SAN DIEGO, CA – Following a San Diego County Superior Court hearing in June for Paul Gentile Smith, who has a pending retrial after his murder conviction was overturned in 2021 when it was discovered evidence was not provided the defense, Orange County Public Defender Martin Schwarz and Assistant Public Defender Scott Sanders submitted a motion to unseal the search warrant from Dec. 7, 2009.
The motion will be heard Friday, Sept. 6. The judge in the case criticized the mishandling of evidence that revealed a disorganized Orange County system for managing criminal cases.
The case is being held in San Diego to prevent a conflict because the former prosecutor of Smith is now an Orange County Superior Court judge.
If the court were to grant this motion it might show court misconduct by prosecutor Ebrahim Baytieh—now an OC judge—for allegedly concealing evidence in a high profile murder case.
Smith’s case began with a structure fire on Oct. 24, 1988, where “the remains of victim Robert Jay Haugen were discovered” as stated in the motion to unseal search warrant submitted by the PD’s office.
The motion details newly discovered DNA evidence (previously unidentified blood) was turned over to CODIS in late 2006 when OCDS homicide investigators started to re-examine evidence under a cold case grant.
In May 2007 after an attack on his girlfriend, Smith was arrested in Las Vegas and due to the sexual assault factor in the attack “was ordered to submit his DNA to the state of Nevada,” mentions the motion to unseal search warrant by the PD’s office.
Following that incident, Smith was placed on probation, moved to Long Beach and was released from custody. The motion to unseal the search warrant by the PD’s office claims he was again arrested in Newport Beach in July 2008 on a marijuana charge and probation violation causing his transfer back to Nevada and prosecution for violating his probation.
The motion to unseal search warrant by the PD’s office states that as this was occurring Smith’s DNA was being processed and placed into CODIS.
“A notification of the CODIS hit from Smith to OCDS homicide was sent to OCSD on 1-29-09,” the motion to unseal search warrant by the PD’s office affirms, and Smith was interviewed by OCSD Investigator R. Wert and Investigator Donald D. Voght on March 1, 2009, while at LVMPD jail.
Murder charges were filed at Orange County Superior Court against Smith on March 6, 2009 based on his interview and witness statements, and the motion to unseal the search warrant states “Paul Smith was booked to this warrant in Nevada on 3-12-09. Paul Smith pled guilty in Nevada to his probation violation on 3-16-09 and received 28 to 72 months state prison time.”
The investigation in 2009 revealed lead prosecutor Baytieh placed Smith in custody with three jailhouse informants. Orange County Assistant Sanders claims that in discussions with the defense, Baytieh concealed information about these informants, choosing only to disclose details about one of them.
The DA’s office was forced to retry Smith’s case as the prosecution was unable to provide proper discovery. Interestingly, Sanders noted that despite mounting evidence of misconduct against Baytieh, he continued to hold a pivotal position in the Orange County DA’s team, being regarded as a “principle of integrity”.
Sanders further explains that over the next several years the DA’s office continued to deny allegations of evidence hampering, designating Baytieh as the spokesperson for the prosecution’s innocence.
Baytieh referred to the allegations as “baloney” and said, “The notion that there is any effort on anybody’s part, at any level, to intentionally hide evidence … is from our perspective absolutely false.”
Ultimately the investigation disclosed enough evidence to deem Baytieh’s concealment of evidence a violation of the defendant’s constitutional rights. In 2022 DA Todd Spitzer fired prosecutor Baytieh citing his misconduct and malpractice in the Smith case.
The motion to unseal the search warrant by the PD’s office states, “Defendant has presented evidence and testimony demonstrating outrageous governmental conduct by the prosecution team.”
The motion references hidden evidence that continues to be extracted throughout the evidentiary hearing which is being held for the defendant fourteen years after being convicted.
“In Defendant’s most recent filing, he represented having identified 18 reports, recordings, transcripts, and notes related to previously undisclosed informants (Jeffrey Platt and Paul Martin) that were not turned over to the defense prior to trial,” the motion states.
The motion to unseal the search warrant by the PD’s office explains each of these items was hidden as they were “correctly perceived as unhelpful to obtaining conviction.”
“At this point, all of the revelations and illogical explanations point to a single reasonable inference: Baytieh and his law enforcement partners conspired to conceal and deceive beginning in 2009, and they will never tell the truth about their wrongdoing or about what continues to remain hidden” discloses the motion to unseal search warrant by the PD’s office.
The motion to unseal search warrant by the PD’s office claims “the defense is now in possession of what appears to be the final draft of a search warrant that alone has the power to establish lies and concealment by Baytieh and members of the OCSD” claims the motion to unseal search warrant by the PD’s office.”
The defense is requesting the court unseal the warrant filed in the Orange County Superior Court back in 2009. The motion to unseal search warrant by the PD’s office, details “The requested warrant to search three residences and a vehicle was written by former OCSD Sergeant Donald Voght, reviewed by Baytieh and issued with a sealing order by the Honorable Robert Fitzgerald.”
This warrant is located as a Word version found in the OCSD’s investigative file in the digital shared drive as the court ordered the OCSD “to provide both parties with a copy,” explains the motion.
The motion notes, “In the Word version, Voght describes the roles of “CI #815”/Platt (along with that of testifying “CI #1”/Arthur Palacios) and how law enforcement worked with Platt and utilized him to help build solicitation and conspiracy charges against Paul Smith and Tina Smith.”
The motion adds, if the versions are identical it would prove that Baytieh nearly a year before the trial knew about the two informants and their role, “one of whom was CI #815/Jeffrey Platt–even though Baytieh has repeatedly denied having any knowledge that Platt worked as an informant on this case prior to reading the Special Handling Log in 2016.”
The motion to unseal the search warrant by the PD’s office explains that, regardless of what Baytieh did after receiving the Word version of the warrant, “the 15-year concealment of Voght’s description of the informant-related activities in this case may ultimately be deemed the most egregious misconduct, not only in this case, but in the decade-long history of Orange County county’s jailhouse informant scandal.”
