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Sex, Justice and the D.A.'s Office
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Sex, Justice and the D.A.'s OfficeCould a prosecutor’s affair with a stripper bring down a death-penalty conviction and Steve Cooley?by Jeffrey AndersonThe 1982 murder trial of Adam Miranda and its aftermath played out like a particularly salacious episode of “Law & Order.” There was the key witness, a stripper named Donna Navarro, testifying against her former classmate, and the prosecutor, Curt Hazell, an ambitious young lawyer, who was the college roommate of future Los Angeles D.A. Steve Cooley. The prosecutor and the witness had an affair that produced a child and more than two decades’ worth of fodder for the downtown rumor mills. In the background was Cooley, who, 20 years later, faces questions about whether his good buddy’s affair with Navarro tainted the death-penalty case. Ordinarily, what a prosecutor does on his own time is his business. But sex with anyone involved in a murder case, whether it be an informant, a juror or the government’s key witness, looks bad. It amounts to at least an appearance of impropriety. Even if the relationship began after the trial, death-penalty appeals often last decades. The defense has the right to know exactly when the prosecutor crossed the line — and whether the affair affected the case. After more than 20 years, that inquiry is just getting under way in the case of People vs. Adam Miranda. Lawyers for Miranda did not learn about Hazell’s paternity — no secret within the D.A.’s Office — until May 19. The confirming letter from the D.A.’s Office, obtained by the L.A. Weekly, is but the most recent development marring the death-penalty conviction, which now rests on shakier ground than ever. Hazell’s failure to turn over other potentially exculpatory evidence to defense lawyers has already led to lengthy state and federal court appeals. This recent revelation, which ends a two-decade cover-up, further threatens to overturn the case. Equally troubling is the taint of cronyism that comes with Cooley’s 2005 promotion of Hazell, one of his closest friends, to a top assistant in charge of capital crimes. Hazell, who, according to public records, lives with Special Assistant D.A. Patricia Doyle, another high-ranking officer, also oversees the head of the Public Integrity Division. It all comes as Cooley eyes a run for a third term in 2008. “Hazell is protected at the highest level,” says a veteran prosecutor in the D.A.’s Office. “Prosecutors don’t like prosecutors having sex with witnesses. Especially not the prosecutors who run the office. You can’t trust them to correct this sort of behavior, and you can’t trust them not to punish anyone who comes forward and exposes it.” Neither Cooley nor Hazell returned calls for comment. On Thursday, spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said Hazell has never hid the three-year relationship from his superiors, including Cooley. Neither did he hide that it led to the birth of his son. “Why should he? He didn’t do anything wrong,” Gibbons said, adding that the relationship began after the trial, and that Hazell has raised the child on his own. “That’s pretty damn commendable.” Miranda was convicted of fatally shooting an Eagle Rock convenience-store clerk named Gary Black in 1980. At the 1982 trial, Hazell charged Miranda with the special circumstance that he had committed another murder, the stabbing of a drug dealer over a dispute about $10. An accomplice in the stabbing case testified against Miranda, who was sentenced to death. What Miranda and his lawyers did not know, despite a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that requires prosecutors to disclose evidence that diminishes guilt, was that prosecutors had received a letter from an inmate named Larry Montez stating that Joseph Saucedo, the accomplice, admitted to doing the stabbing. Instead, the jury heard Saucedo finger Miranda, whose lawyers were unable to refute the damning witness testimony. Miranda’s lawyers now plan to amend his appeal on grounds of witness tampering, undue influence and the failure of the D.A.’s Office to disclose the relationship between Hazell and Navarro, the witness in the shooting case. “If a prosecutor has a relationship with a witness, that has to be disclosed,” said defense attorney Kerry Bensinger. “It’s remarkable that we didn’t hear about this sooner.” The truth surfaced in May, in the context of a civil-service grievance by veteran prosecutor James Bozajian, a three-term councilman from Calabasas and a board member of the Association of Deputy District Attorneys. Bozajian got crossways with Cooley’s front office in 2003, when he protested a performance evaluation given by Hazell. In a May 17 memo to the Civil Service Commission, which the D.A.’s Office attempted to seal, Bozajian disclosed Hazell’s relationship with Navarro. According to sources in the D.A.’s Office, prosecutors have openly speculated about the matter for years. Despite persistent requests by defense lawyers for any information that could aid Miranda in his defense, the D.A.’s Office, and Hazell, have kept quiet. Two days after Bozajian’s memo, however, on May 19, Lael Rubin, head deputy of the D.A.’s appellate division, wrote to Miranda’s lawyers, “Out of an abundance of caution, I want to inform you [that] after sentencing in the capital case, the trial prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Curt Hazell, had a relationship with Donna Navarro, a witness. Mr. Hazell and Ms. Navarro had a child who has been raised by Mr. Hazell.” Navarro, who later compiled a lengthy rap sheet of theft and drug-related crimes, died in 2002. Despite Hazell’s claim that the relationship began after the trial, there are signs that a bond between the prosecutor and the mother of his child formed