In a Santa Ana courtroom Friday morning, Scott Evans Dekraai will learn whether he could face execution for the worst mass killing in Orange County history.

After six years of delay and a series of controversies that rocked the county’s criminal justice system, Superior Court Judge Thomas Goethals has two options. He can open the way for a jury to decide 47-year-old Dekraai’s fate.

Or Goethals could become one of the rare judges to take execution off the table for a convicted murderer because of law enforcement misconduct. In that case, Goethals would likely sentence Dekraai to eight consecutive life terms without parole.

“It’s a notable case because it’s a serious crime and there is unparalleled prosecutorial misconduct,” said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a non- profit organization that tracks capital cases nationwide.

Goethals’ decision will hinge on his judgment of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and whether it can be trusted to hand over evidence that could benefit Dekraai’s defense. Goethals’ decision also will be based on whether he believes the department withheld and destroyed documents showing jailhouse informants were used improperly. Goethals had issued a 2013 court order to turn over the documents.

Dekraai’s attorney, Assistant Public Defender Scott Sanders, recently argued before Goethals that “the sheriff’s department has attempted to create a false and misleading narrative about this case…They are content to let this defendant be misled.”

But state Deputy Attorney General Michael Murphy, the current prosecutor, reminded Goethals that his job isn’t to punish law enforcement for any misdeeds.

“(This is) not a forum for the defense to investigate the sheriff’s department…nor is it a government oversight hearing,” Murphy said. “It’s about the prosecution of (Dekraai) for murders he’s admitted.”

For more than four years, the October 2011 shooting rampage that killed eight people at a Seal Beach beauty salon has taken a back seat to the legal jousting over the use of jailhouse informants to improperly secure confessions from targeted inmates.

Ironically, Dekraai’s guilt was never really in doubt. Within minutes of the shooting, he confessed to Seal Beach police, and then pleaded guilty in 2014. Dekraai appeared to be on the fast track to join the 748 prisoners on California’s Death Row, and about 2,900 nationwide.

But his case got derailed when Orange County prosecutors and sheriff’s deputies made what they contended was an honest mistake days after the shooting. They bugged Dekraai’s jail cell and sent a prolific informant to get him talking. That was a violation of Dekraai’s constitutional rights, because he had a lawyer and had been formally charged, Sanders said.

Prosecutors maintained it wasn’t a violation because they instructed the informant to listen and not to ask any questions about the case. The gambit came back to haunt them.

Sanders had the reputation in the district attorney’s office as a courtroom Chicken Little, constantly accusing prosecutors of misconduct. But the accusations not only stuck this time, but generated more evidence.

Sanders learned of the informant and realized the same inmate had been used with another of his clients, Daniel Wozniak, who killed two people to fund his wedding. Sanders figured it was not a coincidence, but a sign that police and prosecutors had forged a surreptitious network of jailhouse informants, and he set out to press his concerns with Goethals.

From that point on, Dekraai’s punishment was delayed as the so-called “snitch scandal” unfolded. With legal scholars and the media watching nationwide, Sanders uncovered evidence that prosecutors and deputies had cheated for up to 30 years, misusing jail informants and not telling the defense.

For instance, Sanders recently obtained a Dec. 27, 2009 sheriff’s department email detailing how the jail’s color-coded security wristbands were changed for informants, to make them more credible to targeted inmates. Eight deputies participated in the scheme against an inmate accused of attempted murder — a scheme requested by a Santa Ana Police investigator, according to the email.

District Attorney Tony Rackauckas has fought back, saying any misconduct was unintentional and that the controversy was overblown. Sheriff Sandra Hutchens has said there was no sanctioned informant network operating in her five jails, putting the blame on some rogue deputies.

And the 2016-17 Orange County Grand Jury called the scandal a “myth,” spread by an uninformed media.

But the state’s 4th District Court of Appeal, in November 2016, found cheating by Orange County prosecutors and sheriff’s employees was real and systemic. Appellate justices upheld a 2015 decision by Goethals to take the case away from the district attorney’s office because he did not trust local prosecutors to ensure Dekraai a fair penalty trial.

The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating both the district attorney’s office and the sheriff’s department’s handling of informants. Meanwhile, at least six murder and attempted murder cases have unraveled in Orange County because of informant issues raised by Sanders.

One of those cases involved Isaac John Palacios, who pleaded guilty in 2014 to killing a rival gang member. He was released from jail within hours of that plea, serving only 3 ½ years on what could have been a life sentence.

The reason for the plea deal: prosecutors said they did not want to open the case up to the same scrutiny as Dekraai because of informant concerns.

Since 2013, 60 witnesses have testified in three special hearings before Goethals, with the case growing worse for local law enforcement.

During the current proceedings, a half dozen deputies refused to testify, invoking their 5th amendment rights against self-incrimination. Three of the deputies are being investigated by the state Attorney General’s Office for suspected perjury during prior hearings.

Goethals has voiced anger and frustration over what he calls the sheriff’s department’s apparent inability or unwillingness to produce documents ordered by the court.

The drip, drip of the release of documents has kept the focus on the role of the sheriff’s department and away from Dekraai’s crime and the suffering of the victims’ families.

After assuring the judge that no documents existed, the sheriff’s department in late 2014 turned over TRED records, which document the movement of inmates inside the jail. Deputies admitted trying to keep those records confidential during a previous hearing .

Then Sanders learned of computerized “special handling logs,” notes kept by deputies about their interactions with informants. After more prodding by Sanders and the judge, the department eventually found 1,157 pages of those notes, which officials said were unauthorized and unread by sheriff’s department brass.

And thousands of pages of additional notes and 68 boxes of documents that had not been looked at were uncovered. Finally, prosecutor Murphy’s team found 30,000 emails and notes in sheriff’s department computers, but decided not to give them to Sanders.

“They (sheriff’s employees) are not giving answers that make sense and neither is the attorney general,” Goethals said during the current hearing.

On Friday, the legal maneuvering finally returns to Dekraai and the lives he took: Victoria Buzzo, 54; David Caouette, 64; Randy Lee Fannin, 62; Michele Daschbach Fast, 47; Michelle Marie Fournier, 48; Lucia Bernice Kondas, 65; Laura Webb Elody, 46; and Christy Lynn Wilson, 47. Hattie Stretz was also shot, but survived.

