O.C.’s Jailhouse Informant Scandal: Part One

Summary

Crimes of the Times – O.C.’s Jailhouse Informant Scandal (May 5, 2026)
Host: Christopher Goffard, L.A. Times Studios

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Episode Overview

This episode of "Crimes of the Times" delves into the infamous Orange County jailhouse informant scandal, a legal drama that erupted after the 2011 Seal Beach mass shooting committed by Scott Decry. Despite overwhelming evidence against Decry, an astonishing series of courtroom battles unfolded over allegations of secret informant networks, prosecutorial misconduct, and violations of constitutional rights. Christopher Goffard introduces the main players and lays the groundwork for a story that would shake Orange County’s criminal justice system and impact dozens of cases beyond Decry’s.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Seal Beach Massacre: Setting the Scene

[00:00 – 02:30]

• The Crime: In October 2011, Scott Decry murdered eight people execution-style at the Salon Meritage in Seal Beach, targeting his ex-wife and killing her coworkers and clients—Orange County’s most lethal mass murder.
• Swift Arrest: Decry was apprehended minutes later; overwhelming forensic, eyewitness, and confession evidence implicated him.
• DA’s Approach: Orange County’s District Attorney declared intentions to seek the death penalty.

2. The Expected Slam Dunk—and a Legal Earthquake

[02:30 – 04:00]

• A Simple Case Gets Complicated: Despite what seemed like an open-and-shut case, prosecutors and the defense devolved into a protracted battle, culminating in accusations of constitutional violations and legal intrigue.
• Judicial Reflection: Judge Thomas Goethals reflected on the community’s disbelief “that cops and prosecutors are lying and cheating” in such a momentous case.

  “I didn't want to think that.” – Judge Thomas Goethals [03:18]

3. Remembering the Victims

[06:15 – 08:56]

• Personal Loss: Paul Wilson, husband of victim Christy Wilson, described the victims’ close-knit community at the salon and the palpable fear surrounding Decry leading up to the killings.
• Ignored Warnings: The salon had been on edge due to Decry’s threatening behavior for months before the shooting.

  “I was in the salon two hours before it happened... Michelle walked in and said, ‘God, Scott's been bothering me...’” – Paul Wilson [08:04]

4. The “Snitch” and the Secret Recordings

[08:57 – 13:08]

• Inmate F: Soon after the arrest, Decry was placed next to “Inmate F” (later revealed as Fernando Perez), a prolific jailhouse informant, who extracted a detailed confession.
• Prosecutorial Motivation: The DA’s office sought to use recordings of Decry, aiming to undercut any insanity defense by having him recount the killings “in a cold and calculating way.”

  “Informants often serve as case closers... If they could put before the jury him speaking in a cold and calculating way... that would for them put the case over the hump...” – Scott Sanders [10:19]

5. The Defense Digs In

[13:09 – 20:40]

• Scott Sanders: Decry’s public defender, Sanders, came across the informant evidence accidentally while combing through documents, discovering “Inmate F”’s real identity and ties to another death penalty case.

  “There’s one little spot that is left unredacted… I see the word Fernando... Isn’t there a Fernando who’s an informant on another death penalty case?” – Scott Sanders [16:36]

• A Pattern Emerges: Sanders realized “Inmate F” Fernando Perez was involved in multiple high-profile cases.
• Judge Goethals Orders Disclosure: In a landmark 2013 ruling, the judge orders full disclosure of Perez’s background – a decision that would later upend the foundation of multiple cases.

6. Constitutional Lines: Messiah v. United States

[23:09 – 25:45]

• The Law: The U.S. Supreme Court’s Messiah ruling forbids law enforcement from eliciting statements from defendants with counsel via informants. Despite this, Orange County prosecutors claimed Perez’s proximity to Decry was “purely coincidental.”
• Skepticism: Judge Goethals, reflecting on his legal education and experience, expressed disbelief that experienced prosecutors or officers could misunderstand this rule:

  “Nobody can convince me that any experienced prosecutor or defense attorney or cop doesn't know what the Messiah Rule is...” – Judge Thomas Goethals [24:27]

7. Uncovering Systemic Misconduct

[25:45 – 27:19]

• Sanders’ Investigation: The defense uncovered a broader, concealed informant program within the jail – snitches like Perez and Oscar Morial (another informant) had worked on numerous cases, violating Sixth Amendment rights.

  “We were tearing through word by word, the notes that these two individuals had written... trying to figure out… the level of concealment. And I could see the possibility of exposing a jailhouse informant program…” – Scott Sanders [25:45]

• Personal Toll: Sanders describes the obsession and relentless work it took—long nights at diners and coffee shops, knowing the implications were massive.

