Judge Is Haunted by Luster’s Escape

With the sun setting outside the Ventura County Courthouse, Superior Court Judge Ken Riley settled into a deep leather chair and talked in his good-natured way about law -- and dogs. Riley and his wife have eight of them, rescued strays whose slobbering unconditional love proved a soothing antidote to the mess that exploded in his courtroom six weeks ago.

It started Jan. 6, three days after wealthy rape suspect Andrew Luster jumped bail and fled during a holiday recess in his trial. Prosecutors feared Luster was a flight risk, and initially persuaded a judge to set bail at $10 million. But a state appellate court lowered it to $1 million and ordered Luster held under house arrest.

Riley relaxed those terms before trial to let the bachelor surfer leave his oceanfront home each day to meet attorneys in Los Angeles.

The decision would come back to haunt him.

“Today, I regret that order,” said Riley, a soft-spoken former prosecutor who has served more than 14 years on the bench. “I mean, the Court of Appeal had him on 24-hour surveillance. By relaxing those terms I gave him a 12-hour head start.”

Newspaper editorials attacked his decision, and he and his colleagues on the 2nd District Court of Appeal were vilified on the Fox News Network’s “The O’Reilly Factor” during a segment on the California judicial system run amok. The husband of one of Luster’s rape victims appeared on the show and lashed out at the judge.

Riley, 58, ordered the trial to continue. After jurors convicted Luster on 86 counts, Riley told them his decision to modify bail had allowed the rapist to flee.

The mea culpa surprised some lawyers, who believe Luster would have run regardless. But others saw it as vintage Riley: a modest judge of Midwestern stock whose ego takes a backseat to his desire to do the right thing.

“It took a lot of guts for him to make that statement,” said Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Maeve Fox, one of two prosecutors on the Luster case. “The press was there, everyone was there, and to me it shows the measure of the man.”

Attorneys who appear before Riley often sum up his character in the same terms: Knowledgeable. Unpretentious. Compassionate, sometimes to a fault. “That is his Achilles’ heel to us,” Fox said. “He wants to be nice to everyone all the time.”

Riley will decide this week whether to give Luster 124 years in state prison, or hold off on sentencing until the fugitive is caught.

Sitting in chambers recently, the judge talked about some aspects of the high-pressure case and the events leading to his decision to ease the terms of Luster’s house arrest. Defense attorneys had accused prosecutors of framing their client and concealing evidence. They asked for, and were granted, at least four postponements. After 10 months of delays, Riley said no more.

At the same time, he agreed to ease the terms of house arrest to allow Luster greater freedom to assist his attorneys in trial preparations. “I felt I had basically forced them to trial,” Riley said. “I honestly felt I was giving him time to meet with his attorney and I still believe his attorney genuinely made that request.”

“I just wish he would stop beating himself about it,” said defense attorney James Farley, who appears frequently before Riley in criminal matters. “I don’t think there is anything in the world that would have stopped Luster from leaving the country because he knew what was coming down.”

The Luster trial was the last in a series of big felony cases to land on Riley’s desk during the past year -- a streak lawyers attribute to his reputation as a knowledgeable, even-handed judge. Lawyers who step into his low-key courtroom, where sessions seldom start on time, praise him for being courteous and issuing careful, well-reasoned rulings.

“You may not always agree with what his rulings are, but you know you are going to get a fair shake with him,” Ventura defense lawyer Kay Duffy said. “Plus, he is a big animal person, so that says a lot right there.”

Born and raised in Oklahoma, Riley headed west after college and became interested in law while working as an IRS auditor and collection officer in the late 1960s.

He graduated from Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles in 1975 and promptly landed a job as a prosecutor in Ventura County.

There, Riley handled misdemeanor and felony matters before specializing in mental health cases involving patients at the former Camarillo State Hospital.

He also worked as a supervisor in the district attorney’s office before being appointed to the Municipal Court bench in 1988.

