VENTURA COUNTY POSTSCRIPT

Deputy in Fatal '92 Raid Still at Odds With D.A.

Gary Spencer seeks vindication after Bradbury criticized his actions at
Scott ranch. Legal fees pushed him into bankruptcy.

Maybe Gary Spencer just doesn't know when to call it quits. Publicly
rebuked for a drug raid that left a Ventura County rancher dead, thwarted
in his court battle to clear his name and now bankrupted by legal fees, the
Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy is still seeking vindication.

The problem is, nobody seems to be listening. "I speak to anybody that's
willing to listen, but unfortunately people are ready to go on to other
things," Spencer said. Spencer, though, can't get past his anger at Ventura
County Dist. Atty. Michael Bradbury, who criticized the deputy after the
1992 raid and now insists that Spencer pay $50,000 in legal fees for a
failed libel suit.

That bitterness runs beyond Spencer, creating a rift between Bradbury and
Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block. Spencer also can't forget what
happened that warm October morning, the day he shot and killed millionaire
rancher Donald P. Scott during a fruitless drug raid just over the Ventura
County line near Malibu.

Afterward the Ventura County prosecutor's office conducted a probe into the
shooting and the investigation leading to the raid. The report, issued in
March 1993, aimed its harshest criticism at Spencer and the L.A. County
Sheriff's Department investigation.

The deputy contends that the report and subsequent statements made by
Bradbury amounted to libel. Although the report cleared Spencer of criminal
wrongdoingsaying he shot Scott only after the rancher pointed a gun in
his directionit also concluded that Spencer may have lied to obtain the
search warrant and that the raid was, in part, motivated by a desire to
seize the $5million ranch under federal drugforfeiture laws. No drugs
were found at the ranch.

"The search warrant," Bradbury's report stated, "became Donald Scott's
death warrant." And in comments to reporters, Bradbury said Spencer had
"lost his moral compass."

Spencer is quick to defend the raid that has occupied his thoughts for the
past five years. "Sometimes people get warned and we don't find anything,
so I don't consider it botched," he said. "I wouldn't call it botched
because that would say that it was a mistake to have gone there in the
first place, and I don't believe that."

Spencer said he regrets that Scott died. "Sometimes I think if I could have
had a few more seconds to converse with Mr. Scott, I could have convinced
him to put his gun down," he said. "But it was too late; the gun was
already pointed in my direction, and I had told him to put the gun down. .
. . Sometimes I feel guilty that I took too long and put myself and my
partner in danger."

The raid became a rallying point for those who wanted to reform
drugforfeiture laws, and it garnered national media attention. "I was made
out to be this callous, reckless, Dirty Harry kind of guy, and I wasn't
able to say anything about it," said Spencer, who has worked for the
Sheriff's Department since 1984.

Coworkers said much of his life since the shooting has been taken up with
the case and its aftermath. "He kind of has this case on the brain," said
Capt. Bill McSweeney, Spencer's friend and commanding officer. "You got to
understand, Gary's lived with this for a very long time and suffered an
awful lot of grief. He's gone through it in his mind night after night and
he can sometimes get bogged down in the details." What Spencer wants is to
"unring the bell," McSweeney said. Spencer wants statements Bradbury made
about the case to be taken back.

"Well, that's not going to happen," said Glen M. Reiser, Bradbury's
attorney. The district attorney would not comment for this article.

The former undercover narcotics detective, who now works on the bomb squad,
said he developed a twitch from the emotional stress he endured. He said
his son, who was in high school at the time, was often forced to defend his
father.

"One of the things that occurred was my father made a comment to my brother
that he'd seen the '20/20' television program, and that it was very evident
that I had mishandled myself grossly and that he was very disappointed."
Spencer said it damaged his relationship with his father. "I offered to
talk to him about it, but without even talking to me about it he came up
with this conclusion, and it had a very adverse impact on our relationship."

Meanwhile, Sheriff Block ordered his department to reopen the investigation
into the raid. Block's department issued its own report five months later
refuting Bradbury on almost every point. Block also defended Spencer and
was sharply critical of Bradbury, asking that state Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren
censure the prosecutor. Lungren's twomonth review of the case essentially
cleared Spencer and said Bradbury's conclusions were inappropriate and
gratuitous. Bradbury stands by his statements and the conclusion of the
report, his attorney said.

Even after reports from Block and Lungren, Spencer said he did not feel
vindicated. He wanted more. He wanted Bradbury to take back what he said.

So Spencer sued the district attorney and four of his top prosecutors,
accusing them of defamation, libel, slander and violation of his civil
rights. "I decided to sue. . . . I wanted to force the truth and I didn't
want it done in the newspaper," Spencer said. "I've always been told one
just doesn't blab to the media. . . . I wanted the supposed even playing
field of a courtroom."

But Spencer lost his court battle. A state Court of Appeal threw out the
case last year, saying that Bradbury was within his 1st Amendment rights
when he gave his opinion of the raid.

Spencer asserted that he never got a chance to have a court weigh whose
version of the raid was right and whose version was wrong. Then in May of
this year, Spencer was ordered to pay the county for a portion of
Bradbury's legal expenses.

The bill, which with interest has grown to about $50,000, was too high,
Spencer claimed, and he asked the county last month to accept $10,000. "If
required to pay the full amount of the award, I will be driven into
bankruptcy and the County of Ventura will recover nothing," Spencer said in
a letter to the board.

"In the event that I am driven into bankruptcy, the media will undoubtedly
stir the emotions of citizens standing on both sides of me and Mr.
Bradbury, and further polarize the loyalties of Ventura County police
officers and prosecutors."

The Board of Supervisors rejected the offer and Spencer filed for
bankruptcy at the end of October. Despite his warnings, the decision has
drawn little response from the public or from local law enforcement officers.

Although Bradbury's report created the rift with Block, authorities said
there was no longterm damage done to the relationship between the two
agencies. Reiser, Bradbury's attorney, said he would still attempt to
recover the money from Spencer, regardless of his decision to declare
bankruptcy. "We have a judgment against Spencer and we will collect,"
Reiser said. And the saga is not likely to end there.

Stephen Yagman, an attorney representing the estate of Donald Scott in a
civil suit against Los Angeles County over the raid, said his case is pending.

And Yagman plans to use the Bradbury report extensively, calling it "the
most thorough, candid and alarming investigation into government that I've
ever read. His doing that report will cause me to admire him for the rest
of my life. He's a real American."

Copyright Los Angeles Times