On January 12, 2012, Gar Myers was stopped and ticketed for a driving under the influence citation by California Highway Patrol (CHP).
The crime lab, then a part of the Orange County District Attorney’s Office (OCDAO), ran the results of his blood test, and it came back at .15%, which is nearly twice the legal limit.
Gar told me that he knew something was amiss. He knew he wasn’t drunk, he told me.
He told the arresting officer that he had one beer over twelve hours prior.
He investigated and told me that he discovered that that the crime lab technician, Bill Daher, was dirty.
He was doing drugs on duty, Gar told me.
He went for help, to the then California Attorney General (AG): Kamala Harris.
A top staffer of Harris told him that they would investigate the lab, Gar remembers.
Only that didn’t happen. Shortly after the meeting he had with the California AG’s office, that office filed a response, representing the department of motor vehicle, arguing that Gar’s license should remain suspended.
Harris, in her response, even stated, “Myers failed to rebut the forensic alcohol examination report.”
Thereby, Harris stood by the crime lab that Myers said was dirty.
I emailed the White House press office, but I received no response.
The crime lab was dirty, Gar insists, and, in 2016, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office (OCSO)produced a 41-page Internal Affairs report which proved it, only that report has been sealed by an Orange County judge.
The only evidence that it exists comes from legal filings by Gar, which mention the report.
The Orange County District Attorney at the time was Tony Rackauckas; it is currently Todd Spitzer. I reached out to Spitzer’s office by email, but I received no response.
Gar told me that if this report was unsealed it could change the election. It’s that explosive he told me. The extent of the malfeasance by the crime lab technician would be seen for all, and Harris’ role in the coverup would come to light.
The same crime lab was cited in 2013 for falsified blood alcohol results due to “human error.”
The Orange County Crime Lab produced inaccurate blood alcohol test results in 2,200 driving-under-the-influence cases filed by prosecutors this year — mistakes that could affect outcomes in dozens of cases.
Prosecutors in recent days sent letters to people charged with driving under the influence, including 900 whose cases resulted in convictions. The letters advised them that their cases were among those with miscalculations.
Crime lab officials said the “human error” occurred over nearly five months and led to mistakes in the forensic examination of blood alcohol content. But they insist the miscalculations were so few that they affect only about 200 cases. As few as 20 people could see their blood alcohol test levels drop below 0.08%, California’s legal definition of DUI impairment.
Enter Ebrahim Baytieh. Currently, he is Judge Baytieh, a probate judge in Orange County, California.
He has presided over a few cases I have covered. He issued a scathing decision, exposing many in the Orange County probate mafia in Marty Adair’s conservatorship.
He also prolonged the Flint family’s suffering, with a recent decision in that case.
The next day, the parties were in front of Judge Ebrahim Baytieh. Judge Baytieh featured prominently in Jodee Sussman’s case: dropping the hammer on many of the probate mafia. It was a hearing I attended in person.
Check out my interview with Mike Flint below.
At the time things were unfolding for Gar, he was an assistant district attorney in the OCDAO.
More recently, his term as a prosecutor has come under scrutiny, in particular his penchant for withholding evidence.
A prominent Orange County judge is facing scathing new allegations that he led a criminal conspiracy to cover up police misconduct and withhold evidence in a murder case when he was a high-ranking prosecutor.
The allegations against O.C. Superior Court Judge Ebrahim Baytieh came in a 424-page court motion filed Thursday by Scott Sanders, the assistant public defender who uncovered one of the biggest law enforcement scandals of the past decade, known colloquially as the “O.C. jailhouse snitch scandal.”
"This is criminal conduct, despicable conduct," Sanders told LAist.
"These folks," Sanders said, referring to Baytieh and the team of sheriff's officials on the case, "destroyed the opportunity for defendants to have fair trials."
Baytieh recently won election as a judge in Orange County, despite being fired from the OCDAO.
Baytieh has yet to comment on this burgeoning scandal. I reached out to the Orange County Superior Court, but I received no response.
Gar told me that Baytieh also benefitted from the malfeasance of the crime lab. Here is part of Gar’s statement.
Bayteih knew of Daher’s decades long meth drug addiction and past terminable offenses in the crime lab but nevertheless protected Daher and gave him special privileges. Daher would break the law to manufacture false evidence and testily for prosecutors at trial.
The internal affairs report implicated Baytieh as well, Gar told me. The report has not been made public, but Gar said he took notes. He released those notes in a subsequent appeal for the conservatorship case I will talk about soon.