8. Victim Frustration, Turning Points

[27:19 – 34:21]

• Family Anguish: Paul Wilson, like many victim relatives, was initially furious at the delays and blamed the defense attorney. He publicly railed against Sanders, even to the point of the public defender’s staff worrying about confrontations.
• Sanders Files a Motion: In 2014, Sanders filed a sweeping 505-page motion alleging prosecutorial misconduct and calling for the death penalty to be dropped.
• Judge’s Stand: Despite rage from victims’ families and the DA, Judge Goethals persisted in examining Sanders’ claims, warning that failure to do so could undo any verdict years later.

  “Mr. Wilson, I have to tell you these claims have merit. And if I was to overlook the merit of these crimes, I don't think you would be very happy... if years later you got called back in…” – Judge Thomas Goethals [31:51] “When he said that about coming back into court years later... it was an aha moment... I need to listen.” – Paul Wilson [34:21]

9. Prosecutors’ Pushback

[35:04 – 37:37]

• Outside Perspective: Attorney Brian Gerwitz, who observed the case, paints Sanders as being viewed as “the Antichrist” by prosecutors. The DA’s office, rather than investigate potential wrongdoing, circled the wagons and refused to concede any fault.
• Critical Assessment: Gerwitz suggests the DA’s intransigence and chest-thumping ultimately worsened the situation:

  “It should have been clear to the DA’s office very early that there was a violation here… they just handled it completely wrong.” – Brian Gerwitz [36:41]

10. The Scandal Breaks Open

[38:56 – End]

• Evidentiary Hearing: In March 2014, Judge Goethals commenced a hearing to examine Sanders’ allegations, expecting a short process—but it quickly grew as the depth of the informant program and cover-up became clear.
• Next Episode Tease: The defense calls "Inmate F”—Fernando Perez—as the first witness, promising even deeper revelations into one of California’s most consequential prosecutorial scandals.

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Notable Quotes

• Judge Thomas Goethals:
  “I don't think anybody... wants to think ... that cops and prosecutors are lying and cheating. I didn’t want to think that.” [03:18]
  “Nobody can convince me that any experienced prosecutor or defense attorney or cop doesn't know what the Messiah Rule is.” [24:27]

• Scott Sanders (Defense Attorney):
  “We were tearing through word by word, the notes that these two individuals had written... I could see the possibility more each day of exposing a jailhouse informant program…” [25:45]

• Paul Wilson (Victim’s Husband):
  “You also have blood on your hands. Was not very nice to him.” [29:32]
  “When he said that about coming back into court years later… it was an aha moment..." [34:21]

• Brian Gerwitz (Attorney):
  “The district Attorney's office viewed Scott Sanders as the Antichrist... They were outraged by Scott Sanders accusations, and ... outrage[d] by the fact that Judge Goethel was doing what few other judges would have done, which was providing Mr. Sanders with the opportunity to explore these allegations, which were serious." [35:31]

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Important Timestamps

• 00:00: Overview of the Decry massacre
• 03:18: Judge Goethals reflects on disbelief in law enforcement corruption
• 06:15: Paul Wilson’s personal memories of victims and events leading up to shooting
• 08:57: The informant’s role and initial secrecy
• 10:19: Sanders explains the prosecution’s goals with the Decry recordings
• 16:09: Discovery of the informant’s identity (Fernando Perez)
• 20:26: Judge Goethals orders unprecedented disclosure of informant records
• 23:09: Legal background: Messiah v. United States
• 25:45: Sanders describes his investigation and the larger pattern he uncovered
• 27:32: Paul Wilson's frustrations with the prosecution and defense tactics
• 29:32: The moral, emotional battle between victims’ families and the defense
• 31:51: Judge Goethals explains the necessity of due process
• 34:21: Wilson’s turning point and shift in understanding
• 35:31: Gerwitz on courtroom dynamics and DA’s defensive posture
• 38:56: Launch of the pivotal evidentiary hearing

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Memorable Moments

• The personal and public castigation of Scott Sanders by Paul Wilson, later giving way to understanding after a forthright explanation from Judge Goethals.
• Scott Sanders’ relentless pursuit—confessing that, for a defense attorney, this was “living the dream” despite the long hours and intense pressure.
• Goethals’ integrity as a judge, balancing sympathy for victims with an uncompromising commitment to due process and legal precedent.
• The pivotal decision to open up the jailhouse informant records, exposing a systemic problem that would impact countless past and ongoing prosecutions.

