Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer’s office Monday released an audit of the prosecution of Scott Dekraai, the worst mass killer in the county’s history, that concluded the two prosecutors assigned to the case “committed malpractice due to intentional negligence” in the use of a confidential informant.
The audit does not name former prosecutors Dan Wagner and Scott Simmons, who retired in December, but makes it clear they are the ones being criticized throughout the report.
Simmons and Wagner said they would comment on the report after they have a chance to read it.
The report recommended discipline of Wagner and Simmons, but noted that is no longer possible because they retired. “Notwithstanding, this report is available to state compliance and law enforcement agencies for their review.”
The report also found that there was “insufficient evidence to determine prosecutorial misconduct or malpractice in the five other cases where confidential informants were also utilized” and that the D.A.’s office “has implemented significant reforms to address the deficiencies involving the use
of confidential informants.”
The report is the work of a 15-month internal investigation ordered by Spitzer in April 2019 to get to the bottom of what has become known as the jailhouse informant scandal.
Patrick Dixon, special counsel to Spitzer and a prosecutor with 37 years of experience with the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, wrote the report with Steve Danley, a consultant who previously was a chief human resources officer and performance auditor for Orange County.
The authors found that prosecutors were so fearful that Dekraai would try a defense of insanity and avoid the death penalty that they improperly used a confidential informant to gain incriminating comments from the defendant while the two were jailed together.
Danley and Dixon concluded that the prosecutors were spooked by what happened with Edward Charles Allaway, who had committed the worst mass killing prior to Dekraai in 1976 and avoided the death penalty with an insanity defense.
Sources say Dekraai bragged about the killings to the confidential informant, saying he felt like he was “in the matrix,” a reference to the film, when he went on his killing spree targeting his ex-wife and friends at the Salon Meritage in Seal Beach following a hearing on child custody that went against him in family law court. Eight people died, and a ninth person survived the Oct. 12, 2011, attack.
The informant scandal ultimately led then-Orange County Superior Court Judge Thomas Goethals to remove the death penalty as a punishment for Dekraai, who pleaded guilty to the salon massacre and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Spitzer attended the Dec. 5 retirement party for Wagner and Simmons and promoted Wagner to head the North Justice Center in Fullerton after he took office.
A main issue in Dekraai’s prosecution was whether confidential…
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