Police Detective’s Advice To Todd Spitzer: “The Cover Up Is Always Worse Than The Crime.”
Yesterday, OC Watch reported that during a meeting between Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer and his senior prosecutors, Spitzer allegedly said that “he knows many black people who get themselves out of their bad circumstances and bad situations by only dating ‘white women’” and that while in college, Spitzer “knew for sure that this black student did so on purpose to get himself out of this bad circumstances and situations.”
Today, OC Watch reviewed a newly surfaced letter, dated February 17th, 2022, that Court Depweg, Acting Lieutenant of the Detective Division of the Newport Beach Police Department, wrote to the trial judge handling the underlying capital murder case, Judge Gregg Prickett. In the letter, Lt. Depweg writes that he has “received consistent information” from multiple prosecutors who attended a meeting to determine whether or not to seek the death penalty against Jamon Buggs, a Black man, that Spitzer made a “unsolicited, derogatory, and racist comment about Black men / persons.”
Read Lt. Depweg’s full letter here:
Lt. Depweg explained that he felt compelled to write to the judge, because, “no one [at the OCDA] is willing to have any dialogue with me, leaving me no choice but to notify the presiding judge over Mr. Buggs’ criminal case of the potential misconduct by the elected district attorney.”
Shortly after learning of the alleged remark, Depweg told the District Attorney’s Office that Judge Prickett “must be notified as this could be Exculpatory Evidence and it was up to the judge to determine if disclosure was appropriate.”
Lt. Depweg also told the OCDA that both the failure to turn over the relevant information, as well as the fact that the office had not communicated with the victims’ family about Spitzer’s decision not to seek the death penalty, was “completely inappropriate to the victims’ families, to Mr. Buggs, and to the police department for the people responsible for representing the people [i.e. Spitzer’s Office] who act this way.”
Lt. Depweg said that he also “explained to [a senior prosecutor] that in my 20 plus years of law enforcement experience, I had never heard of an entire District Attorney unit being removed from communicating with the lead agency [i.e. the police department] in the prosecution of a homicide.”
When the newly assigned prosecutor, David Porter, finally called Lt. Depweg, Porter, according to Depweg, “advised me he had just inherited the case against Mr. Buggs and had no idea how a homicide case landed on his desk considering he does not work homicide.” When Mr. Porter, the newly assigned prosecutor, explained to Depweg that the office had decided not to seek the death penalty but had not notified the victims’ family of this decision, Depweg was not pleased. As he wrote to Judge Prickett, “victims’ families are to be treated with dignity and respect”.
Lt. Depweg made clear to a senior prosecutor within the OCDA that “the actions by his office would affect our working relationship moving forward and it was disappointing that he and so many of his colleagues would try and cover this matter up as we all know the ‘cover up is always worse than the crime.’”
“Mr. Buggs is Black. So if the elected District Attorrney made a comment that is derogatory in nature towards Black men/persons during the death penalty review, then I believe the Court is the proper body to determine if discovery to the Defense is appropriate,” Lt. Depweg wrote.
This is the latest in a developing story.
As previously reported:
Since OC Watch first covered the explosive scandal rocking District Attorney Todd Spitzer and the county—the leak of memos that document Spitzer allegedly making improper racial remarks that he knows many black men who get themselves out of “their bad circumstances and bad situations by only dating ‘white women’”—Orange County Democratic Party Chairwoman Ada Briceño told OC Watch that she has called for Spitzer’s resignation:
“Racism must stop. Spitzer must resign. This is one of many examples why Spitzer is unfit to serve in our halls of justice.”
Spitzer’s latest scandal has also been covered by BuzzFeed, Politico California, The Los Angeles Times, Voice of OC, The Orange County Register, The New York Daily News, and several Southern California television news stations. Here’s a snapshot of the coverage:
POLITICO California Playbook: “YIKES … “O.C. D.A. made racist comments in case of Black defendant, memo alleges,” by the LA Times’ Hannah Fry: “At a meeting of top prosecutors on Oct. 1, Spitzer said that he knows many Black men who date white women to get ‘themselves out of their bad circumstances and bad situations,’ former prosecutor Ebrahim Baytieh alleged in a memo dated Dec. 3.”
BuzzFeed: “Internal reports and lawsuits against the county have alleged the office is an environment where retaliation and favoritism have become commonplace…. The allegations have cast a cloud over the district attorney’s office among its own rank and file, who have said the fear of retaliation within the office is real.”
Voice of OC: “District Attorney Todd Spitzer is facing explosive allegations from his own staff that he improperly made racial remarks when he and other prosecutors were deciding whether to seek the death penalty against a Black defendant – and then kicked everyone from the meeting off the case after they noted a legal obligation to disclose Spitzer’s remarks to the defense…”
The Orange County Register: “The furor over Spitzer’s comments comes a week after he fired Baytieh following the conclusion of an investigation into whether Baytieh withheld evidence in a 2010 murder case, causing the conviction to be overturned. Baytieh’s defenders say he actually was fired for being a whistleblower on ‘racist comments.’”
The Los Angeles Times: “Spitzer then drew from his personal experience, according to the memo. In college, Spitzer said, he knew a Black student who dated only white women. According to the memo, which was addressed to defense attorneys in the Buggs case, Spitzer allegedly said he “knew for sure that this black student did so on purpose to get himself out of his bad circumstances and situations.”
The New York Daily News: “A top prosecutor in Southern California claimed that Black men “get themselves out of their bad circumstances and bad situations by only dating ‘white women,’” according to internal memos.”
FOX LA: “Spitzer's Democratic challenger in this year's election called on Spitzer to resign over the alleged comments. ‘Todd Spitzer's consideration of race while deciding whether or not California should execute a Black man isn't just appalling, it's disqualifying,’ Pete Hardin said. ‘Our system of justice must be colorblind, and the chief law enforcement officer just showed himself to be anything but. Todd Spitzer's racist remarks and dated thinking have infected cases across the office and cast a shadow over every prosecution involving a person of color.’”