L.A. Sheriff’s Dept. Blamed in Fatal Raid : Investigation: Ventura County district attorney’s report accuses a deputy of misconduct in getting the search warrant for the drug case.

Ventura County Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury on Tuesday blamed the shooting death of a Malibu millionaire on the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and called for a new inquiry into the conduct of a deputy who the prosecutor said may have lied to get a warrant to search the dead man’s ranch for drugs.

Bradbury, concluding a five-month investigation into the Oct. 2 death of Donald P. Scott, also recommended that the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department re-evaluate its policies for obtaining search warrants “to prevent a recurrence of the events which led to the death of Donald Scott.”

“This search warrant became Donald Scott’s death warrant,” Bradbury said in a 64-page report. He added in an interview: “This guy should not be dead.”

Though acknowledging that he could not prove that any law enforcement officer broke the law, Bradbury said that Sheriff’s Deputy Gary R. Spencer--the lead investigator in the case--was guilty of misconduct and that a federal drug agent could not have seen marijuana plants from 1,000 feet above Scott’s ranch as he claimed.

The Ventura County prosecutor found that Spencer, a veteran narcotics officer with a clean record, used false information to secure a warrant, then led a multi-agency task force to Scott’s isolated ranch hoping to find drugs and to seize the $5-million property for the government.

Spencer shot the gun-wielding rancher in self-defense, Bradbury concluded, but the deputy should not have been on the ranch in the first place.

“There was no marijuana on that place,” Bradbury said. “Clearly one of the primary purposes was a land grab by the (Los Angeles County) Sheriff’s Department.”

Under federal forfeiture law, police agencies may seize real estate when a judge rules that the property was used to grow or manufacture drugs or that the property was purchased with the proceeds of drug sales.

Scott, 61, heir to a Europe-based chemicals fortune, was killed during an early-morning raid that ended when the reclusive millionaire emerged sleepy and drunk from his bedroom and allegedly pointed a pistol at Spencer, who shot him twice.

Responding angrily to Bradbury’s report, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said it is not true that his department was motivated in part by a desire to seize Scott’s scenic 200-acre mountain ranch.

“That’s a slur on all of law enforcement,” said Capt. Larry Waldie, head of the sheriff’s narcotics bureau. “Forfeiture was never the objective in this case. The district attorney should be dealing with facts, not suggestions or his beliefs.”

Waldie noted that Spencer cooperated fully with the Bradbury inquiry, even offering to take a lie detector test. Bradbury said he did not order a polygraph because the examination is not reliable.

Waldie also criticized Bradbury for removing Deputy Dist. Atty. Carol Nelson from the Scott investigation after her original report in November found Spencer’s shooting justified.

Bradbury said he transferred Nelson to a new assignment “where her trial skills were badly needed” early this year, and turned the case over to two deputies who specialize in research and analysis “since this case involved several unique legal issues.”

Nelson’s work did not focus in detail on issues surrounding the legitimacy of the search, Bradbury said. Nelson could not be reached for comment.

Waldie also suggested that Bradbury, Ventura County’s top prosecutor for 15 years, might be motivated by publicity.

“I don’t know what his motivation is,” Waldie said, “but I find it rather coincidental that release of his report corresponds with the ‘20/20’ (television) report, particularly since he has delayed the report for so long.”

Waldie said that the ABC news magazine “20/20” began promoting a story on the Scott case Monday, the day before the release of the Bradbury report.

The Scott case has drawn national attention not only because of Scott’s wealth and eccentricities--he was a heavy-drinking, anti-government recluse once married to a French movie star--but because of early assertions by friends that authorities raided the ranch in order to seize it under federal forfeiture laws.

And in his report, Bradbury concludes that the Sheriff’s Department conducted the raid not only to search for 50 marijuana plants a federal agent said he spotted, but to look for any other drugs that might warrant seizure of Scott’s ranch across the Ventura County line from Malibu.

Two agents on the raid--a state narcotics investigator and a federal forest ranger--said possible seizure of the ranch was mentioned in a sheriff’s briefing immediately before the raid, Bradbury said.

Spencer thought he might find drugs other than marijuana because sheriff’s investigators knew that Scott’s new 39-year-old wife, Frances Plante Scott, had been involved in other drug investigations, Bradbury said.