Goethals has said he will take into account the families’ feelings. Some are encouraging him to block the death penalty, so they will not have to attend more court proceedings.

Other relatives of the victims want Dekraai to die.

What’s clear is that Orange County’s justice system has been altered in many ways.

Rackauckas has added a new training workshop at the sheriff’s academy on using informants and the rights of inmates; as well as preserving defense evidence.

Defense attorneys are scouring their cases for informants, demanding more information on their histories and how they were used. Attempts are being made to reopen cases based on the improper use of informants.

And there is heightened sensitivity about the potential for prosecutors and law enforcement to improperly seek an edge in criminal cases.

“When the prosecution engages in misconduct designed to give a tactical advantage, the judge will remove the advantage,” said Dunham, of the Death Penalty Information Center.

The worst mass murderer in Orange County history will escape execution, a superior court judge ruled Friday, Aug. 18.

Judge Thomas Goethals took the death penalty off the table for confessed killer Scott Evans Dekraai, 47, because he concluded law enforcement would not ensure the defendant a fair penalty trial. Dekraai pleaded guilty to killing eight people and wounding another in an October 2011 shooting spree at a Seal Beach salon.

“This court finds the prosecution team is unable or unwilling” to provide the evidence to ensure Dekraai would get a fair trial, Goethals said.

The ruling comes after more than four years of delay in the case as Goethals investigated accusations that prosecutors and sheriff’s deputies systemically withheld evidence and used a network of jailhouse informants to illegally get confessions from targeted inmates.

The next step is for Goethals to sentence Dekraai. The judge has signaled that the sentence would be eight consecutive terms of life without parole for the deaths of Victoria Buzzo, 54; David Caouette, 64; Randy Lee Fannin, 62; Michele Daschbach Fast, 47; Michelle Marie Fournier, 48; Lucia Bernice Kondas, 65; Laura Webb Elody, 46; and Christy Lynn Wilson, 47. Hattie Stretz was also shot but survived.

The shooting spree stemmed from a custody battle between Dekraai and his ex-wife, Fournier.

The case cast a national spotlight on Orange County’s broken justice system. Separate investigations by the California Attorney General’s Office and the U.S. Department of Justice’s civil rights division are underway.

Goethals ignited a legal firestorm in March 2015 when he took the penalty phase away from the Orange County District Attorney’s Office because of misconduct that he said threatened to deprive Dekraai of his civil rights. The state attorney general’s office took over the case.

Appellate justices later upheld Goethals decision, calling the misuse of jailhouse informants and withholding of evidence by prosecutors and sheriff’s deputies “real” and “systemic.” But the 2016-17 Orange County Grand Jury concluded the informant scandal was a “myth” and there was no sanctioned informant program run by sheriff’s deputies and benefiting prosecutors.

The grand jury report, however, did not dissuade Goethals that jailhouse informants were regularly misused on inmates who had attorneys and were formally charged.

For several convicted killers, the horrific case of Seal Beach mass murderer Scott Evans Dekraai is a potential legal gift.

Last month, a Superior Court ruled that Dekraai — who admitted to killing eight people at a hair salon in 2011 — should not receive the death penalty because of misconduct on the part of local prosecutors and the sheriff’s department. Instead, the worst mass murderer in county history is expected to be sentenced to eight terms of life without the possibility of parole.

But the problems unearthed in the case weren’t limited to Dekraai.

State and appellate judges looking at Dekraai have ruled that Orange County prosecutors, sheriff’s deputies and police detectives cheated over the course of several years by secretly using jailhouse informants to cajole inmates into incriminating themselves — a constitutional violation because the targeted inmates were represented by attorneys. The courts also ruled that informants’ histories often were withheld from defense teams, another violation.

For others convicted of murder, those problems look like daylight.

Attorneys for at least five men now in prison for murders committed in Orange County are using findings from the Dekraai case in attempts to win new trials.

The crimes are lurid and it’s far from a given that their arguments will be met with legal favor, but the Dekraai case could offer new ammunition.

Here are those cases:

Ricardo Salas

Ricky Salas was just out of high school with a 3.2 grade point average, when Santa Ana police grabbed him in November 2005 for a fatal gang shooting that took place three years earlier. Salas has been locked up ever since and is now serving a life sentence without parole in state prison.

His best shot at freedom comes from the same jailhouse informant who helped convince a jury to convict him of murder. Drug addict Landon Horning told the jury that Salas had made incriminating statements while the two shared a cell at Orange County jail — statements that corroborated the testimony of Salas’ alleged accomplice.

What Horning allegedly didn’t tell the jury — and what prosecutor Alison Gyves allegedly didn’t tell the defense team — was that Horning was a hallucinating schizophrenic with brain damage and an addiction to heroin. Another secret: Horning had been placed purposely in Salas’ cell to obtain a confession in the shooting death of 24-year-old Pedro “Tiger” Martin in Santa Ana. If true, that would violate Salas’ right to legal counsel because he had an attorney at the time.

Based on those claims, Salas’ lawyer, Tarik Adlai, has taken the case back to Orange County Superior Court, trying to get the conviction overturned.

“Ricky Salas was sentenced to death in prison for a crime committed three weeks after his 18th birthday based on two presumptively unreliable witnesses: a rewarded turncoat accomplice and a rewarded jailhouse informer,” Adlai wrote in a court motion. “Evidence not disclosed to the jury confirmed that both were not only presumptively unreliable but both affirmatively lied to the jury that convicted Salas.”

Informant Horning told the jury that he was on probation for using cocaine, when he really was on probation for using heroin. He said he was taking anti-inflammatory medication, not the anti-psychotics that he was actually taking.

Horning, who was in jail for repeatedly violating his probation, was let out of jail early at the behest of the district attorney’s office and moved to Northern California, ostensibly for his safety. Adlai argues in court papers that prosecutors were trying to stash Horning away, so the defense team couldn’t find and question him.

Salas’ alleged accomplice, Jesse Madrigal, received a five-year sentence after testifying against the defendant. For his part, Madrigal admitted to driving the Chevrolet El Camino from which the fatal shot was fired.

