Suspect Allegedly Sought Witnesses’ Murders

VENTURA —  A suspect in the slaying of a Redondo Beach man used information allegedly provided by his defense team to solicit the murder of key witnesses who could send him to death row, prosecutors have charged.

Using a code of secret symbols, defendant Spencer Rawlin Brasure sent letters to friends asking that witnesses be “taken care of” before his preliminary hearing next month, prosecutors alleged in court documents.

Prosecutors say the public defender’s office gave addresses, phone numbers and, in some cases, Social Security numbers of witnesses to Brasure in violation of state law.

“The public defender has been used in an attempt to change the story of a witness and to act as a messenger of threats and solicitations,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Mark Pachowicz wrote in court papers filed last week.

But Ventura County Public Defender Kenneth I. Clayman said the allegations against his office are irresponsible and false.

Deputy Public Defender Gary Windom, one of the two attorneys handling the case, said the claims are baseless.

“It is so preposterously absurd,” Clayman said Wednesday. “We have obligations under the law, and we represent our clients zealously, responsibly and ethically.”

State law says defense attorneys cannot disclose or permit to be disclosed to a defendant the addresses or telephone numbers of victims or witnesses in a case. Violations can bring judicial sanctions.

Clayman and Windom declined to comment specifically on the suspect’s correspondence, saying the issue would be discussed at a hearing Friday in Ventura County Municipal Court.

At that proceeding, prosecutors plan to seek a court order prohibiting Brasure from contacting or threatening witnesses.

The defendant, a 27-year-old Hawthorne resident, is one of three people charged in connection with the death of Anthony Guest, 20, last year.

Park rangers found Guest’s badly burned body Sept. 13 in the bushes of Hungry Valley Recreational Area near Gorman. Authorities say Guest was abducted under false pretenses, tortured and killed before his body was dumped in the remote area of northern Ventura County.

Brasure is charged with murder, torture, kidnapping, arson, grand theft and conspiracy. He has pleaded not guilty.

Co-defendant Billy Lyn Davis, 20, of Lawndale is charged with murder, kidnapping, theft and conspiracy. Sandra Johnson, 30, of Gardena is charged with two counts of conspiracy. They also pleaded not guilty.

Brasure and Davis face the death penalty if convicted.

Prosecutors allege that Johnson and another man picked up Guest the day he was abducted and took him to a prearranged location, where Brasure kidnapped him at gunpoint.

Brasure and Davis later bragged to several people about their crime, prosecutors said in court papers.

From jail, prosecutors allege, Brasure compiled a list of witnesses expected to testify against him and attempted to circulate it among friends so they could intimidate and, in some instances, kill witnesses.

“Like I said before, time is running out for me,” Brasure allegedly wrote in an April 11 letter to a friend.

“I go back to court June 16, 1997, and this is where all the evidence and statements will be brought out,” the letter continued. “If my help doesn’t come before June 16, 1997, I will be totally [in trouble].”

In another letter dated April 7, Brasure allegedly asked the same friend to pass on personal information about witnesses, information contained in what prosecutors described as a “rat list.”

The letter names five witnesses and says they are the “main rats that need to be killed ASAP,” according to prosecution documents.

Prosecutors said they discovered the correspondence after Brasure received a letter from an inmate in a Los Angeles County jail. It is the policy of Ventura County jail officials to review letters from other detention facilities, prosecutors said in court documents.

The inmate letter contained a coded message of letters and symbols. When Brasure received a second letter in the same coded language, jail officials searched his cell for clues to crack the code, the prosecution said in court papers.

After breaking the code, authorities notified detectives in the case and search warrants were executed on Brasure’s outgoing mail and the home of a friend who received letters from Brasure.