OC detective who mishandled evidence testifies he thought he was doing right

A top Orange County sheriff’s investigator testified Thursday in a drug case that he believed it was OK to falsely write in his reports that he had booked evidence because he intended to book it later.

Detective Jonathon Larson wrote in several reports that he put evidence — including heroin and paraphernalia — into a sheriff’s locker when he, in fact, kept it in a locked office desk drawer. Larson testified at Orange County Superior Court in Westminster that the evidence eventually got booked, sometimes after 72 days or 98 days.

Larson said the department at the time had no policy for handling evidence. Sheriff’s officials have said they did, indeed, have a policy that evidence be booked by the end of a deputy’s shift.

“Should it have been booked sooner?” Larson said. “It should have been booked.”

An audit in 2018 showed that deputies systemically booked evidence late or not at all.

Larson’s testimony came before Judge John Zitney in the preliminary hearing for Timothy West, who is accused of possession of drugs for sale. Zitney ruled Thursday, Dec. 16, that West should face trial on the charges.

Larson testified that he and another detective contacted West, who was sleeping in a parked car, to conduct a probation check. Larson said he gave West his Miranda rights, but the defendant chose to talk with him.

In what Larson called a consensual search of West and two hotel rooms for which West had the keys, police found several grams of marijuana and professional scales. However, a transcript of a recording of the encounter, introduced by Assistant Public Defender Scott Sanders, offered a different story. It showed that West did not initially waive his Miranda rights, but immediately invoked his right to counsel as well as his right not to speak. Yet Larson kept asking questions.

Sanders introduced the recording as well as questions on the mishandling of evidence in an attempt to impeach Larson’s testimony in the drug case. Sanders called the testimony evidence of lying. Prosecutor Brendan Sullivan called it a simple inconsistency.

Larson was the lead detective in the arrest of 85 high-profile members of the Mexican Mafia, in the so-called Operation Scarecrow, according to a 2018 motion filed by Sanders.

Besides the evidence scandal, in which deputies systemically mishandled evidence, Larson testified on his department’s misuse of jailhouse informants. Larson said he worked informants at the jail to gather intelligence about inmate politics behind bars.

Larson said he only sent his informants to gather information on the inner workings of the jail, not to learn about ongoing criminal cases. He said he only found out his colleagues were misusing informants on ongoing cases through the scandal created by Sanders.

West is set for arraignment on Dec. 30.

Source: Orange County Register