The district attorney’s office would not comment on the merits of the case, saying only that it was pending. In a past interview, prosecutors said they gave the defense all the information they had at the time.

Paul Gentile Smith

Drops of blood found at a murder scene in 1988 sealed Paul Smith’s fate.

More than 20 years after the killing, Smith was arrested in Las Vegas, after his DNA profile matched the genetic material in the blood drops. Police had taken a sample from Smith after an unrelated arrest for domestic violence.

A jury in November 2010 found Smith guilty of stabbing marijuana dealer Robert Haugen’s nude body 18 times — nearly decapitating the victim — and torching his remains in a Sunset Beach bedroom.

Smith argued that he did not kill Haugen, a childhood friend and Smith’s pot supplier.

Smith explained that at the time of the crime, he carried a Swiss Army knife. He said he must have cut himself while using the knife’s small scissors to trim high-grade marijuana at Haugen’s home the day before the killing.

In the jail, Smith was placed by deputies in Mod-L20, a cell since shown to have been used routinely to match suspects with jailhouse informants. Smith was near an informant, Arthur Palacios, and at least two other unnamed informants. Though prosecutors told Smith’s defense lawyer about Palacios, they never disclosed the other informants.

Assistant Public Defender Scott Sanders wrote in the Dekraai case that prosecutors didn’t mention the other snitches because the revelation would have exposed a network of informants in the jail.

Palacios testified that Smith confessed the murder to him, helping to win a conviction.

Jurors also heard evidence that Smith tried to burn his girlfriend with a lighter and tortured her with a knife, in one incident, stabbing her in the leg. On another occasion, Smith tied her nude body to the bed, proclaiming: “Let the torture begin,” according to court documents. News accounts say Smith and the woman were involved in a sado-masochistic relationship.

Smith, court documents say, also attempted to hire a hit man from within the jail to attack a sheriff’s investigator working on the case.

As compelling as the evidence may be, Smith’s conviction could be overturned if the court finds his constitutional rights were violated.

Six years after the trial, during evidentiary hearings connected to Dekraai, the court learned that sheriffs deputies inside the jail kept a special online log detailing the interactions between deputies and informants. That log contained information on Palacios, information that prosecutors acknowledged should have been given to Smith’s defense. The information could have been used to attack the informant’s credibility on the witness stand.

The use of the informant may also have violated Smith’s right to counsel, since he had legal representation and was formally charged at the time. Prosecutors instructed Palacios not to ask any questions of Smith, but he ended up doing so, according to court documents.

“They’re pretty straightforward violations,” said Smith’s attorney, Jerome Wallingford.

He said the Dekraai ruling by Judge Thomas Goethals gives him hope that such decisions will be made according to the law and not according to sentiment.

“It certainly shows an indication on the part of the court to take these accusations very seriously,” Wallingford said.

The district attorney’s office is scheduled to reply to Wallingford’s arguments by mid-September.

Stanley Simon

On a chilly night in March 2006, members of the Rollin’ 20s street gang left Long Beach to go dancing at an Anaheim night spot, Club Boogie. Inside the club, they noticed some other partiers were wearing snappy clothes and flashy jewelry.

The “bling” again stood out when the Rollin’ 20s ran into that same group at a nearby Denny’s. The gang allegedly decided to steal the jewelry.

A fight broke out inside the restaurant and spilled into the parking lot. Shots were fired. Armand Jones, an 18-year-old actor who would posthumously become known for his role in the 2007 movie “Freedom Writers,” was killed in the shoot-out by a single bullet through the heart.

Jones, aglitter in gold chains, a gold watch, diamond studded earrings and other expensive jewelry, was celebrating the last day of filming.

Stanley Simon was one of four people arrested in the killing. In police interviews, Simon denied shooting Jones or participating in the brawl.

But prosecutors said in court that Simon became loose-lipped when put together in jail with informant Jeremiah Rodriguez, who at the time stood accused of four counts of attempted murder in an unrelated case.

Simon didn’t know that Rodriguez was taking notes of their alleged conversations.

Rodriguez told police that Simon admitted shooting one of the surviving victims in the back of the head with a snub-nosed 38-caliber gun.

Simon denied on the witness stand talking to informant Rodriguez. He said he didn’t trust Rodriquez and didn’t tell him anything.

Simon’s attorney James Crawford said in a recent filing that authorities withheld evidence concerning informant Rodriquez. It wasn’t until February 2017 — six years after Simon’s conviction — that Crawford learned Rodriguez had a long history as a jailhouse informant.

Crawford argues that informant Rodriguez and co-defendant Damon Hill were sent by police to illegally interrogate Simon, who was allegedly denied his right to counsel, a violation because he had legal representation and was formally charged.

Rodriguez who was looking at a possible sentence of life without parole was allowed to plead guilty with a 4-year-sentence after testifying, according to court documents.

Simon was sentenced in 2011 to life without parole by Superior Court Judge Thomas Goethals, the same judge who presided over the Dekraai case.

The DA’s office said on August 31 that it did not have time to respond to questions about the Simon case.

Ramon Alvarez

The call on the police radio was “suspicious circumstances,” but that did little to describe the horror awaiting Santa Ana officers in June of 1998, when they went to the house on South Hallady Street.

In a backyard shed, they found a body covered with bags of ice in a children’s inflatable swimming pool. The victim’s head had been blown away by a single high-caliber gunshot. Nearby were plastic bags filled with dirt and brain matter.

A crucifix lay atop the body of gang member Ruben Leal, known in the neighborhood as “Oso.”

The backyard hose was still running.

Fellow gang member Ramon Alvarez was among the people in the house. He said he had arrived about 20 minutes before the police and hadn’t noticed the body in the shed, even as he went outside to smoke a cigarette.

Later that month, Alvarez was at the Santa Ana city jail with inmate Craig Gonzales, who knew the defendant from a previous stint in prison.

Gonzales told police in 2010 that Alvarez confessed to the killing and gave details not released to the public.

Alvarez was convicted in 2012 and sentenced to 15 years to life in prison. He recently filed documents in federal court seeking a new trial on the grounds that Gonzales lied on the witness stand.