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Summary Notes

• The Seal Beach mass murder case seemed open-and-shut but revealed deep-seated problems in Orange County’s legal apparatus.
• Through indefatigable defense work and rare judicial courage, a hidden system of illegal jailhouse informant use and routine rights violations was exposed.
• Victims’ families were initially antagonistic toward the defense but some—like Paul Wilson—came to appreciate the necessity of rigorous due process.
• The outcome and implications, both for Decry and dozens of other cases, would ripple far beyond one courtroom—a subject teased for the next episode.

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Want to Know More?

Further reading and video episodes are available at crimesofthetimesatimes.com.

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Transcript

[Christopher Goffard]

This is an la times studios podcast. In October 2011, a former tugboat captain named Scott Decry strapped on a bulletproof vest and armed himself with three handguns. He was 42, a portly, graying, slovenly looking man. That morning he had argued on the phone with his ex wife about the custody of their 8 year old son. It had left him enraged. She was a hairstylist and he was a familiar face where she worked at the Salon Meritage on Pacific coast highway in Seal Beach. So he was easily identifiable when he entered the beauty salon around 1:20pm and began killing people execution style with close range shots to the head and chest. They tried to run or find shelter in adjacent rooms. One hairdresser who hid in a bathroom could hear a victim's last words before Decry gunned her down. Please stop. Don't do this. In the space of about two minutes he killed eight people and seriously wounded a ninth. He killed his ex wife Michelle Fournier, along with her co workers Victoria Buzzo, Laura Elodie and Christy Wilson. He killed salon owner Randy Fannin. He killed Michelle Fast and Lucia Condice who were customers. He shot a 73 year old woman named Hattie Stretz who was critically injured but survived. De Kry then walked outside and spotted a 64 year old local man named David Couette sitting behind the wheel of a parked suv. He walked up and shot him through the window, killing him. Decry drove off in his Toyota Tundra pickup. But the Seal beach police had a description of the shooter's truck and stopped him just down the road. Minutes later they ordered him out at gunpoint and put a paper bags over his hand so they could test for gunshot residue. They found De Kry's three guns and a truck full of ammo. He soon admitted to the killings, saying he had been targeting his ex wife. It was the largest mass murder in Orange county history and there was no doubt who was responsible. A tower of evidence implicated Dacry, eyewitnesses, forensic evidence, a confession. The longtime district attorney quickly announced his intention to seek the death penalty. And in Orange county, with its law and order reputation, it was easy to see jurors obliging. The judge predicted the case could be resolved in two years. But an astonishing sequence of events upended that estimate. Prosecutors would wage protracted war on the judge. A hard to imagine alliance would form as a victim's outraged husband became a vocal supporter of the killer's defense attorney. Cops would plead the fifth. Scores of other homicide cases would be gutted in the process. At the center of it all were two figures. An assistant public defender alleging a wide ranging conspiracy and a judge who gave him a hearing.

[Judge Thomas Goethals]

I don't think anybody judges, lawyers, members of the community, members of the media want to think, especially in the context of a Capitol case, the biggest Capitol murder in the history of Orange county, that cops and prosecutors are lying and cheating. I didn't want to think that.

[Christopher Goffard]

In the next two episodes of Crimes of the Times, I explore the so called snitch scandal that shook the criminal justice system in Orange county in seismic ways far beyond the decry case. I'm Christopher Goffard,

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[Christopher Goffard]

Hi, it's Christopher Goffard here reminding you that the stories you hear on this podcast are based on original reporting by LA Times journalists like myself. And with deepfakes and AI generated content on the rise, it's more important than ever to support reporters on the ground. Help support our newsroom by subscribing to the LA Times. Head to latimes.com getlat to get started. That's latimes.com getlat the Black Dahlia murder of 1947 is arguably California's most notorious unsolved case in its only rival might be the Zodiac murders a generation later. Now an amateur sleuth is attracting attention with the claim that the same killer is responsible for both cases. I'm Christopher Goffard, host of Crimes of the Times. Check out our new season on YouTube and listen to it on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Paul Wilson]

I knew all the people in the hair salon because I had been going to that hair salon for 15, 16 years of getting haircuts and my wife was a manicurist there. A lot of the group of Salon Meritage was a group of, you know, hairdressers and nail artists that had always been in the same circle and like was a family. Everybody knew each other for so many years. And I mean, we would do holiday parties together. And it was a pretty unique place. And Christy just loved working there.

[Christopher Goffard]

This is Paul Wilson, who ran a clothing company, talking about his wife of 26 years.