Three years later Riley was elected to the Superior Court and has since handled a wide variety of cases, including civil, probate, juvenile dependency and, most recently, criminal.

Last year he handled the attempted murder trial of an illiterate Indian woman accused of trying to drown her two children and the murder trial of a teen accused of kicking and stomping a homeless man to death.

But the Luster case has been the most visible on Riley’s docket -- even before the defendant’s disappearing act.

A self-employed investor and great-grandson to cosmetics tycoon Max Factor, Luster was arrested outside his Mussel Shoals beach house in July 2000 after a UC Santa Barbara student told authorities Luster had raped her there.

During a search of his home, investigators found videotapes that showed Luster engaging in sex acts with two comatose women. Prosecutors charged him with multiple counts of rape by use of drugs, rape of unconscious victims and poisoning.

In February 2002, not long after Riley got the case, defense lawyers told reporters Luster was being framed by a law enforcement conspiracy.

Two weeks later Riley imposed a sweeping gag order.

He went on to gut the defense strategy by ruling attorneys could not present evidence of police misconduct.

At the same time, he shortened the trial by ruling prosecutors could not call seven women, including a Las Vegas stripper, who claimed Luster had spiked their cocktails with a date-rape drug at parties and nightclubs. And although defense attorney Roger Diamond was not ready for trial, Riley ordered jury selection to begin.

The tension continued up to the morning of opening statements on Dec. 16 when Diamond filed a last-minute request to stay the proceedings. Riley’s patience had worn thin. “No, Mr. Diamond, we are starting now,” he said in a raised voice.

Eighteen days later, Luster was gone.

For his part, Diamond does not believe Riley made a mistake by modifying the terms of house arrest, though he believes there were several significant errors during the trial that give Luster a strong case on appeal.

“I defend Judge Riley; he is an excellent judge and he is a courageous judge,” Diamond said. “I think Judge Riley made the right call, I think the Court of Appeal made the right call, and I would hate to see that other suspects in criminal cases suffer in terms of their bail decisions based on this one anomaly involving Mr. Luster.”

“He did make a mistake,” Fox countered, “and he stated it quite eloquently. He was taking the defendant and defense counsel at their word. I would never imply that Mr. Diamond knew what Mr. Luster was going to do. We just knew it. To us, it was extremely obvious that the only option Mr. Luster had was to go.”

As for Luster’s case on appeal, Fox and fellow prosecutor Tony Wold dispute that Riley made errors that would lead an appeals court to overturn the conviction.

“I think he did a very good job; he is duty-bound to listen and listen he did. And when the defense failed to produce one shred of evidence to back their claims, Riley shut them down,” Fox said.

This month Riley began a new assignment -- presiding over the master criminal calendar, which basically entails assigning cases to other courtrooms for trial.

He will take a break from that post in coming weeks to turn his attention to another high-profile case: the murder trial of admitted serial rapist Vincent Sanchez, who is accused of gunning down a 20-year-old Moorpark College student during an alleged sexual assault in July 2001.

Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty, which means Riley could be asked to impose the ultimate punishment on a defendant for the first time in his judicial career.

In recent weeks, Riley has heard a series of key motions that will determine the length and scope of Sanchez’s trial, including a defense request to impanel a jury from another county based on pretrial publicity. Riley has taken those matters under submission. He would not talk about the case during a recent interview, but said he looks forward to starting trial with two teams of top-notch lawyers. “As a judge, it is a big pleasure to wrestle with the subjects they want you to wrestle with,” he said. “And there are strong advocates on both sides.”

Meanwhile, Riley has continued to sign warrants in connection with Luster’s flight. And away from court he enjoys spending time with his wife, Superior Court Judge Rebecca Riley. Married 13 years, they are the only judicial couple in Ventura County.

“People might not believe this,” he said with a smile, “but we don’t talk about cases. There are so many things we enjoy doing, the extracurricular activities kind of take over.”

And that includes the dogs. “One nice thing about animals,” he said, “they keep you humble.”