Gonzales testified that he never before worked with prosecutors, but Alvarez said the informant worked with prosecutors on a sexual assault case in Nevada in 2002 in exchange for a suspended sentence. The information wasn’t disclosed to Alvarez’ lawyer at the time of the trial, though appellate documents show the prosecutors didn’t know either.

Secondly, wrote Alvarez, Gonzales questioned him in violation of his civil rights. Alvarez said the informant was moved near his cell while he was reviewing discovery information.

Alvarez, who wrote his own motion by hand, cited the Dekraai case and the use by police and prosecutors of a secret network of jailhouse informants.

An appellate court has upheld Alvarez’s sentence and the state supreme court refused to review the case.

The state attorney general, which is arguing the case against Alvarez, says that while Gonzales may have been evasive in his testimony, that’s not the same as perjury. The state also points out that while Alvarez has cited the Dekraai case — in which an informant was improperly used — he has provided no proof that it happened in his case.

William Charles Payton

The last thing inmate William Payton expected was that the guy with the Bible in the cell next door was an informant working for the district attorney.

Accused of murder, Payton opened up to jail neighbor Daniel Escalera, who disarmed him with talks about the Lord before turning the subject to murder.

Escalera became a key witness in Payton’s 1982 penalty trial, which ended with the defendant being sent to Death Row. Today, Payton is next in line from Orange County to be executed, should the penalty resume.

Escalera testified that Payton confessed to having a “severe problem” with women and sex. That testimony helped sway a jury deliberating in the 1980 rape and stabbing death of Garden Grove resident Pamela Montgomery.

Attorney’s for Payton, motivated by findings in Dekraai, say the prosecutor in the Payton case, Michael Jacobs, was untruthful in a 1999 deposition in which he said Escalera and another informant were not agents of the government.

Jacobs, in a past interview, denied any misconduct and said he testified to the best of his knowledge.

If the misconduct is true, it would mean that the informant program uncovered by assistant public defender Sanders stretched back more than three decades.

From the beginning, the facts of the case worked against Payton. He was convicted of killing Montgomery, stabbing the 21-year-old woman a dozen times. Payton also was convicted of trying to murder two others: Patricia Pensinger, who survived 40 stab wounds, and Pensinger’s 10-year-old son, Blaine, who was stabbed 23 times.

The key question was whether Payton would be sentenced to death.

He was with the help of the informants.

If all goes as expected, the worst mass killer in Orange County history, Scott Dekraai, will be sentenced Friday, Sept. 22, to eight terms of life without parole, one term each for the people he fatally shot in Seal Beach six years ago.

But the sentence comes with a relatively high price tag after a judge rejected the death penalty and concluded local prosecutors and sheriff’s deputies had engaged in misconduct, according to records and interviews.

As of Sept. 6, the Dekraai case has cost taxpayers at least $2.5 million, according to an analysis by the Southern California News Group. That estimate would make the case more than twice as expensive as an average death penalty case – $1.08 million – from the date of arrest to sentencing, according to a 2011 study by a Loyola Law School professor and a senior federal appellate court judge.

The Orange County District Attorney’s Office, which said it did not track what it spent to prosecute Dekraai, said it is more concerned with justice than with costs.

“The OCDA exists to pursue truth and justice for the people and does not put a price on either,” said spokesperson Michelle Van Der Linden. District Attorney Tony Rackauckas has argued the misconduct findings are misguided and incorrect.

Whether all the money in the Dekraai case was well spent or necessary may depend on your point of view. Prosecutors wanted Dekraai to be put to death. The public defender wanted the result that was achieved: life without parole. Even with higher costs, the case opened a window on what the courts found to be systemic abuse of defendants’ civil rights.

The $2.5 million estimate covers only part of the actual costs. Other expenses, such as prosecutor salaries and costs incurred when the state took over the case, are either unknown, not compiled or undisclosed.

Dekraai confessed to police shortly after the rampage and formally pleaded guilty on May 2, 2014. Experts say the penalty phase of his trial could have ended sometime that year. The sentencing, now scheduled for Sept. 22, could have been held about three years ago.

“If this case had been prosecuted from the outset by the Orange County District Attorney within the most fundamental parameters of prosecutorial propriety, this defendant would likely today be living alongside other convicted killers on California’s Death Row in the state prison at San Quentin,” the judge in the Dekraai case, Thomas Goethals, said from the bench during a key ruling last month.

Instead, over the past three years, the Dekraai case veered into an exploration of allegations of widespread misconduct on the part of prosecutors and local sheriff’s deputies, allegations that Goethals eventually ruled were valid. The cost to taxpayers grew steadily during those years.

Peter Collins, an associate professor of criminal justice at Seattle University – a Jesuit institution – and an expert on death penalty cost benefit analysis, put it this way:

“The price of misconduct is steep.”

Of course, not all of the costs connected to Dekraai were related to misconduct, or avoidable.

The meter started running the day Dekraai killed his estranged wife and seven others at a Seal Beach beauty salon in a custody fight over their son. He has been in county jail since the day of the killings, Oct. 12, 2011, at an average cost of about $135 a night, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

Despite Dekraai’s confession to police soon after the shootings, prosecutors and sheriff’s deputies bugged his cell at the Orange County jail and sent a prolific informant to spy on him, according to documents filed by the defense in court. The goal, according to those documents was to get Dekraai to say on tape why he committed his crime. But at the time, Dekraai already had an attorney, and the use of an informant was a violation of his constitutional rights, the court ruled.

Goethals eventually learned prosecutors and deputies had made improper use of informants in other cases and removed the district attorney’s office from the Dekraai prosecution. He also took the death penalty off the table on Aug. 18, specifically citing misconduct and concerns that local officials would withhold favorable evidence in the penalty phase of Dekraai’s case.

Truth, justice and billable hours

There is no agreement, nationally or in California, on the average cost of a death penalty case. Estimates vary widely from state to state. Likewise, the $2.5 million estimate on the Dekraai case isn’t complete, in part because it’s derived only from information made available by public agencies or included in academic studies.

Some of the key elements that aren’t included in the Southern California News Group’s estimate – how much prosecutors spent on lawyer compensation, for example – aren’t tracked by the Orange County District Attorney.