[Paul Wilson]

I remember saying to Christy, and, you know, this is quite ironic that, you know, I look back on it, but, you know, I was doing pretty well on my business and, you know, we had three kids at home and, and it was quite a day to day scuttle to move everybody around. And I used to say to her, you could just stop working. You don't need to go and do this. And she would say, paul, I love. I just love the friendships and my clients and the people that I have there. And I couldn't imagine not seeing them like that. So I have to keep this job.

[Christopher Goffard]

Christy Wilson was one of eight people shot to death at the Seal beach salon when Scott Decry opened fire in October 2011. The source of his rage was his ex wife, Michelle. The other victims he later described as collateral damage.

[Paul Wilson]

You know, to be quite honest, I mean, this is discussions that went around the salon for months before it happened. Like, this guy's dangerous. You better be very, very careful. I was in the salon two hours before it happened. I was getting a haircut that day. I saw everybody at work. I saw Michelle walk in the door and say to Gordon, who was cutting my hair, say, God, Scott's been bothering me all morning and he wants me to meet him for coffee. And Gordon stopped cutting my hair. And his words were literally, michelle, are you crazy? You don't ever go meet with that guy by yourself, ever. You don't do that. And two hours later, he came in the swan and shot everybody.

[Christopher Goffard]

The longtime District Attorney of Orange County, Tony Rikakis, announced that he would seek the death penalty in Orange County. Many killers had been sentenced to death with a much smaller body count and with less evidence. But prosecutors feared he might escape death row by claiming he'd been insane at the time of the shooting. Such a defense had worked before. So to clinch the case, prosecutors believed it would help to show that de Kry had known exactly what he was doing. Days after the shooting, de Kry found himself in a jail cell next to the last man defense attorneys would ever want him near. Prosecutors would only identify him as Inmate F. He had a well developed talent, forgetting fellow inmates to incriminate themselves. It would later emerge that he was a prolific superstar informant who was helping federal authorities bring down members of the Mexican mafia prison gang, among other duties. Now he was Decry's new chum. Jailers wired up Decry's cell and obtained 132 hours of surreptitiously recorded conversations between the men. Decry spoke unguardedly about the massacre in chilling detail. It gave prosecutors some insurance against a possible insanity plea.

[Scott Sanders]

Informants often serve as case closers. They take those problems in the cases and they make them go away for them. They were worried that he could appear, he being Scott Decry, could appear mentally ill or suffering from the effects of all sorts of circumstances in his life. But if they could put before the jury him speaking in a cold and calculating way, a way that was without any compassion for the victim, that would for them put the case over the hump in terms of achieving their best shot at the death penalty.

[Christopher Goffard]

That's Scott Sanders, the assistant public defender who led Decry's defense. In early 2012. He appeared before Superior court judge Thomas Goethels, the judge who'd been assigned the case. Here's Goethels.

[Judge Thomas Goethals]

I knew his reputation and I knew he was a hard charging, true believing tough guy. And there was animosity between the lawyers from the very first appearance on. They didn't trust each other, they didn't particularly like each other. And if you get an experienced homicide prosecutor against a true believing public defender, oftentimes that is the case. And so I wasn't put off by that. But you could see it was going to be a bumpy ride from the first time.

[Christopher Goffard]

Career public defenders are a special breed of lawyer. They have an uncommonly high threshold for pain. Their clients are widely hated. They lose a lot more than they win. They don't get rich.

[Judge Thomas Goethals]

It is rare that you win trials, but that doesn't dampen your enthusiasm because you are committed to your individual client, but you're also committed to the rule of law. You take great pride in being a fierce defender of the law and your client. And I think that that is what Scott Sanders reputation was. He wasn't afraid of anybody. He was going to go and fight hard and raise issues and frankly, in his heart of hearts recognizing that he probably, probably wouldn't prevail in the long run. Scott Sanders I don't think initially had any idea what was going to happen, but he was just ready for the fight. And it was not a. It's Not a popular thing, because at that time, what people knew was from the media coverage, it was pretty clear that the cops had arrested the right guy. Mr. Decry was not a popular guy. I mean, he was a. He was a villainous guy. But Scott was not put off by that. He was going to do his job.

[Christopher Goffard]

Representing the people of the state of California in Decry's case were veteran prosecutors Dan Wagner and Scott Simmons.

[Judge Thomas Goethals]

They came in very confidently, as they should have, because everybody became aware very quickly of what all the evidence was, or at least what some of the evidence was against Mr. De Crisis Cry A mountain, a mountain, a mountain.

[Christopher Goffard]

Judge Goethals had a special vantage on the dynamics of capital punishment. He'd put people on death row as a prosecutor, saved people from death row as a defense attorney, and sentenced people to death row as a judge. If there were other judges who had worked that intimately with capital punishment from so many different vantages, it was hard to find them. His courtroom was often packed, as dozens of the victim's loved ones and family members crowded the spectator benches. Paul Wilson was always there. He did not like anything about defense attorney Sanders, starting with his appearance.

