People v. Antonio Gastelum, et al.
Sep 01, 1997OUTCOME: Court order monitoring wiretaps
This case involved an alleged cocaine-smuggling ring said to operate between the U.S. and British Columbia. In a pretrial hearing, we discovered that the LAPD operated a "wire room" where various wire ... taps (some illegal) were monitored, and that the DA's Office encouraged the monitoring officers to "hand off" information to other, uninvolved police officers. These latter would make the arrests, and would thus be able to testify truthfully that they were personally unaware of any wiretaps involving the suspects. The object of this ruse was that police wiretaps, and the existence of the "wire room," should go undiscovered and consequently unchallenged. This practice went on for years until our case uncovered it. The clients received a very favorable plea disposition as a result of this finding. The more general result was that the Los Angeles County Superior Court entered an order monitoring the police, the DA's Office and their "wire room" activities, and ordering the DA's Office to turn over information to ALL defendants who'd been wiretapped -- over 300 in all! When the prosecution STILL failed to turn over information as ordered, Judge Larry Fidler (later to gain fame as the judge in the Phil Spector case) ordered the DA's Office to answer in court.