earlier. Court records state that Navarro was coming home from work one night in 1980 and happened upon the convenience store where Gary Black was murdered. She recognized Miranda, her former junior high school classmate, leaving the store with a gun in his hand. After Navarro testified against Miranda, in 1982, Hazell and executives from Atlantic Richfield Co. — owners of the convenience store — gave her a $25,000 reward, according to a news report. The reward, paid for by ARCO, allowed Navarro to move away from her neighborhood, where she feared for her life, Hazell told a reporter in the 1980s. “What she did was incredibly courageous,” he said, noting that neighborhood youths had made her life “absolute hell.” Court transcripts further show Hazell protecting Navarro from being harassed by refusing to reveal the club where she stripped. Since Miranda was sentenced to death, Hazell has played a role in his appeals in both state and federal court. But the larger issue in the case has been the letter by Larry Montez, which was left buried in a prosecution file for 14 years, until a federal judge ordered that the file be turned over to the defense. In December 2000, Hazell swore under penalty of perjury that he had no recollection of the letter from the time he began prosecuting the case: “I have no reason to believe [the letter] was not provided to the defense.” However, on June 4, 2002, a judge concluded that defense lawyers never received the Montez letter. In 2005, Cooley elevated Hazell to chairman of the office’s Special Circumstances Committee, which allows Hazell to sign off on all decisions about whether to seek the death penalty. He did not usher in an era of candor. Last September, in response to a public-records request by Bozajian for “all documents in the D.A.’s possession in connection with the Miranda case,” the D.A.’s Office stated it was “unable to locate” the file. #
Ex-D.A. Philibosian has a good friend in Cooleyby Jeffrey AndersonEvery criminal defendant needs a good lawyer. Better if the lawyer is a close personal friend of District Attorney Steve Cooley. The benefits of such coziness are described in an 11-page memo by a former Los Angeles prosecutor who resigned over what he considered to be questionable backroom deals that Cooley’s pal Robert Philibosian cut with the D.A.’s Office. Cooley and Philibosian go way back. When Philibosian was the district attorney in 1984, he tapped Cooley as the youngest head deputy in the office’s history; he campaigned for Cooley in 2000; he emceed Cooley’s inauguration and worked on his transition team. Philibosian and Cooley own property together at Lake Arrowhead. So what was Philibosian, a partner at Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton, doing in the middle of the recent campaign-money-laundering conviction of power lawyer Pierce O’Donnell? Or the Newhall Land & Ranch Co. environmental-crimes investigation? Or the investigation into allegations of corruption in the city of Cudahy? Or the Venoco oil-well-emissions investigation at Beverly Hills High School? Former Deputy District Attorney Matthew Monforton raised questions about Philibosian’s influence with Cooley in two memos sent to Cooley’s director of fraud and corruption prosecutions. He got nowhere. His February 2005 memo, obtained by the L.A. Weekly, came on the heels of criminal charges against O’Donnell. Monforton was outraged that the D.A.’s Office, despite objections from the Public Integrity Division, agreed to a request by O’Donnell’s lawyers to seal the criminal complaint. This allowed O’Donnell to finish a trial he was handling. “I am informed by sources I consider reliable that O’Donnell’s team recruited Philibosian, who successfully lobbied members of this [office] for just such an [agreement],” wrote Monforton, who later resigned in protest. O’Donnell pleaded no contest in June — the same as a guilty plea — to five misdemeanor counts of making campaign contributions to former Mayor Jim Hahn under false names. He was fined $300,000 and banned from making political contributions and contracting with the city for three years. But he ducked a jail sentence. By contrast, former councilman Art Snyder pleaded guilty in 1997 to nine misdemeanor counts of money laundering and conspiracy; he served six months in jail and paid a $216,000 fine. O’Donnell was represented by Sacramento lawyer George O’Connell, but sources familiar with his prosecution say he benefited from Philibosian’s involvement in a plea bargain that spared him jail time. On Tuesday, Deputy District Attorney Juliet Schmidt confirmed that Philibosian was one of three lawyers who negotiated the deal. Schmidt defended the plea agreement, and characterized Philibosian as a stealth presence. “I never saw [Philibosian] in court and his name is not on any court papers,” she said. “But the sentence was harsh and there was nothing done wrong.” Reached at his Sacramento office on Monday, O’Connell objected to questions about Philibosian. He would not talk about the role that Cooley’s friend played in the O’Donnell case: “I couldn’t talk about that.” When the L.A. Weekly contacted Philibosian’s office this week, his secretary confirmed Pierce O’Donnell as a client. Philibosian did not return calls for comment. Cooley’s office would not respond to written questions about its dealings with Philibosian, but agreed to make lead prosecutors in various cases available at a later time for interviews, to describe their interaction with the influential defense attorney. The D.A.’s Office has had ample opportunity to rectify the conflict posed by Philibosian’s friendship with Cooley, according to Monforton’s memo. In 2004, Monforton got riled over Sheppard Mullin’s representation of the city of Cudahy. The firm was hired in 2001 to deal with a grand-jury investigation into whether former Councilman George Perez