“The OCDA is not a private law firm, we do not document billing hours as we do not bill clients,” said Van Der Linden.

“The OCDA is unable to provide time spent on the Dekraai case because the information does not exist,” she said. “Efforts by the Orange County Register to estimate or extrapolate costs have been repeatedly discouraged as reckless and unprofessional.”

Some county agencies were able to provide estimates of their costs associated with the case.

The County Counsel’s office estimated their two attorneys worked 1,000 hours representing the sheriff’s department at the proceedings, at an extrapolated cost of $106,750.

Some legal experts argue that tax money spent on prosecutions should be tracked.

“They only care about the headlines of seeking the death penalty,” said Mario Mainero, a professor at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law. “They don’t care about the costs.”

Still, Mainero, whose name has been mentioned in political circles as a possible challenger to Rackauckas in 2018, also noted that the district attorney’s office may have inadvertently saved taxpayers money.

Because he’ll be serving a life sentence, not a death sentence, Dekraai will be housed in lower-cost prison cells instead of San Quentin’s Death Row. He also won’t be eligible for automatic, taxpayer-financed appeals that can drag on for decades.

“Their incompetence ended up saving a lot more in these other costs,” Mainero said.

Expenses, known and otherwise

The $2.5 million estimate also does not include money spent by the Fourth District Court of Appeal to hear an appeal on the case, expenses by the California Attorney General to prosecute Dekraai, or any state money spent to investigate the informant scandal, an inquiry that is continuing. A request to the state for the time spent on the case by three deputy attorneys general – two of whom took over the case around January – went unanswered.

Additionally, the estimated price tag excludes the ongoing cost of a U.S. Department of Justice civil rights investigation into the county’s so-called “snitch scandal.”

In the long run, even successfully obtaining a death penalty sentence can often prove costly and frustrating to some taxpayers, said Collins, the Seattle law professor. More than three-quarters of the death penalty convictions in Washington state eventually are reversed, he said.

“That’s a big problem, when you spend so much money to try to get the outcome you want and 20 years later, it gets reversed,” Collins said.

“Whether you are for (the death penalty) or not, you can agree that’s a waste of time.”

The highest single cost for Dekraai’s case to date could be the public money spent to keep him off Death Row.

Dekraai’s defense probably ran close to $1 million, an estimate derived by calculating Assistant Public Defender Scott Sanders’ time on the case – after consulting with those familiar with the litigation – and dividing it by his total compensation. The same was done to calculate the cost of other defense attorneys who worked on the case.

Sanders declined to comment for the story.

Another large expense in the Dekraai case was daily court costs, estimated at $743,060. That figure was based on an average of $7,010 a day provided by the Judicial Council of California multiplied by 96 full days. Half days amounted to an estimated 20 at $3,505 each.

Collins said the process of analyzing the costs of death penalty cases is important, if only because it shows the differences – in tax dollars – between sentences of death and life in prison. He hopes the information will expand the debate over the death penalty to include financial costs, as well as whether executions are or aren’t humane.

“There is no easy way to make these cases cheaper,” Collins said.

“The costs are due to super due-process, and if we take away those, it’s stripping people’s rights.”

Scott Evans Dekraai, who pleaded guilty to the worst mass killing in Orange County history, was sentenced Friday, Sept. 22 to eight terms of life in prison without the possibility of parole, one term for each of his murder victims.

Superior Court Judge Thomas Goethals imposed the sentence in a standing-room-only Santa Ana courtroom, ending nearly six years of legal wrangling that started when Dekraai killed his ex-wife and seven others at a Seal Beach hair salon on Oct. 12, 2011 .

“The gates of Hell flew open and you emerged as the face of evil in this community,” Goethals told Dekraai before pronouncing the sentences, which included a ninth term of 232 years to life, for attempted murder and several gun-use enhancements.

The case dragged on as evidence mounted showing widespread misuse of jailhouse informants by local prosecutors and sheriff’s deputies. Goethals eventually ruled out capital punishment for Dekraai, saying the prosecution team’s misconduct had made the “once unthinkable” ruling his preferred option.

“The criminal justice system here in Orange County has largely failed you,” Goethals told the families of Dekraai’s victims.

“You deserved better.”

Goethals also repeated Friday what he has said in earlier court hearings, that he probably would have sentenced Dekraai to death if prosecutors and deputies had handled the case differently.

“I think it is highly likely that a jury would have convicted you and recommended I sentence you to death. I probably would have done exactly that.”

Instead, Goethals said, he was protecting “the rule of law and the integrity of the criminal justice system” by not imposing a death penalty.

He said Dekraai will spend his days in “a cramped, concrete cell” in a maximum security prison.

Families of the victims wished far worse for Dekraai. Before going on his rampage, the ex-husband of a co-worker at the hair salon where most of the victims worked had visited their homes, played golf with their spouses, knew their children.

“I hope you have a prison husband who is as evil as you are,” said James Spisak-Finch, cousin of victim Lucia Kondas.

Spisak-Finch wore a T-shirt emblazoned with Kondas’ picture. He demanded that Dekraai look at it.

“I don’t know if you looked at this face before you put a bullet in it. So look at it now,” he said.

“You took so many lives besides the eight you took with your gun.”

Through their tears, the families took turns addressing Dekraai. Many shouted “shut up” when he tried to apologize before his turn to speak.

Butch Fournier, whose sister, Michelle, was divorced from Dekraai, stared intently at the former tugboat crewman.

“I finally get to look you square in the eye and tell you what a piece of garbage you are,” Fournier said. “Take a look around, Scott. You’ve got nobody; no family, nothing.”

Renee Hudson, Michelle Fournier’s sister, had a special wish for Dekraai.

“I want you in general population. I want you to feel scared like my sister. I want the worst for you each and every day,” said Hudson, her brother, Butch, rubbing her back as she spoke.

Gordon Gallego, who was working at the salon the day of the shooting but wasn’t shot, described taking refuge in a bathroom during the rampage. He said he heard his friend Laura Webb Elody beg for her life. Then he heard her take her last breath.

“The screams and the gunshots still ring in my ears,” Gallego said.

“I hope today closes a chapter on a book no one wanted to read.”

