships with his wife and his three daughters. He couldn’t talk to them about the confidential hearings, yet his mind was spinning with testimony about drugs being stolen, then packaged and sold to teenagers.

“I couldn’t talk to a soul,” he said. “That was part of the problem.”

On top of that, O’Grady feared for his family’s safety. He recalled hearing cars pull up to his house in the middle of the night, and he thought people were going through his trash. Often, he took a different route home to make sure nobody was following him.

“It was a real trial for the family,” O’Grady said. “They are what kept me from going nuts. Through all the strain and stress, the family came together.”

A religious man, O’Grady prayed, but felt like he wasn’t connecting with God. At one point, he sought the help of a counselor. And a doctor. Both urged him to take time off.

But that wasn’t an option--not until the grand jury hearings were over.

O’Grady, the son of an alfalfa farmer and a homemaker, returned from the Vietnam War and took advantage of the GI Bill to go to court reporting school in Santa Monica. He began working as a reporter in Los Angeles in 1973 and moved to Ventura County three years later.

In the last 28 years, O’Grady has reported thousands of cases, including several death penalty trials. A few of his cases have gone to the California Supreme Court. O’Grady enjoys his job and prides himself on his speed and diligence in recording every word. Court reporting also has provided him a solid living: a $52,000 salary and an additional $30,000 in transcript fees each year.

But the grand jury case tested his faith and perseverance.

When the hearings finally ended in February, O’Grady went into overdrive. He had exactly 30 days to file the transcripts. So he turned his home into a makeshift copy center, moving furniture into the garage and setting up rented tables.

For days on end, five computers and five printers ran simultaneously. Then came several more days of boxing, sealing and labeling the transcripts. O’Grady worried constantly that an earthquake would throw his neat stacks of papers into disarray.

The day he dropped the transcripts off at the courthouse, O’Grady said, he was exhausted and relieved. He could finally breathe normally again, without the tension and stress of the unfinished job.

When word spread about his payment, O’Grady felt distance and animosity from a few attorneys and colleagues. Some teased him, asking him if he planned to buy a new yacht or a Cadillac. Others, including the presiding judge and the executive officer of the courts, praised O’Grady for his hard work.

O’Grady said it would have felt like winning the lottery if he didn’t have to pay taxes and outstanding bills. But he and his wife do have some plans for what is left of the money. In addition to visiting relatives in Colorado, they want to buy a new car, fix up the house and give a share to their church.

Now on medical leave, O’Grady is trying to regain his health, strength and motivation. When the attorneys asked him if he would work the Hells Angels trial, expected to be one of the most complex and complicated cases in county history, O’Grady politely declined.

“I lived this thing night and day,” he said. “It was the biggest challenge of my life. No more big cases.”