In a case that strikes at the heart of Orange County’s decades-long jailhouse informant scandal, defense attorney Scott Sanders has filed a motion under California Penal Code section 1437 seeking resentencing—and possibly exoneration—for Guy Michael Scott, a man who has spent 44 years behind bars for a 1981 robbery and murder conviction now tainted by grave prosecutorial misconduct.
The motion, set to be filed formally on June 6, 2025, presents what Sanders describes as “among the most troubling cases” to emerge from Orange County’s history of informant abuses.
At the center of the case is former Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas, a figure long associated with systemic concealment of exculpatory evidence.
Although he was removed early from the Scott prosecution, Rackauckas’ fingerprints are all over the early investigatory decisions and what Sanders argues is a conviction corrupted by coercion, concealment, and false testimony.
A 1981 Murder and a Flawed Case
The case stems from the 1981 killing of Larry Miner in his Fullerton apartment. According to the original prosecution theory, three men were involved: Peter McDonald, the primary assailant; Robert Neary, the accomplice who later turned state’s witness; and Guy Scott, who was convicted largely on the strength of Neary’s testimony.
But that testimony, Sanders now argues, was deeply unreliable—and may have been perjured. “Scott’s conviction has always rested on one thing: the word of Robert Neary,” Sanders told The Vanguard. “And what we now know is that Neary’s word was shaped under extreme pressure and concealed from scrutiny.”
That pressure allegedly came during a two-hour interview Neary gave in 1981 to Rackauckas and Fullerton Detective Antonio Hernandez—an interview that Rackauckas explicitly ordered not be recorded. When asked at trial why, Rackauckas admitted, “I didn’t want anybody to have a verbatim account of the entire interview I had with Neary.” Neary would later testify that he understood his life depended on giving prosecutors what they wanted.
Shifting Testimony and Coercion
According to Sanders, Neary’s statements evolved drastically over time. In his earliest interviews, Neary never claimed Scott had assaulted Miner. It was only after a later interview with Hernadez that Neary began to describe Scott as having kicked Miner–an account introduced, Sanders argues, through leading questions like: “So in other words, Michael [Scott] hit him a couple of times?”
“Neary’s role got sanitized,” Sanders said. “Scott’s role got amplified. And the truth got buried.”
The new motion focuses on crucial evidence that was never disclosed to Scott’s defense team: a taped 1982 interview with jailhouse informant David Vogel, recently discovered by current prosecutor Kristin Bracic. In that interview, Neary admitted to Vogel that he had used a knife against the victim—an assertion he repeatedly denied at trial. The motion contends that this evidence would have provided critical impeachment material and corroborated other early statements from informant Craig Lunsford, who also said Neary admitted stabbing Miner.
Withheld Evidence and a Pattern of Concealment
This is not the first time Lunsford’s name has appeared in this case. In 1981, Lunsford told police that Neary had confessed to “playing tic-tac-toe” on Miner’s back with a knife. But that statement was hidden from the defense for months, allegedly on orders from Rackauckas, who directed Detective Hernandez to delay writing a report. When Lunsford was re-interviewed by OCDA Investigator Thomas Icenogle—himself later implicated in manipulating informant testimony in a different case—he changed his story, saying Neary had not admitted using the knife.
Now, with Vogel’s interview confirming that Neary did in fact confess to using a knife, Sanders argues the picture becomes clear: “There was never just one slip-up,” he said. “This was a pattern. This was a systemic effort to shield the prosecution’s star witness from the truth.”
Vogel’s interview, had it been disclosed, would have directly contradicted Neary’s trial testimony and undermined the prosecution’s theory that Scott had a violent role in Miner’s death. “If Neary had admitted on the witness stand what Vogel said he told him—or if Vogel’s testimony had been heard—Scott would’ve been acquitted 41 years ago,” Sanders writes in the motion.
Vogel and Lunsford have both since died, leaving their recordings and statements as the only remaining evidence of what they knew.
Tony Rackauckas’ Long Shadow
While Rackauckas was not the trial prosecutor, Sanders makes a compelling case that his decisions laid the foundation for a tainted conviction—and that this was not an isolated incident.
For the first time, Sanders’ motion traces Rackauckas’ role in hiding informant-related evidence throughout his career, from the early 1980s through his 2019 defeat for re-election. This includes efforts to keep the Orange County Informant Index (OCII)—a database tracking informant activity—secret from both defense attorneys and the Department of Justice (DOJ) during its years-long civil rights investigation into the OCDA.
Rackauckas’ involvement in the case of William Evins, where he relied on informant James Cochrum even after a judge ruled Cochrum’s testimony unreliable, is cited as further evidence of his willingness to sacrifice due process for conviction.
“The decision to hide this critically important recording, the history of concealment throughout this case, and Rackauckas’ decades-long history of concealing evidence undermine any reasonable faith in the conviction,” Sanders writes.
The DOJ’s 2022 report backed much of this up, concluding that between 2007 and 2016, the OCDA and Sheriff’s Department systematically violated defendants’ Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment rights in pursuit of informant-generated confessions.
A Shifting Legal Landscape
In light of this newly-uncovered evidence and long-concealed misconduct, Sanders has filed a motion under California Penal Code section 1437, which allows resentencing when a conviction was obtained under a now-invalid felony murder theory or without sufficient proof of personal culpability.
The motion also demands further discovery—including a full accounting of informant activity in the Scott and McDonald cases—and strongly implies that more prosecutorial misconduct may be uncovered.
“We are not just seeking a resentencing,” Sanders said. “We are seeking the truth—finally—and a chance to right a profound wrong.”
After four decades in prison, Guy Scott’s case may become a turning point—not just for him, but for exposing a prosecutorial culture in Orange County under Rackaukas, Sanders argues, “long prioritized winning over justice.”