Three family members took the unusual step of thanking Dekraai’s lawyer, Assistant Public Defender Scott Sanders, for doing his job well. His allegations about misconduct – which were born out during the hearings – have become central to a debate about the quality of justice in Orange County.

“I only wish the Orange County District Attorney had … the integrity not to cheat,” said Paul Wilson, whose wife, Christy, was killed. Wilson is supporting County Supervisor Todd Spitzer who is running to replace District Attorney Tony Rackauckas.

Dekraai was allowed by the judge to make a statement. Dekraai’s tone was apologetic, but he maintained that a “peaceful resolution could have been achieved” with his ex-wife.

“I can’t imagine the pain I’ve caused,” he said. “Hearing what I’ve heard today is so dynamic.”

Dekraai said he has had limited contact with people over the past six years, giving him time to reflect on his “despicable crime.”

Dekraai said no penalty could be harder than the punishment he imposed on himself. And then, “with remorse and incredible regret,” Dekraai said he was sorry.

Rackauckas, who was thrown off the case in March 2015 by Goethals, said in a tearful press conference days after the Seal Beach shooting that he would seek the death penalty for every Dekraai victim. He did not attend the sentencing Friday.

Both the Orange County District Attorney’s office and the Orange County Sheriff’s Department issued statements Friday offering sympathy for the families involved.

Rackauckas’ office’s statement also said that Dekraai should have been sentenced to death. The DA’s office has said Goethals, not misconduct by prosecutors or deputies, is responsible for Dekraai being allowed to live.

State prosecutors also believe Dekraai deserved the death penalty, though they said Friday they will not appeal Goethals’ ruling.

The sentencing, and the revelations of misconduct that came to light during the Dekraai case, could echo through next June’s elections. Rackauckas is seeking another term and several candidates hope to replace Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens, who is retiring.

Goethals said there were no winners in the case, only losers.

“At the end of the day, the only winner here is the rule of law.”

Goethals, who handled death penalty cases as a prosecutor and a defense lawyer, and now as a judge, described the Seal Beach shootings as a crime of such “horrible magnitude, they can hardly be compared to any others in the history of Orange County.”

Those killed were Victoria Buzzo, 54; David Caouette, 64; Randy Lee Fannin, 62; Michele Daschbach Fast, 47; Michelle Marie Fournier, 48; Lucia Bernice Kondas, 65; Laura Webb Elody, 46; and Christy Lynn Wilson, 47. Hattie Stretz was also shot but survived.

At 3:40 p.m. Friday, Dekraai entered a bus bound for prison, likely one of 12 reception centers in California, including the centers inside the men’s prisons at Wasco and Chino, according to the Department of Corrections and the Sheriff’s Department.

Dekraai is expected to spend about two months being tested by corrections officers for, among other things, his mental health, propensity for violence and medical needs. After that, he’ll be sent to one of the state’s 12 maximum security prisons.

Related stories

• Inside the snitch tank
• Seal Beach shootings 5 years later: Dekraai still in limbo as case rocks legal system
• 5 years later, survivors recall Seal Beach shootings, the worst in Orange County history
• Taxpayer cost for mass murder Scott Dekraai’s case tops $2.5 million
• Seal Beach shootings 5 years later: How friends, family are remembering the victims

Candice Bowers was so busy taking care of everyone else – her children, her adopted baby, her customers at a local restaurant – that she rarely took time for herself.

So her family was thrilled when the 40-year-old single mother from Garden Grove drove out with a friend to Las Vegas for a weekend of freedom and country music.

But like dozens of other concert-goers, Bowers didn’t make it back, the victim of a sniper’s bullet Sunday at the Route 91 Harvest festival. Bowers is among the at least six people who lived in Orange County or had strong county ties who have been confirmed among the dead.

Bowers’ family is now left with so many questions and so few answers. They are waiting to hear from relatives who rushed across the desert in search of news that might give them some closure.

• Related: These Southern Californians died in the Las Vegas mass shooting. Here are their stories

It doesn’t seem fair, said Bowers’ grandmother, Patricia Zacker. After years of hardship, Bowers’ life had finally turned a corner, Zacker said.

Bowers had adopted a 2-year-old niece, Ariel, in May. Her other two children, Kurtis, 20, and Katie, 16, were doing fine. Her job as a restaurant waitress was going well.

Life was looking up for the never-married mother.

And just as suddenly, it was over.

“She never had any support, except herself,” said Zacker, 82.

But a big smile and a loving heart always pulled her through.

“She was a generous girl,” said the grandmother, between sniffles.

Of the shooting, the family knows precious little at this point. Bowers and a friend dove under a table when the bullets began spraying the venue. They got separated in the melee and lost each other. That’s all they know, said Zacker.

As news of the shooting spread, the family tried unsuccessfully to get a hold of her. Then they started checking the hospitals, her children searched for word on social media. And finally Bowers’ name appeared on a list of the dead.

Even then it was hard to believe, said her aunt, Michelle Bolks, 61.

“Until that last minute, you just keep up the hope,” Bolks said.

Now hope has been replaced by a gratitude for the life of the fiercely loyal woman who, Bolks said, “would give her last dollar to anybody who needed it.”

Sometimes the superstars aren’t always the ones on stage.

Bowers’ aunt, Vicki Jeffries, 60, said she was a star in her own right for “working really hard and taking care of her children.”  Zacker said Bowers didn’t blink when it came to starting over with a baby after raising two kids of her own.

“It’s just a tragedy. It’s absolutely devastating,” Jeffries said. “She was truly a beautiful person.”

Bowers’ daughter, Katie, is a football team manager and junior at Pacifica High, where Mariners coach Vinnie Lopez said the team plans to wear wristbands and a helmet decal in Bowers’ honor in its next game.

“Everyone is pretty sober today,” Lopez said. “We consider (Axford) part of the family. .. It’s affected all of us, to be honest.”

The family has started a gofundme internet account with an eye toward helping with expenses.

Staff writer Dan Albano contributed to this article.

Brian Fraser, 39, of La Palma, was surrounded by family and friends, having the time of his life, and walking toward the stage to hear his favorite Jason Aldean song, “Dirt Road Anthem,” when he was shot and killed at a Las Vegas country music festival Sunday, according to his son.