[Paul Wilson]

So when I first met Scott Sanders scurrying down the hallway to rush into the courtroom, he was just a disheveled, pitiful looking individual. And I thought, holy cow, how sad this is that it's going to be such a shut and dry case. It's so simple that they put this disheveled attorney on it that we shouldn't worry about anything. I mean, his shirt was untucked, his tie wasn't even tied. He just looked like a mess. You know, I had no respect for Scott Sanders at all. For one, the way he looked, the way he would appear to be going into a courtroom in such a high profile case, and two, you know, not really understanding how. How the justice system or the law works and not understanding the prosecution and the defense side and thinking to myself, what a pitiful individual to take a case like this and represent such a scumbag guy that just ruined hundreds and hundreds of lives. So I didn't really have anything good to think or say about Scott Sanders. We were on the second floor doing interviews after every single hearing, and I took every single advantage to rail on Scott Sanders, how pathetic of a person he was. It was part of my agenda. I went after him personally, outside on the second floor in front of all the news cameras, and inside in the corner courtroom in front of the judge.

[Christopher Goffard]

Meanwhile, Sanders had pleaded his client not guilty, which surprised no one. The attorney was trying his best with the materials at hand to build some kind of defense for his client. Prosecutors had begun to turn over their evidence, a process called discovery. Late on a Friday night at the public defender's office, attorney Scott Sanders and his paralegal Kathy Ware began digging into a stack of evidence that the DA's office had just turned over.

[Scott Sanders]

We start tearing through the materials, and this is the first time we realize there's even an informant.

[Christopher Goffard]

Until this point, they had no idea that their client, Scott Decry, had been secretly recorded making incriminating remarks to a fellow jail inmates. To conceal the snitch's identity, prosecutors would only refer to him as inmate F in documents provided to Sanders.

[Scott Sanders]

Both of us are splitting up the materials. We're reading through it, and there's this reference to inmate F, and I'm reading it, but there's one little spot that is left unredacted. So there's tons of redactions, things designed to keep us from understanding who the person is. And I see the word Fernando and I think to myself, isn't there a Fernando who's an informant on another death penalty case? I have.

[Christopher Goffard]

Sanders had another high profile killer awaiting trial. This was a community theater actor named Daniel Wozniak, who had murdered and dismembered an army vet in hopes of stealing the man's savings to pay for his wedding. He also killed a young woman and tried to frame the vet for it.

[Scott Sanders]

And I'm starting to really get, I would say emotional, energized by the possibility that this could be the same person. We tear through the materials in the other case. We do some comparisons. I realize we have the same informant on two very high profile death cases in Orange County. And immediately my mind goes to not a coincidence.

[Christopher Goffard]

Sanders figured out the informant's name was Fernando Perez, and he devoted himself to uncovering his background.

[Scott Sanders]

Slowly, we're figuring it out that he's on other cases, that he appears to be in witness protection. I actually go to his house with an investigator at one point to try to locate him. We can't find him. We know something's going on and it's bigger than that. We're starting to study his other case, and we see that he went to federal court to testify on an occasion. So we're putting the pieces together and they say, oh, no, please, Judge Goethels, who's the judge at the time, don't let them have it. They don't need it. They have the recording. That's all they need. They can figure out everything they can get from the recording. So now it's time for the ruling and we're going to see what Judge Goethels thinks.

[Christopher Goffard]

Sanders wanted to know what kind of charges had landed Perez in jail, how he'd wound up next to his client at a facility with 6,000 inmates, and whether authorities had promised the informant some kind of deal in exchange for his help. The DA's office depicted Perez as basically a good Samaritan who expected nothing in return. Prosecutor Dan Wagner, the top lawyer in the homicide unit, filed a declaration that said the the DA's office quote, does not intend to give inmate F any leniency or consideration in exchange for his efforts.

[Judge Thomas Goethals]

What you would infer from that is he is more of a citizen informant, which means he's just in the jail. He happens to encounter this high profile inmate who confesses to him. He has no expectation, he doesn't want anything, et cetera.

[Christopher Goffard]

Judge Goethel's again, he's just coming forward

[Judge Thomas Goethals]

as a member of the community who feels bad about what happened. This guy confessed to him and he thinks law enforcement ought to know about it. That's the inference or the suggestion that it gave me.

[Christopher Goffard]

Why did this matter? It mattered because the legality of the taped confession hinged on whether the snitch had worked to get it under police direction, which would be against the law, or had simply overheard it as a passive listening post, which would be okay.

