County Delays a Decision on DNA Test Lab : Wieder Cites Rape Cases in a Plea for Immediate Action

The Orange County Board of Supervisors Tuesday delayed establishing a genetic-testing lab for at least a month, prompting the board’s only woman member to question her male colleagues’ concern for rape victims.

“I don’t know if I identify with this issue as a woman more than my colleagues,” said Supervisor Harriett M. Wieder, whose request for immediate funding of a DNA lab got no support. “I think it’s ridiculous.”

Wieder’s request for $120,000 to help the Orange County Sheriff’s Department set up a DNA lab was spurred by last week’s rape of a 12-year-old in Huntington Beach, allegedly committed by a man who five months earlier had been acquitted of a rape charge after prosecutors were late in obtaining DNA evidence.

Emotional Argument

Tuesday’s meeting at times took an emotional, personal tone. At one point, Wieder turned to Supervisor Roger R. Stanton and said:

“Roger, you have a daughter. What if?”

Stanton did not answer immediately, but after the meeting he said her remark was in “bad taste.”

“My pulse was beating fast; I was trying to restrain myself, which I did,” he said. “My wife heard that remark (on an intercom) in my office; she got very upset about it also.”

While rejecting Wieder’s request, the board indicated that it supported the idea of establishing a lab and unanimously approved Supervisor Don R. Roth’s proposal for several agencies and departments to report back in 30 days on staffing and financing a lab.

“We’re going to be spinning our wheels, spending our money,” said Wieder, who voted with the majority even as she disagreed. “We’re arguing about what might happen tomorrow. I want to be able to sleep tonight.”

Wieder’s home is in the same gated community, Sea Cliff on the Greens, where the kidnaping of the 12-year-old girl occurred Sept. 24.

Want to Await Budget Review

“That little girl would not have been raped” if the county had its own lab, Wieder said.

Supervisor Gaddi H. Vasquez, a former police officer, called Wieder’s statements that her colleagues were perhaps not sensitive to the issue “outrageous. . . . In my case, I’ve been a police officer and handled many tragic situations--I’ve seen the consequences of crime. It’s very unfortunate that those references were made.”

Board Chairman Thomas F. Riley, Stanton, Roth and Vasquez said they were reluctant to approve any new programs before a budget review in January.

“This is too important not to move ahead as rapidly as possible,” Roth said, “but I think we have to do it in an orderly manner.”

Orange County Sheriff Brad Gates told the supervisors that most of the questions about the lab could be answered immediately.

“I’m very happy that it appears the board is in favor of DNA,” Gates said, “but I’m unhappy they were unable to do it today.”

Gates has already raised $80,000 in private money to open a DNA-testing lab.

DNA--deoxyribonucleic acid--is the fundamental molecule in human life that carries a genetic code unique to each individual. That code can be gleaned from samples of human hair or body fluids.

County law enforcement agencies must send samples to private laboratories on the East Coast for analysis. The tests cost up to $350 each, and several tests are usually required in a single criminal case, according to Larry Ragle, who recently retired as head of the Sheriff Department’s crime lab and is now coordinating Gates’ effort to create a DNA facility.

Cheaper Tests

A county lab could do the tests for about $50 each, Ragle said.

But the most significant problem in using private labs is that they are backlogged three to four months, Ragle said.

Last year, the backlog may well have led to the acquittal of Kyle Joseph Borges, the 29-year-old suspect charged in the Huntington Beach rape.

Borges was found not guilty of raping an Anaheim Hills woman after a judge refused to let prosecutors introduce evidence from DNA tests that did not become available until after the trial began.

The Anaheim Hills woman attended Tuesday’s board meeting and was angry at its outcome.

“We didn’t have 30 days,” she said. “It seemed rather strange to me that Harriett Wieder was the only woman on the board. The other board members were men. They could never be victims of that crime.”