The OC Jailhouse Snitch Scandal Is Back In Court — And Here's Why It Matters

One of the biggest law enforcement scandals in Orange County history could resurface in a hearing set for Monday.

The Orange County Public Defender's office is accusing Ebrahim Baytieh, a former high-profile prosecutor who's now an Orange County Superior Court judge, of being at the center of an "enormous web of deception" designed to cover up misconduct that helped prosecutors win cases while cheating defendants out of their right to a fair trial.

A spokesperson for the Orange County Superior Court said sitting judges are prohibited from commenting on active cases.

The allegations came in a 424-page court motion filed last year by Scott Sanders, the assistant public defender who first uncovered what's come to be known as the O.C. jailhouse informant or "snitch" scandal.

What to expect in the hearing

In the hearing Monday, a judge will consider Sanders' request to drop charges in a murder case because of the misconduct. In that case, Paul Gentile Smith is accused of stabbing Robert Haugen to death and setting his body on fire in Haugen's Sunset Beach apartment in 1988.

Baytieh prosecuted that case.

Sanders says the new evidence of alleged wrongdoing could also taint dozens of other criminal cases, potentially leading them to be overturned or reconsidered.

O.C. District Attorney Todd Spitzer wrote in a statement that his office had already addressed misconduct by Baytieh in the Smith case and that dropping charges against Smith would be "unconscionable."

Here's a closer look at the complicated and twisted years-long series of events that have led up to this point.

The snitch scandal origins

A decade ago, Sanders exposed the widespread and abusive use of jailhouse informants by Orange County prosecutors and law enforcement.

A federal civil rights investigation lasted six years and ultimately concluded the Orange County District Attorney's Office and Orange County Sheriff's Department "engaged in a pattern or practice of conduct … that systematically violated criminal defendants’ right to counsel."

When the scathing report was released in 2022, U.S. Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke wrote that: "The failure to protect these basic constitutional guarantees not only deprives individual defendants of their rights, it undermines the public’s confidence in the fundamental fairness of criminal justice systems across the county.”

'Full accounting' still due?

The misconduct happened under the previous O.C. district attorney, Tony Rackauckas, who lost his re-election bid to current district attorney Todd Spitzer in 2018. Spitzer has implemented reforms and pledged not to tolerate cheating among prosecutors and law enforcement.

But, years later, Sanders says he's still uncovering misconduct that prosecutors haven't owned up to.

"It sometimes feels like we haven't made an inch of headway," he told LAist.

Lawrence Rosenthal, a former federal prosecutor who now teaches at Chapman University, also told LAist he thought the Orange County District Attorney's Office had yet to take full responsibility for the informant scandal.

"Prosecutors are very big on accountability except when prosecutors themselves are facing accountability," he said.

Allegations keep coming

In Sanders's court filings in the Smith murder case, he outlines dozens of examples of evidence he said should have been turned over to defendants but wasn't.

Sanders said the evidence reveals that Baytieh — despite being lauded for his ethics at the district attorney's office and charged with deciding what evidence prosecutors should disclose across the department — was in fact among the worst offenders in the jailhouse snitch scandal.

Baytieh was fired by Spitzer in February 2022 after an internal investigation into misconduct in a murder case, the same case in which Sanders is now asking a judge to dismiss charges. Baytieh’s firing also came after he had accused Spitzer of making racially tinged remarks in the case of a Black man charged with a double murder.

The former prosecutor went on to win election to the O.C. Superior Court a few months later, with endorsements from dozens of current and former judges and law enforcement leaders.

Monday's hearing is being held in San Diego Superior Court, where the Smith case was transferred last year.