Spencer knew that Scott’s wife had been convicted of possessing a small amount of marijuana in 1990. And the deputy had information “regarding Frances Plante and her associates’ involvement in negotiations to smuggle and sell heroin in 1988 and 1990,” Bradbury reported.

As a result, Spencer “knew that if marijuana were found growing, or if narcotics were found in sufficient quantity, it was possible that a very valuable piece of real estate would be forfeited to the government with proceeds from a sale going to the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department,” Bradbury concluded.

Law enforcement sources told The Times that Frances Plante had closely associated with suspected heroin dealers from Thailand in the late 1980s before meeting Scott, and her presence at the ranch may have focused drug agents’ attention on Scott.

Bradbury noted in his report that phone records seized from Scott’s home include calls to Thailand. In an interview, Scott’s widow refused to say if the dead man knew anyone in Thailand, Bradbury reported.

Also seized during the Scott raid was evidence that the U. S. Drug Enforcement Administration had been investigating Scott three years ago. Documents show that General Telephone notified Scott in 1990 that the DEA had requested Scott’s phone records from June, 1984 through November, 1987, the report said.

Sources said investigators have been told that Scott and his future wife met in about 1990 and had lived together at Scott’s ranch for about a year before their July, 1992 marriage.

The search warrant for the October raid says that Spencer first became aware of Scott and his future wife in 1991, when an informant told the deputy that Frances Plante was paying bills in Malibu with a roll of $100 bills.

Spencer’s interest in the Scotts was rekindled about a month before last fall’s raid, when the deputy received information from a second informant that 3,000 to 4,000 marijuana plants were growing on Scott’s Trail’s End Ranch, Bradbury reports.

The informant said Frances Scott had made statements “indicating that she had personal knowledge of growing marijuana,” Bradbury’s report said.

Frances Scott could not be reached for comment. But her attorney, Eric Ferrer of Los Angeles, said that information about her past has nothing to do with the October raid.

“This is the kind of evidence that is brought up to taint Frances Scott so that (Spencer) can justify his misconduct after the fact,” Ferrer said. “I know of no evidence that she was involved in smuggling heroin or any other drug, and I think that is absolutely a ruse to justify this illegal search and the killing of Donald Scott.”

Regardless of Frances Scott’s history, Bradbury concluded that the October raid could not be legally justified because the warrant to search Scott’s ranch was invalid.

Narcotics officers justified the Oct. 2 raid by saying marijuana was spotted beneath trees on Scott’s ranch, but no plants were ever found.

And Bradbury said Tuesday that veteran DEA agent Charles A. Stowell could not have seen 50 marijuana plants without binoculars from 1,000 feet above the ranch as he claims.

Stowell “either was badly mistaken or fabricated” the sighting, Bradbury said.

Stowell told investigators that he spotted the plants by their unique color, Bradbury said, but other drug agents said that marijuana plants could not be confidently identified from such an altitude only by color.

Stowell, in fact, would not allow the Sheriff’s Department to use his sighting as the basis for a search warrant until Spencer said he had corroborated the small 50-plant sighting with informant report, Bradbury said.

Stowell was bothered by the discrepancy between the initial informant report about 3,000 plants and the 50 plants he said he actually saw, the prosecutor said.

A DEA spokesman in Los Angeles said the agency would not comment on Bradbury’s report until it has been fully analyzed.

Bradbury also reported that the police informant who allegedly told Spencer that Scott’s marijuana crop was much smaller than first believed--corroborating the DEA’s reported aerial sighting--claims not to have provided that information.

The prosecutor said he is convinced of Spencer’s misconduct in the case and would fire the agent if he was his boss.

“You don’t have to have illegality to have misconduct,” he said. “This case is replete with misconduct.”

Bradbury said he has decided not to file perjury charges against Spencer, because it cannot be proved that the officer knew that some of his statements in the search warrant affidavit were inaccurate.

Nor will homicide charges be filed because Spencer shot Scott in self-defense as the rancher pointed a handgun at him, Bradbury said.

Nonetheless, Bradbury has sent copies of his findings--and supporting documents--to state and federal agencies, requesting further investigation.

The prosecutor said he hopes for reforms in the way law enforcement agencies pursue drug cases.

Bradbury said he has already moved to correct the problem in his own office that allowed the Scott search to go forward. He said he now requires a senior deputy district attorney familiar with drug cases to review search requests by out-of-county law enforcement agencies.

“We certainly will be doing things differently,” he said.