Evidence Planted, Defense Suggests

Attorneys for date-rape suspect Andrew Luster are raising allegations of police and prosecutorial misconduct, suggesting Ventura County authorities planted evidence and conspired to set up their wealthy client.

“There is something going on in Ventura that is bizarre and we are going to get to the bottom of it,” attorney Roger Jon Diamond said.

After a court hearing Thursday, Diamond told reporters he will push to remove county prosecutors from the case and seek dismissal of the rape charges.

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Anthony Wold said the misconduct allegation is false.

“There is not a shred of truth to back it up,” Wold said, suggesting defense attorneys were merely stalling to avoid trial. “It’s baseless, it’s ludicrous and it’s desperate.”

Luster, the 38-year-old great-grandson of cosmetics mogul Max Factor, is accused of sexually assaulting three women after allegedly rendering them unconscious with a date-rape drug known as gamma hydroxybutrate, or GHB. He was arrested in July 2000 after one of the women reported being raped.

Authorities said investigators later found videotapes of encounters with two other women during a search of Luster’s Mussel Shoals beach house, where Luster has been held under house arrest for more than a year.

No trial date has been set.

Defense lawyers have filed several motions, including one that seeks to suppress the videotapes on grounds investigators seized evidence outside the scope of a search warrant.

The issue was supposed to be argued Thursday before Ventura County Superior Court Judge Ken Riley.

But Diamond and co-counsel Richard G. Sherman put the brakes on the proceeding, telling Riley that prosecutors have withheld crime scene photos the defense needs before going forward with the motion.

“I think we are really stuck on the motion for suppression until we get those photographs,” Sherman argued.

Wold objected to more delays, telling Riley, “It is the people’s position that the defendant is trying to drag this out as long as possible.”

But Riley agreed to give the defense more time. He set a Feb. 21 hearing at which time lawyers are expected to set a firm schedule on motions and a possible trial date.

Outside the courtroom, Sherman denied trying to delay the case. He blamed the slow pace on prosecutors who, he says, have failed to turn over more than 160 items of evidence.

The defense contends law enforcement officials planted evidence, altered tapes and filed false declarations to obtain an unprecedented $10-million bail for their client. An appellate court later reversed bail and set the amount at $1 million.

Diamond said police and prosecutors moved too quickly and did not properly investigate the claims of the alleged victims before filing charges against his client.

“And when they make a commitment, they get their egos involved and they don’t look into exculpatory evidence,” Diamond said.

As his lawyers spoke, Luster stood outside the courtroom with a dozen friends and relatives, his arm wrapped around the shoulder of his mother, Liz Luster.

At one point Thursday, Luster’s supporters heckled Wold and co-counsel Ernesto Acosta as they walked from court.

Wold later said defense attorneys will have a hard time explaining away evidence against their client since, he said, his alleged crimes were captured on videotape.

He suggested the defense strategy was simply to blame everyone else.