Orange County sheriff’s officials testified Tuesday they have uncovered dozens of pages of notes kept by deputies that should have been turned over before the double murder trial of community theater actor Daniel Wozniak.
Sgt. Kirsten Monteleone, the Orange County Jail’s custodian of records, told a judge she never knew that deputies in the special handling unit kept logs about Wozniak and a prolific jailhouse informant.
Adam Powell, commander of the sheriff’s investigative services, testified Tuesday that he, too, is stunned to learn of the logs and that no one in the command staff of Sheriff Sandra Hutchens knew of them, either.
The disclosures came in response to a hearing on the
latest records subpoenaed by Assistant Public Defender Scott Sanders, who represents Wozniak and has waged an ongoing war with police and prosecutors
over the secret use of jailhouse informants.
As Wozniak’s death penalty sentencing approaches, the notes on the convicted killer and
prolific informant Fernando Perez were recently discovered buried in a jail computer system[....]
“The OCDA expects police officers to tell the truth and pursue justice,” prosecutors said in the statement. “The OCDA finds it distressing that these notes would be withheld from the OCDA, the court, and the public until this hearing. The OCDA has been assured by Sheriff Sandra Hutchens that she will take appropriate internal actions to address this issue.”
Sheriff’s Lt. Mark Stichter on Tuesday night responded that the department has worked to comply with all requests for documents and will continue those efforts.
“Sheriff Hutchens also desires all police officers to tell the truth and pursue justice,” he said.
Orange County Superior Court Judge John Conley ordered the supervisor of the department’s special-handling deputies – who work with jailhouse informants – to testify Tuesday and explain 78 pages of newly discovered notes.
Monteleone, who has been on the job for 15 months, said she was unaware that Deputy Ben Garcia and others kept the logs, which spanned 2008 to 2013.
“I have no idea how they were doing it, sir,” Monteleone testified. “I was surprised.”
After a deputy turned over notes in February in another criminal case, Powell said he sent out an email to more than 300 deputies asking them to turn over any notes they might have kept about their work in the jail.
On Tuesday, Conley turned over the notes pertaining to Wozniak and Perez to the public defender and prosecution team and issued a protective order sealing the records to the public.
[....]
Sanders contends that deputies improperly used Perez, the jailhouse informant, in the case. In October, before the trial, Conley ruled that Sanders “failed to show that outrageous government misconduct occurred” in the Wozniak case.
This week, however, Conley questioned discrepancies in the newly discovered deputy notes provided to the court.
On Friday, the judge received 50 pages of notes from the Sheriff’s Department. On Monday, the number grew to 78 pages of notes covering a wider period of time.
The discovery prompted Conley to call in the department’s custodian of records, Monteleone, to explain the handling of the documents.
She spent much of Tuesday discussing the documents, the deputies involved and her own lack of knowledge on the issue until recently.
[....]
Testimony on the newly discovered notes in the Wozniak case is expected to continue Thursday before Conley.