“He served as my rock and my mentor,” said Nick Arellano, 25, whose mother married Fraser when Arellano was a teen. “He became my dad and my father figure. He helped anyone who asked. That’s why people loved and adored him.”

Arellano said his father loved to hunt, deep-sea fish, snowboard and attend his children’s sporting events. Fraser has recently earned his private pilot’s license.

• Related: These Southern Californians died in the Las Vegas mass shooting. Here are their stories

He was a churchgoing man who was a congregant of Friends Church in Yorba Linda. And he was an avid country music fan who attended the Route 91 Harvest festival with nearly 20 close friends and family, including his wife, son, and daughter-in-law. No one else in the group was seriously injured.

Fraser is survived by his wife and four children.

“A bigger-than-life man taken far too soon,” Briana Flanigan and Brittany Gonzalez, Fraser’s sisters-in-law wrote on a GoFundMe account that had raised more than $96,000 for Fraser’s family by Tuesday night.

Fraser graduated from Cal Poly Pomona in 2001. He most recently was employed as vice president of sales at Greenpath, a Southern California mortgage company. The company honored him in a social media post.

“Brian Fraser impacted everyone who crossed his path with his infectious positive energy, his tenacious will to succeed, and his willingness to help others,” his employer wrote.

Aliso Viejo’s Victor Link, 55

Victor Link, 55, of Aliso Viejo was fresh from a trip to Europe with his fiance when he headed to the Route 91 Harvest festival in Las Vegas. Link, originally from Shafter, worked in the mortgage industry.

And he was taking in concerts, enjoying friends.

Link was among those killed, leaving an adult son, Christian, to struggle with grief.

In his Facebook posting, Christian Link promised to accomplish all the goals he had set with his father. He didn’t say what those goals are. Some things are just between father and son.

Link lived in Aliso Viejo with his fiancee Lynne Gonzalez.

Note: Victor Link’s age and city of residence were incorrect in an earlier version of this story.

The “sanctuary state” bill — a far-reaching proposal aimed at preventing California law enforcement officers from helping to carry out President Donald Trump’s promised crackdown on illegal immigration — has been signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown, along with 10 other measures to protect undocumented immigrants.

“This action protects public safety and ensures hard-working people who contribute to our state are respected,” Brown said in a statement Thursday. The law takes effect Jan.1.

To many, Senate Bill 54 was the centerpiece of California’s anti-Trump resistance on immigration. It was introduced on the first day of the legislative session in December — just weeks after Trump’s election — and passed in the session’s final hours.

Pushed by immigration and civil rights groups, it was fiercely fought by the powerful state sheriff’s association. In Southern California, county sheriffs were divided on whether the new law will make it harder to fight crime.

S

👉@JerryBrownGov signs legislation to protect California’s hard-working immigrants: https://t.co/ygWbaKKzEV pic.twitter.com/kBCTR9H3qb

— Gov. Brown Press Ofc (@GovPressOffice) October 5, 2017

The bill will restrict communications between California police officers and federal immigration agents about people in police custody or in jail awaiting trial, with the exception of those who have been convicted of certain crimes within the past 15 years.

A coalition of civil rights groups that advocated for SB 54 applauded its passage.

“As we celebrate today’s signature, we honor the immigrant community members who bravely stood up and spoke out against painful deportations – and defended the principle that all people should be treated fairly, no matter what they look like or where they were born,” said the group.

Brown negotiated changes to the bill with its author, Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, including an expansion of exceptions to the restrictions. The changes neutralized the opposition of the statewide police chiefs, but many sheriffs — who oversee the state’s jails — remained opposed.

California State Sheriffs’ Association President Bill Brown called the new law “problematic.”

“We will continue to work to address the bill’s liabilities, which include restricting our communications with federal law enforcement about the release of wanted, undocumented criminals from our jails,” Brown said.

Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens said in a statement that the bill would end her county’s unique partnership with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in questioning inmates about their legal status. Orange County is the only one in the state participating in a federal program that allowed sheriff deputies to act legally as ICE agents inside the jails, an arrangement known as a 287(g) contract.

Under the agreement, deputies have been allowed to question people they suspect might be undocumented about their legal status. The information is used in targeting certain individuals for deportation. The agreement also requires deputies to share arrest data, documents and supporting evidence if ICE asks for it.

“Approval of SB 54 presents California with a significant challenge. Restrictions on our ability to communicate with federal authorities will hinder current collaborative efforts to remove serious offenders from our community,” Hutchens said. “This law is inconsistent with widely accepted best practices of open communication amongst all levels of law enforcement. Unfortunately, as a sheriff I must comply with the state’s new law.”

Hutchens said she and ICE would work together on developing “new protocols” to allow them to keep “serious offenders” off the streets while staying within the limits of the sanctuary law.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell initially opposed the bill, but was assuaged by changes that he said protected the relationship between federal and local law enforcement.

“While not perfect, SB 54 kept intact our ability to maintain partnerships with federal law enforcement officials who help us in the fight against gangs, drugs and human trafficking,” McDonnell said in a statement. “It also retains the controlled access that the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement has to our jails.”

He added, “These are challenging times for progressive counties such as Los Angeles to maintain civil dialogue around difficult issues. However, the LASD largely accomplished this mission.”

Other bills Brown signed include measures to protect undocumented immigrants from landlord discrimination, workplace raids and block the expansion of immigration detention centers.

Senate Bill 29, by Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, places a moratorium on new or renewed leases between local governments and for-profit immigration detention centers.

“California should not be siding with companies that profit from the detention of asylum seekers and the misery of divided families,” Lara said in a statement Thursday. “Senate Bill 29 will stop the runaway train of detention and shine a light on private companies so California can ensure the human rights and dignity of those immigrants detained in our state.”

The Orange County Sheriff’s Department has a $29 million-a-year federal contract to house immigrant detainees in the county jail.

Undersheriff Don Barnes said the new law would prevent the county from expanding the number of beds in the agreement, but the county would still be able to renew the contract.

Barnes said that housing undocumented detainees in Orange County is actually a benefit to immigrant families. He explained that otherwise the detainees would be housed in Northern California, Arizona or Texas, away from their families.