[Judge Thomas Goethals]

When I read that Wagner's reputation was good, I thought, well, that's interesting. But that certainly came back to bite him.

[Christopher Goffard]

As time passed, Goethels had a decision. Should he order the DA's office to give Sanders what he wanted?

[Scott Sanders]

In 2013, we get this groundbreaking ruling from Judge Goethels. He says, no district attorney's office. You've got to turn over everything you have on Fernando Perez. Every case, the full discovery.

[Christopher Goffard]

Nobody, not the judge, not prosecutors, not the defense grasped how profoundly that decision would upend the whole case.

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[Christopher Goffard]

The star informant in the case against mass shooter Scott Decry turned out to be one of the Orange county jail's most prolific and talented snitches. Fernando Perez, or Inmate F, was a former leader of the Mexican Mafia prison gang. Wicked was his street name. He had serious charges on his rap sheet transporting meth with intent to sell, possessing a firearm as a felon. At the moment he was facing life in prison, he had been helping authorities as an informer for a long time. While jailhouse snitches are not illegal per se, law enforcement is not permitted to enlist them against defendants who have lawyered up. The US Supreme Court decided this in 1964 in a landmark case called Messiah v. United States. The court said it was a violation of a defendant's Sixth Amendment right to counsel for cops or people working for the cops to deliberately elicit incriminating statements in such Cases they interpreted the Sixth

[Judge Thomas Goethals]

Amendment and said that you can't, after somebody is arrested and charged with a crime and has a lawyer, you can't intrude into that relationship.

[Christopher Goffard]

Here's Goethels.

[Judge Thomas Goethals]

It's something everybody knows. Any experienced practitioner knows it. Messiah versus United States. I went to law school 50 years ago and I learned that that case we talked about in law school. Nobody can convince me that any experienced prosecutor or defense attorney or cop doesn't know what the Messiah Rule is. And that is the Messiah rule.

[Christopher Goffard]

Prosecutors and sheriff's officials were insisting that this prolific professional informant had wound up next to Decry purely by accident in a jail with 6,000 inmates.

[Scott Sanders]

So at the beginning of 2013, with the help of my paralegal and the first of what would become many, many law clerks from law schools around this area, we started tearing through the discovery.

[Christopher Goffard]

They found ample evidence that Fernando Perez had helped authorities on a good number of cases. They also found evidence of another prolific informer, Oscar Morial, working some of the same cases as Perez. Sanders believed he was glimpsing the contours of a large, long running, well organized and long concealed informant program.

[Scott Sanders]

So then we began what I have called very often an archaeological dig. We were tearing through word by word, the notes that these two individuals had written. We're trying to figure out what cases they worked on. Then we were ordering transcripts, materials, everything we could do to figure out what the district Attorney's office was turning over on those cases and piecing it together and trying to figure out were disclosures made, what was the level of concealment. And I could see the possibility more each day of exposing a jailhouse informant program that was built on violating the Sixth Amendment. And the instinct was right. I mean, I knew it was right.

[Christopher Goffard]

Day and night, Sanders threw himself into proving his hunch.

[Scott Sanders]

I have different coffee shops that I would work at. I tried to work as late as I could at the latest closing coffee shop. Then I would sometimes go to a Denny's where I could work a little bit later. On many occasions I'd go outside the Denny's and take a nap before the Starbucks opened at 4:30 in the morning. And then I'd do it again. And it wasn't something that was a cause of unhappiness. I mean, I loved every minute I did. I knew I was living the dream, as defense attorneys go. I knew I was onto something tremendously important that could have implications not just for this case, but for many other cases. And it has. And so it was just seizing the moment I knew you'd never get something like this again at this level. And it was the chance of a lifetime.

[Christopher Goffard]

As the case dragged on, Paul Wilson, the husband of one of Decry's victims, was trying to make sense of the long delays in getting to trial. By 2013, it had been two years.

[Paul Wilson]

It didn't seem like we were really moving forward on such a cut and dry case. Right. This guy, he got caught right afterwards. He's admitted to it. So around 2013, I started to get a little frustrated with everything going on and starting to really push the D A on ex. Like. Like, what is. What's going on? What. What's. What's happening with you guys? What is Sanders doing? What is all this? I'm going in the back and I'm asking Wagner and Simmons and Rakakis about this stuff, and they're saying, paul, this is all complete BS It's Sanders trying to just prolong. Sanders is the one trying to hurt you guys. He's the one trying to, you know, put you guys through all this extra pain. It's not us. It's not us.