I reached out to OCSO and the OCDAO by email, but I received no response.
This report was never shown in Gar’s trial, he told me, and Harris’ office continued to fight appeals into 2016, when both were running for US Senate in California.
Fast forward to 2020. Gar’s parents had set up a trust for their children in 1993.
Gar was now his parent’s long-term caretaker living in Nevada.
His father, Darrold, died, and this set off a chain of events. Gar explained what happened next in a federal filing.
Plaintiff further alleges that this agreement was formed no later than January 2019, when Defendant Mormon church et al, including Brian and Krystal Reeve, along with Ardith Freebairn and others began to orchestrate a plan to manipulate and unduly influence church member Lilah Myers, a legally blind and mentally incapacitated trustee, to amend the trust and will documents to exclude certain non-Mormon and an estranged Mormon co-trustee beneficiaries and their mirroring will inheritances, contrary to the original terms of the trust.
I reached out to the attorney, Brian Reeve, along with Gar’s siblings- Richard Myers, Shauna Vanderlinden, and Tonya Billings- but none of them responded.
I also reached out to Donnylynn Orman-Wasano, the fiduciary on the trust, but she also did not respond to an email for comment.
After what Gar called “undue influence” was placed on his mother, he went to a Nevada court, asking to put his mother into guardianship.
The judge, William Potter, denied the guardianship.
I am NOT a fan of ever putting anyone into guardianship, but the transcripts also show that Gar’s mom was being pressured to move to Orange County.
That warning, made by Gar’s attorney, proved prescient. This decision came on May 12, 2020. Eight days later, Gar said his mother was taken against her will from Nevada to Orange County by his siblings. Here is part of a federal lawsuit he recently filed.
The May 22, 2020, kidnapping of elder Lilah from Nevada and isolation of Lilah in Orange County was motivated by and intended to continue deprivation of Lilah’s vital neurological final diagnosis and related treatment/care at her Mormon daughter’s house in Orange County with the Mormon church and the County of Orange’s knowledge and consent. Defendants did not want Lilah certified an incapacitated knowing she would be removed as trustee, and they could no longer sub-rosa control the Myers Family Trust; its assets and business using Lilah’s identity and coerced blind signatures on trust documents to do so to their gain an advantage.
Gar said that in Orange County his mom was coerced into signing new trust documents, which rearranged the amounts each of the children got.
“After ensuring elder Lilah became legally blind and forcing her to secretly sign to create Nevada amendments to the California Myers Family Trust, defendant’s stripped elder Lilah of her free court appointed guardianship specialist attorney,” Gar said in his federal lawsuit.
He said his mom was 86, had dementia, and was going blind when she signed these amendments. The amendments should not have been valid, he said.
Though Judge Potter did not heed his attorney’s warnings when he denied guardianship, Gar said he also washed his hands of the matter when Gar returned to his courtroom after his mom was taken.
Gar was forced to go to probate in Orange County, where he was assigned Judge Baytieh.
Gar told me that he could recuse Baytieh for any reason, but he was not making headway on saving his mom.
Lilah Myers died on February 7, 2023.
All that was left was trying to protect the trust she and his father set-up: their legacy he called it to me.
Baytieh was replaced with Judge Brad Erdosi.
There was a big problem with Judge Erdosi, Gar told me.
Judge Erdosi had endorsed Judge Baytieh. Gar felt the fix was in, and he asked Judge Erdosi to recuse.
The motion was denied by Judge Erdosi. Gar has appealed. In that motion to recuse Judge Erdosi, Gar released notes from the internal affairs report. Here is part of the notes.
All of this, Gar told me in the interview, the AG’s office run by Harris could have found out four years earlier if they had kept their promise to him to investigate the lab, rather than going after him for the DUI.
Gar said he believes the trust is being raided but he can’t get an accounting ordered to see what is left, even though he is technically a trustee.
He has another hearing later this week.
Post script
Check out the previous articles on the series on Orange County. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8. Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19, Part 20, Part 21, Part 22, Part 23, Part 24, Part 25. Part 26, Part 27, Part 28, Part 29, Part 30, Part 31, Part 33, Part 34, Part 35, Part 36, Part 37, Part 38, Part 39, Part 40, Part 41, Part 42, Part 43, Part 44, Part 45, Part 46, Part 47, Part 48, Part 49, Part 50, Part 51, Part 52, and Part 53.
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The internal affairs report that could shake up the presidential race