violated state law when he stepped down and was immediately appointed city manager by his peers on the council; no charges were ever filed. Details about the firm’s hiring quickly overshadowed the allegations facing Perez and his colleagues. Former assistant city manager Aurora Martinez testified that the city was not properly advised about a retainer agreement that allowed Philibosian’s firm to jointly represent both the city and its council members, who were under investigation. In general, elected officials have their own lawyer when there are allegations of public corruption. Yet a similar arrangement in the South Gate political-corruption scandal later caused Philibosian’s firm to pay $2 million in damages to that beleaguered city. Monforton’s 2005 memo states that in Cudahy, Sheppard Mullin fraudulently secured waivers from city officials then racked up $1 million in legal fees — a hefty tab for Cudahy residents. “A retainer agreement executed by Philibosian formed the basis of [the firm’s joint] representation,” Monforton wrote to Richard Doyle, director of the D.A.’s fraud and corruption prosecutions, and Lael Rubin, head deputy district attorney in the appellate division. Former head deputy district attorney George Palmer initially agreed with Monforton that the joint representation looked fishy and should be referred to the state attorney general, the memo states. But nothing was done. Palmer, now retired, did not return calls for comment. But former veteran Los Angeles prosecutor Roderick Leonard, one of Monforton’s colleagues, recalls a failed attempt to disqualify Sheppard Mullin for not securing a valid waiver to represent both the city and its council members. After five years, the ruling still doesn’t sit right with Leonard, a statewide legal-ethics expert now in private practice. The Monforton memo states that the D.A.’s Office rightly questioned the waiver by Cudahy council members of their right to separate legal representation, but that the office never challenged the city’s waiver of that right. State law requires that both parties to a potential conflict of interest knowingly waive their rights to separate counsel. After Los Angeles Judge David Wesley ruled against disqualifying Sheppard Mullin, the firm was free to represent the city, its employees and the council members, whose legal fees were paid with taxpayer money. In his memo, Monforton states that Sheppard Mullin deceived Wesley with “fraudulent misrepresentations.” Leonard, who worked on the case, sees it differently, though he, too, questions the credibility of witnesses who testified that city officials knew what they were doing when they agreed to joint representation in a grand-jury investigation of Perez and the council members who appointed him city manager. “I have high regard for [Monforton] but I don’t know if there was fraud there. I do believe there was a conflict of interest. I have problems with the factual finding by the judge. I believe our witness was telling the truth and should be believed — as opposed to Sheppard Mullin’s witnesses. The city lost a huge amount of money. Sheppard Mullin ate into [the city’s] reserves.” Monforton, who would not elaborate on his memo, points to documents he claims will show that “Sheppard Mullin attorneys knew they lacked the city’s consent [to joint representation] even as they declared the exact opposite under penalty of perjury.” He states that the council members had no right to legal representation at taxpayer expense, and that the retainer agreement, executed by Philibosian, violates state law. “Philibosian and the other Sheppard Mullin attorneys who used the retainer to generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal fees, therefore, are also potentially culpable as either conspirators or aiders and abettors.” Ties between Cooley and Philibosian become more troubling considering how many corruption cases Philibosian’s firm handles. In 2003, when investigator and activist Erin Brockovich and attorney Ed Masry sued Venoco and two dozen other oil companies for alleged hazardous emissions at Beverly Hills High School, the D.A.’s Office investigated for possible environmental crimes. Philibosian handled the matter, which resulted in no charges. In 2002, Sheppard Mullin partner Tom Brown was forced to stop representing the Entertainment Industry Development Corporation and its president, Cody Cluff, who later was convicted of embezzling public funds, when Brown disputed a decision by city and county officials to place Cluff on leave pending the investigation. What irked the officials was Brown’s placing Cluff’s interests above the publicly funded film agency’s. In 2003, Deputy District Attorney Richard Sullivan was punished with a demeaning assignment for going public with concerns over the investigation of allegations of environmental crimes and perjury by the Newhall Land & Ranch Co. According to Monforton’s memo, Philibosian represented Newhall in the case. But when prosecutors, who suspected the company of lying about the presence of the endangered spineflower, sought a search warrant to obtain business records, Cooley blocked the effort and branded them “reckless and unethical,” according to the memo. No perjury investigation ever occurred. The company later paid a small fine. A former veteran prosecutor in the D.A.’s Office, Sterling Norris, now the head of judicial monitoring in California for Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog, says Cooley and Philibosian have crossed the line. “Someone should declare a conflict,” says Norris, whose group is weighing a legal action on behalf of the city of Cudahy. “Cooley and Philibosian have been friends for years ... These guys are all in bed together. Cudahy officials were buying juice. They were buying Philibosian — with taxpayer money.” #
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