[Christopher Goffard]

Wilson had become one of the most visible faces among the victims families. He gave interviews every chance he got. The public defender's office worried about his animosity towards Sanders to the point that they took precautions to prevent the men from running into each other.

[Paul Wilson]

So I didn't have to run in with Scott Sanders, right?

[Christopher Goffard]

They were afraid you'd hurt him.

[Paul Wilson]

They were afraid I'd hurt him or that, you know, just something would happen. I don't know if I would hurt him, but that something would happen, and they didn't want it to detract from what they were trying to do. So they had this whole routing system where they would drive him into the court.

[Christopher Goffard]

In January 2014, more than two years after Decry massacred eight people at the Salon Meritage in Seal Beach, Scott Sanders filed a massive motion, 505 pages long, with a fleet of binders, laying out his case that the death penalty should be dropped. He alleged massive law enforcement and prosecutorial misconduct and a legal snitch operation. He said the DA and sheriff's department just could not be trusted.

[Paul Wilson]

I remember just saying to the judge, like, this is absurd. And then looking at Scott and saying, who are you and what are you all about? Like, do you have children? If you have children, they should be so ashamed of you. Like, your job is disgusting. I don't know how you sleep at night. And I remember saying to him, as long as you Sit next to that guy and defend him. You also have blood on your hands. Was not very nice to him.

[Christopher Goffard]

The district attorney's office wanted people to believe it was, quote, purely coincidental that Perez wound up next to decry, quote, mere happenstance. Scott Sanders said that was a lie. He said jailers routinely violated defendants rights. Prosecutors fumed and raged and denounced Sanders.

[Scott Sanders]

It began with terms like scurrilous, that he's lying, that he's exaggerating. And they were in a worrisome moment because internally, I don't think there's any doubt, they realized we were onto something very big. So we go in and say, give us please an evidentiary hearing. And I don't know if that's going to happen or not. That's a big ass. Because it's all about prosecutors and law enforcement testifying. And Judge Goethel's looking at victims families, says, I have to give this hearing. There's enough there on paper to allow the hearing.

[Christopher Goffard]

Paul Wilson was in a fury.

[Paul Wilson]

Goethel says, I'm going to let this filing play itself out. And that's when I kind of go berserk. And I remember standing up and saying, wait a minute, hold on a second. What are we doing here? We're getting way off track here. This is a murder trial. This guy killed eight people very viciously. What are we talking about? And you know, I remember saying to Galtos, you can't do this. You can't allow this to happen. You can't allow Sanders to keep introducing this bull that is rolling this thing on.

[Christopher Goffard]

Goethals had become accustomed to Wilson's hostility. He tried to explain.

[Paul Wilson]

I remember Golfel saying to me in a very stern but sympathetic way, like Mr. Wilson, I've read this over and over again and I have to tell you, these claims have merit. And if I was to overlook the merit of, of these crimes, I don't think you would be very happy with me or the court or the system if years later you got called back in because I didn't do my due diligence to look into these motions.

[Christopher Goffard]

Goethel's had the largest courtroom in the building with 112 seats, and the seats were often full. The victims had family members and loved ones that came for every hearing.

[Judge Thomas Goethals]

There were eight homicide victims in this case and they all had family and friends. I wanted them to feel like they were welcome even though they didn't. They weren't happy with me and they were not happy to be there because this hearing was going on and they knew that Mr. Decry had killed their family members and loved ones. And they couldn't understand why I wasn't just moving on with this case. So anyway, and they had buttons on and T shirts and they were looking at me like, you know, I was the three headed horned villain.

[Christopher Goffard]

Do you remember what you said to Paul Wilson?

[Judge Thomas Goethals]

I said to him something like, Mr. Wilson, I don't know how you feel. Nobody who's not in your situation is ever going to know how you feel. But I can empathize with how you feel and this is what I do for a living. So I've seen a lot of people in your situation, survivors of homicide victims. I empathize with you. I wish we didn't have to do this, but I have read all of the pleadings, thousands of pages of pleadings here. And I've been doing this for a long time as a prosecutor, a defense attorney and a judge. And if we don't do this now, I have a real concern that no matter what happens at a trial, no matter what sentence I impose on appeal, this case is going to come back in about five or 10 years and we're going to get to do it again in five or 10 years. So you're not going to have any closure. None of you folks are going to have any closure. We just got to suffer through this. Now

[Paul Wilson]

when he said that about coming back into court years later, do you want that to happen? And I just kind of put my head down and he said, Mr. Wilson? And I said, no, sir, I don't want that to happen. I understand. And I just sat back down. I think that's at the point where I start to turn. He was so sincere. It just like it was an aha moment like, like just the look in his face. And it was like he was just talking directly to me. And I so understood that this is not right and this is going in a different direction and it's got legs and I need to listen.

