In the latest fallout from Orange County’s “snitch scandal,” a state prisoner sentenced to life without parole for the torture-murder of a Sunset Beach man will be released in about five years because the prosecution team withheld evidence.
Paul Gentile Smith, granted a new trial in 2021, pleaded guilty Monday, Jan. 26, in Orange County Superior Court to voluntary manslaughter for the 1988 stabbing death of his boyhood friend and marijuana dealer as part of an agreement struck with prosecutors on the eve of his retrial.
Smith, who has served 16 years, on Monday was given an additional 12 years, which his attorney, Scott Sanders, said will be cut by more than half for good time and other credits. San Diego County Superior Court Judge Daniel Goldstein approved the plea deal, which he described as a “tragic outcome.”
Goldstein excoriated the original prosecution team, including former prosecutor and current Judge Ebrahim Baytieh and retired sheriff’s Sgt. Ray Wert, who sent his attorney to read a letter of protest at Monday’s court hearing.
“It is because of his (Wert’s) conduct, his unethical behavior and engaging in behavior that may have bordered on the limits of criminal that I have to do what I really don’t want to do today,” the judge said, noting Wert didn’t face Goldstein in person.
“You can thank Mr. Wert for this plea that I’m stuck taking,” Goldstein said.
In his letter to the court, Wert called Smith a “diabolical and violent person” and a “truly demented psychopath,” who threatened the detective’s life from behind bars when he was in county jail.
“He is addicted to committing extreme violence,” Wert wrote. “I have no doubt Smith will kill and commit violence again upon his release.”
Senior Deputy District Attorney Mark Birney, the prosecutor currently assigned to the Smith case, said the plea deal was based on the “facts and circumstances” and the presently available evidence that could have been used at trial. He declined further comment.
‘Fair resolution’
Sanders, a former assistant public defender in Orange County, applauded the deal as a “fair resolution.”
“We appreciate having been able to work with the district attorney’s office to reach a fair resolution, and their willingness to thoughtfully consider what Judge Goldstein appropriately described as ‘reprehensible’ misconduct,” Sanders said.
Smith, arrested after a cold-case investigation into the killing, was convicted in 2010 of murder with special circumstances because the killing involved torture. But the conviction was overturned and a new trial was ordered because prosecutors failed to disclose evidence that a group of jailhouse informants was illegally used to garner incriminating statements by Smith.
Goldstein was assigned to preside over the retrial proceedings to avoid a conflict of interest because of Baytieh’s position on the Superior Court bench in Orange County. Baytieh was elected as a judge in 2022 after he was fired from the district attorney’s office because of his conduct in the Smith case.
Dozens of cases unraveled
The Smith prosecution is the latest to crumble under the weight of Orange County’s “snitch scandal.” More than 60 cases have unraveled since the discovery by Sanders in 2014 that prosecutors and sheriff’s deputies were routinely using jailhouse informants against inmates who had attorneys — in violation of their constitutional right to counsel — and failing to disclose that evidence to the defense. In the aftermath, charges have been dropped, convictions overturned and sentences dramatically reduced.
A civil rights investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice confirmed the prosecutorial misdeeds.
Baytieh’s conduct during the original prosecution, as well as that of sheriff’s investigators, was explored in a special hearing last year before Goldstein. He found that the prosecution team’s tactics were so “reprehensible” that he took life without parole off the table as a potential sentence in the retrial.
Goldstein cited problems in the way the district attorney’s office, then led by Tony Rackauckas, and the Orange County Sheriff’s Department handled evidence in the case. He cited more than 20 pieces of evidence that were found during the special hearing that had not been disclosed to the defense during Smith’s trial.
“The manner in which evidence was logged and transferred between OCSD and OCDA was rife for abuse and exhibited a level of recklessness that bordered on bad faith,” Goldstein ruled after the special hearing.
Smith was charged with stabbing Robert Haugen 18 times and then torching the nearly decapitated body in an apartment. Smith’s DNA was matched nearly 20 years later to blood found on a wash cloth in the apartment.
While in custody in Orange County, Smith also was accused of trying to hire a hit man to kill Wert.
Prosecution failures
At the center of the misconduct in the Smith case was the prosecution team’s failure to disclose the use of jailhouse informants Jeffrey Platt and Paul Martin to extract a confession from Smith. Baytieh testified during the special hearing before Goldstein that he didn’t know Platt was working for sheriff’s investigators until years after the trial.
But a search warrant in the case, unsealed during the hearing, identified Platt as an informant. It was signed by Baytieh.
Another discrepancy pointed out by Goldstein was Baytieh’s testimony that he believed Platt was working as an accomplice in Smith’s alleged plan to hire a hit man. Yet Baytieh never attempted to charge Platt in the attempted hit.
“This inconsistency amounts to, at best, gross negligence, and, at worst, additional evidence Baytieh was not truthful during these proceedings,” Goldstein wrote at the time.
Related links
Judge dismisses murder conviction in Sunset Beach killing over alleged misconduct In Orange County murder case, judge weighs evidence of misconduct by prosecutors OC Sheriffs Department agrees to reforms to end federal probe into misuse of informants Judge refuses to dismiss murder charge in retrial of OC killing, but blasts prosecution Ex-OC prosecutor testifies he doesn’t know why evidence wasn’t disclosed in murder caseCourt officials have said Baytieh is unable to comment on the Smith case because of his position as a judge.
Sanders on Monday called for further investigation into dozens of convictions that Baytieh obtained as one of the top prosecutors in the district attorney’s office.
“Everything we have uncovered suggests that Mr. Smith’s case was not a one-off,” Sanders said. “We must put (Baytieh’s) other cases under a microscope. The clock is ticking on people’s lives.”
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