County Seeking a Way Out of Kraft Expenses

Orange County supervisors, upset at the prospect of spending millions in public funds to defend mass murder suspect Randy Kraft, voted Tuesday to determine if the county could qualify for reimbursement under the state’s so-called “Juan Corona” law.

Angry supervisors also asked for a review of existing law to see whether new legislation is needed to give them access to records itemizing Kraft’s public defense costs. A judge had earlier sealed the documents from public review.

“I think we have as much ability to take part in a confidentiality-type issue as a judge or attorney or anybody else,” Supervisor Bruce Nestande said Tuesday, referring to the order preventing supervisors from examining the records.

Confidentiality Hit

“So I can’t buy off on this confidentiality aspect to sequester and keep secret costs that we’re forced to bear,” Nestande added.

Kraft, 41, a Long Beach computer consultant, is accused of 16 murders of young men in Orange County and another 21 murders dating back to the early 1970s. All 37 victims were young men, many of whom were emasculated or sexually assaulted, according to the prosecution.

The county is paying Kraft’s legal costs, which include three court-appointed defense attorneys. Prosecutors recently estimated that the defense costs already have reached $2 million, even before the trial has begun.

Those costs have been a thorn in the side of supervisors, especially since April when they approved hiring seven more district attorney employees to make up for the lawyers, clerks and investigators working full time on the Kraft prosecution.

Board members on Tuesday unanimously backed Supervisor Harriett Wieder’s request for the state to determine whether non-rural counties--and specifically Orange County--can be reimbursed under a 1984 law.

Anger Expressed

That law was passed after rural Sutter County incurred more than $4.6 million in costs in the prosecution of Juan Corona, who was twice convicted of murdering 25 itinerant farmworkers near the Feather River in the Marysville-Yuba City area.

Supervisors expressed public anger for the first time Tuesday over their inability to monitor the Kraft defense expenditures, prompting Nestande to suggest that the board join forces with a newspaper publishing company that also is seeking disclosure of the Kraft defense costs.

Supervisor Roger R. Stanton noted that even in the secrecy-bound reaches of the federal government, “you know whether you’re spending $500 for an ashtray.”

Judge Luis A. Cardenas, who oversees defense expenditures, has said that public access to the information could prevent Kraft from receiving a fair trial.

The 4th District Court of Appeal disagreed last week and ordered Cardenas to release partial defense cost records on attorneys fees. The ruling came in a suit filed by Freedom Newspapers Inc., which publishes the Orange County Register.

However, the court denied Freedom Newspapers’ request to examine other defense expenditures, such as hiring private investigators, experts and extra help, or buying equipment, such as a computer that Cardenas approved for use by Kraft’s three court-appointed attorneys.

Cardenas has declined to order the records released pending official notice from the appellate court, which could take a month. Meanwhile, one of Kraft’s lawyers has said that he would ask the appellate court to rehear the case or that he would appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.

The trial is scheduled to begin Jan. 12, 1987.