[Brian Gerwitz]

When he filed that motion, it was extremely novel. Judge Goethels did what very few other judges would do, which was entertain it. It was a motion that at least in my 31 years of being a lawyer, I've never seen anything like.

[Christopher Goffard]

This is Brian Gerwitz, a criminal defense attorney in Orange county and former prosecutor. He had no direct involvement, but followed the case closely.

[Brian Gerwitz]

The district Attorney's office viewed Scott Sanders as the Antichrist. And I think that they improperly viewed Judge Goethels as Antichrist number two, who was inappropriately and unseemly fashion giving Scott Sanders the forum that he didn't deserve. They were outraged by Scott Sanders accusations, and they were outraged by the fact that Judge Gothel was doing what few other judges would have done, which was providing Mr. Sanders with the opportunity to explore these allegations, which were serious. And they treated Judge Goethels as the enemy and they circled the wagons.

[Christopher Goffard]

When Scott Sanders laid out his case, prosecutors might have joined the demand to know exactly what was happening in the jail. They might have tried to put some distance between themselves and the sheriff's department that ran it. Instead, they doubled down. They would concede nothing without a fight

[Brian Gerwitz]

and approach this in exactly the opposite way. I think they wanted to appear tough. I would think they wanted to chest thump, show Judge Goethels that they weren't going to be pushed around. You don't get motions filed like this that are essentially uncovering massive levels of law enforcement wrongdoing like, like you had in this case. It was, that was a direct result of Scott Sanders obsession in this case. I don't agree with all of the inferences that Scott Sanders raised. I don't think that there was some of the nefarious behavior happening intentionally in the DA's office that he allege, but that's not the point. The point is it should have been clear to the DA's office very, very early that there was a violation here. And from a lawyering perspective, they just handled it completely wrong.

[Christopher Goffard]

Wilson says he confronted the prosecutors, Dan Wagner and Scott Simmons, and demanded that they get their boss, Tony Rikakis, on the phone.

[Paul Wilson]

Because I'm going to his office and I'm going to beat that door down. An hour later, I was standing in front of Tony Rikakis with all of his bodyguards and everything in his office. And he just gave me that, just let me scream and yell. He said, paul, this is, this is theatrics by, by the defense. And it's embarrassing that the judge is allowing this to go on. And we stand firm on everything that we've said in the court and everything we've said to you guys. So you basically have the, the Orange County District Attorney looking at me, a victim of a mass shooting, who's lost his wife and his. Got three kids and a granddaughter to, to raise. And, and, and he's also lying to me, to my face. The people in the room, Wagner, Simmons, all the other people. And I could see the look on Tony Roccakis, his face. And they knew they were in some deep s. They knew they were in some trouble.

[Christopher Goffard]

In March 2014, two and a half years after the worst mass shooting in Orange county history. An evidentiary hearing began in Goethel's Santa Ana courtroom. The judge thought Sanders claims of an organized illegal informant scheme were ridiculous and that the hearing would be over fast.

[Judge Thomas Goethals]

I was skeptical, so we start the hearing on March 18. I thought Scott Sanders would call witnesses, they wouldn't prove anything and we'd be done in a week or two at the most. Well, that's not what happened.

[Christopher Goffard]

The defense attorney had been preparing. He would finally get a point blank look at the informant that had started all of this. His first was witness would be the man known as Inmate F. From LA Times Studios, this is Crimes of the Times. To read more about these cases, check out crimesofthetimesatimes.com we also have a link to our video episodes in the show Notes this episode was written and reported by me, your host, Christopher Goffard. Our Senior Producers are Mary Knoff and Jonathan Shiflett of Studio Phonic. Our editor is Cindy Chang and our Associate Producer is Jordan Patterson. Our camera operators are Michael Siegel, Josh Summers and Peter Green Grayson. Our Director of Post Production is Patrick Stewart and our Senior Sound Recording Engineer is Nick Norton, with additional engineering by Jordan Patterson. Our Podcast Marketing Manager is Bryn Jura, our Senior Media Marketing Manager is Will Dobson, and our Product Marketing Director is Becca Dorman. Our Podcast Senior Finance Manager is Jenner Canaleo. Special thanks to LA Times Studio President Anna Magzanian, President and Chief Operating Officer of the Los Angeles Times, Chris Argenteri and Executive Editor of the Los Angeles Times, Terry Tang. Crimes of the Times is executive produced and co created by Darius, Derek Shahn and me, Christopher Goffard.