Orange County Superior Court Judge Thomas Goethals determined that Perez was acting on behalf of law enforcement when he secured Dekraai's confession, which was recorded by a wire set up by the Orange County Sheriff's Department at the request of Seal Beach police and prosecutors with the Orange County District Attorney's Office. But it is illegal for law enforcement to deliberately deploy informants to coax incriminating statements from a defendant who's already been charged and has the constitutional right to an attorney and to remain silent. It's perfectly legal for law enforcement to use jailhouse informants. "They're in cover-up mode," Wilson tells Eyewitness News. "They didn't need to put an informant in that cell next to him," said Paul Wilson who lost his wife of 26 years in Dekraai's rampage and is outraged by delays in the case and what he calls "absolute crimes" by elected officials. He knew that if Dekraai gave up information police and prosecutors wanted, Perez might be able to leverage that into a more lenient sentence for himself. Perez may have sensed an opportunity when Dekraai started talking about his crimes.
#Desiree perez informant series#
Perez, a former leader in the Mexican Mafia and third-striker facing possible life in prison, turned informant in 2010 and quickly racked up confession after confession from a series of suspects, all of whom wound up in a jail cell right next to Perez. Scott Dekraai had already confessed to the murders to police when he found himself in an Orange County Jail cell next door to prolific jailhouse snitch Fernando Perez. Critics say the most powerful law enforcement entities in Orange County cheated the system, pursuing a win-at-all costs legal strategy for decades, at the expense of not just Dekraai's constitutional rights, but potentially scores of other defendants. How did Dekraai's crimes lead to this? It all comes down to whether or not prosecutors and sheriff's deputies broke the law in the pursuit of convictions. There are calls from one of the most respected legal minds in the nation and the New York Times for the U.S. Orange County sheriff's deputies have been accused of lying under oath. The entire Orange County District Attorney's Office has been kicked off the death penalty phase of Dekraai's case. Four years later, the legal case against Dekraai, who pleaded guilty last year, is in disarray. The murders and their aftermath have wrought unimaginable pain on family members of the victims. Eight victims shown clockwise from top left: Michelle Fournier, Randy Fannin, Laura Webb Elody, Michele Fast, Christy Wilson, Lucia Kondas, Victoria Buzzo and David Caouette.