Attorney general ends Orange County snitch investigation as more murder cases unravel

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra has concluded a four-year investigation into whether Orange County sheriff’s deputies lied during court hearings on the misuse of jailhouse informants.

Deputy Attorney General Darren Shaffer said in court Friday that the state was done investigating, amid long-festering suspicions from defense lawyers and civil rights activists that the probe was halfhearted at best.

However, it is unclear whether a report would be issued by the state or perjury charges would be filed against three deputies — William Grover, Ben Garcia and Seth Tunstall — accused by a judge of not being truthful.

Newly elected Sheriff Don Barnes, tired of waiting for the state probe to be completed, launched a department internal investigation in January.

Retired detective at center of allegations

Meanwhile, the so-called snitch scandal that unfolded in 2014 has continued to wrack Orange County’s justice system, with one murder conviction dropped in January and another endangered because of a secret $11,000 payment to an informant. Both involved now retired Santa Ana police Detective David Rondou.

In the first case, prosecutors in January vacated the June 2009 murder conviction — and a sentence of 50 years to life — against mentally ill gunman Ricardo Lopez, allowing him to plead guilty to a lesser charge that will allow him to be released in a few years.

The reason: Rondou allegedly learned from an informant in 2010 that another gang member may have actually killed victim Carmen Zamora. But the information did not get passed to Lopez’s defense team until recently, according to an April 16 legal brief filed by Assistant Public Defender Scott Sanders, who uncovered the county’s illegal use of jail informants.                                                                                .

Lopez originally was convicted on the strength of witnesses who saw him armed with a gun near the 2002 murder site, a dead-end road near Kilson Street and Edinger Avenue in Santa Ana. Other witnesses said the killer was bald, which Lopez was not. His attorneys argued he may have fired a gun in the vicinity of Zamora, but insisted Lopez did not kill anyone, according to the legal brief filed by Sanders.

To complicate matters, Lopez was twice found mentally incapable of standing trial, delaying proceedings for several years. Lopez was in prison five years before learning that an informant had allegedly given a note to Rondou that appeared to clear him.

The note recounted a conversation the informant had with another jail inmate: “We talked about a few other scenarios that took place about Gato (Joseph Galarza) R.I.P. killing a chick on Edinger and East Kilson. In the cul de sac … “

Attorney: Evidence withheld

“What did Rondou do with the evidence suggesting Lopez may not have been responsible for Zamora’s death? The same thing he likely has done throughout his career when he came across exculpatory evidence: nothing,” Sanders wrote in the brief.

Rondou could not be reached for comment. Santa Ana police officials did not return a request for comment.

Rondou also figures in the second murder case mentioned in the brief by Sanders. He was the handler for jailhouse informant Craig Gonzales, who shared a cell with defendant Ramon Alvarez. Alvarez was accused of killing Ruben Leal, whose body was found in a Santa Ana backyard — on ice in a kiddie pool.

Gonzales initially refused to testify against Alvarez without receiving something in return. But in 2010, after he was sentenced to nearly 20 years on drug charges, Gonzales received a visit in prison from Rondou, according to court papers. Gonzales went on to testify against Alvarez.

In a sworn declaration in 2018, Gonzales said he was promised an unspecified amount of money in exchange for his testimony. Gonzales said Rondou also coached him to deny it if asked on the witness stand.

$11,000 payment to snitch

A jury convicted Alvarez of second-degree murder in 2012 after listening to Gonzales and others testify. Rondou later hand-delivered to Gonzales in prison an $11,000 check from the city of Santa Ana. A 2018 investigation by the state Department of Justice — not related to the snitch probe — reported that Rondou denied promising to pay Gonzales for his testimony.

Rondou told state investigators that he received a phone call from Gonzales’ daughter, saying the informant was terminally ill and asked if the department could spare any money to help bury him. The city took the money from a reward fund set up for homicide cases.

Attorneys for Alvarez are using revelations of the $11,000 to try to win a new trial for Alvarez. They will contend that the jury should have been told that the key witness would be paid for his testimony.

In similar fashion, Sanders is trying to get the district attorney’s office kicked off an unrelated case he is defending. It is a small time, nondescript drug case that is serving as the vehicle for Sanders’ latest mission. In 2015, Sanders persuaded a Superior Court judge to order the District Attorney’s Office off the case against the county’s worst mass murderer, because of misdeeds involving former District Attorney Tony Rackauckas and informants.

Now Sanders is arguing that prosecutors continue to withhold evidence of sheriff’s jailers responsible for managing the illegal informants.