“Even if they are released into the public, ICE will still come looking for them and if they come into contact with other (undocumented) immigrants, they will take them along with them,” Barnes said.

Here is a sampling of the immigration bills signed into law:

‘Sanctuary state’: Senate Bill 54, by Senate Leader Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, aims to prevent local law enforcement officers from assisting with a promised crackdown on illegal immigration by restricting communication between local officers and federal agents about people in custody, with the exception of those convicted of most felonies within the past 15 years.

Landlords and housing: Assembly Bill 291, by Assemblyman David Chiu, D-San Francisco, will make it illegal for landlords to use someone’s real or perceived immigration status against them. Assembly Bill 299, by Assemblyman Ian Calderon, D-Whittier, would bar public entities from seeking information from property managers about a tenant’s immigration status.

Workplace raids: Another bill by Chiu, Assembly Bill 450, was carried in anticipation of stepped-up workplace immigration raids and would require an employer to require proper court documents before allowing immigration agents access to the workplace or to employee information.

‘Dreamer’ and student protections: Assembly Bill 699 by Assemblyman Patrick O’Donnell, D-Long Beach, prevents schools from collecting information about the immigration status of students or their families and requires school officials to report requests for information or access to a school from immigration authorities to the governing board, among other measures. As soon as President Trump announced he would be phasing out the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which grants work permits to young people brought into the country illegally as children (many of whom refer to themselves as “Dreamers”), lawmakers issued a number of bills, including Assembly Bill 21, by Assemblyman Ash Kalra, D-San Jose. It will require CSU and community colleges to expand protections for college DACA students and their families.

Internal reports that the Orange County Fire Authority bungled its initial response to the Canyon Fire 2 are prompting Orange County Supervisor Shawn Nelson to ask colleagues for an independent investigation of the fire that burned 9,200 acres and destroyed or damaged nearly 60 homes around Anaheim Hills.

“There’s a lot of stuff out there and some of it is not adding up,” Nelson said Sunday, Oct. 22. “We need to find out what’s going on over there.

“We have a right to answers,” he added. “And, right now, I don’t know who to believe.”

Among the questions Nelson wants investigated:

• Did the Orange County Fire Authority respond correctly when it first was told of a possible fire in the canyon on the morning of Oct. 9?

Documents obtained by Southern California News Group show that the Fire Authority’s initial response was to send a single fire engine, without lights and sirens, a response known as a  “smoke check.” That response may have violated the Fire Authority’s own guidelines which because of the conditions that day, according to documents, required a “medium danger” deployment, including six engines, a hand crew, two air tankers and two OCFA helicopters.

• Why do public accounts about the time of the blaze differ from the Fire Authority’s documents?

Anaheim public officials and the Fire Authority have said the fire was first reported at 9:45 a.m. Documents obtained by the Southern California News Group show the first call came 17 minutes earlier, at 9:28 a.m., from a driver heading west on the 91 freeway.

Documents also show that at 9:43 a.m., the Fire Authority increased its response to what was by then known to be a full-blown vegetation fire. The first OCFA helicopter – crucial in any attempt to keep small fires from turning into big ones – didn’t lift off until 9:52 a.m., nearly half an hour after the blaze was first reported. It’s unclear when the first helicopter arrived to drop water on the flames.

Fire authority officials did not return calls Sunday. In an earlier interview, Capt. Marc Stone said he would look into the timeline and the agency’s response to the fire.

Nelson also said he is frustrated by the ongoing feud between the Fire Authority and the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. Even as the fire burned, the two agencies resumed their long-running turf war over whether sheriff’s helicopters should do jobs traditionally reserved for fire helicopters.

Sheriff’s officials said that on the day of the Canyon 2 fire they could have sent three water-dumping helicopters to the blaze in the early minutes, but were not asked to do so by the Fire Authority.

Officials from the Fire Authority said they sought help from the sheriff’s department later in the day, seeking a small helicopter to play an “eye in the sky” role as 17 other helicopters were dropping water on the flames, but sheriff’s officials said they couldn’t comply.

Nelson said he wants the feuding to end because it affects county safety.

“I don’t care who is holding the hose,” Nelson said. “Shoot at the flames.”

Documents do show some elements of the response weren’t fast enough to match the fast-moving blaze.

At 9:52 a.m., the first OCFA helicopter lifted off from Fullerton Airport. But a second helicopter – which a Fire Authority memo dated Oct. 8 said was required because of “red flag warnings” in effect that week – did not leave and had to be dispatched again five minutes later.

The fixed-wing planes that would have been part of a “medium level” response were not en route until 10:19 a.m., from Hemet, 51 minutes after the fire was reported.

At 10:42 a.m., the blaze jumped the 241 toll road, and began its march toward Canyon Heights Drive in Anaheim Hills. It is believed the first homes were engulfed by noon.

At its peak, more than 1,600 firefighters from several agencies were engaged in the Canyon 2 fire. At least four firefighters were injured. The fire was declared fully contained on Oct. 17.

Nelson plans to formally ask other supervisors to join him in seeking an independent investigation of the Canyon 2 fire as part of their scheduled meeting on Oct. 31

The motorist who first reported the Canyon Fire 2 said Monday, Oct. 23 that he described the Oct. 9 incident as a fire, not as smoke.

The distinction matters because Orange County Fire Authority officials confirmed Monday that the dispatcher’s first response was to send a single fire engine with lights and sirens off, a deployment known as a low-priority “smoke check.” By the time a dispatcher ordered more engines and air equipment to the canyon – the “medium response” that department guidelines dictate for an active fire – the blaze had grown and was moving too fast for containment.

Over the next six days the Canyon Fire 2 burned 9,200 acres, destroyed or damaged nearly 60 homes and forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes.

Motorist Mike Griffith said he told a dispatcher that he saw a bush engulfed in wind-whipped flames about 6 feet high as he drove west to work on the 91 Freeway.

“Knowing what they know now, they could probably send a helicopter and be done with it,” said Griffith, 40, a media production company owner from Corona.

“I was thinking it could be put out very quickly.”

In the week or so before Griffith’s call, local fire agencies had taken numerous reports from motorists and others about rising smoke in the canyons. Those calls turned out to be false alarms, often dust devils and ash from previous fires whipped up by gusts of wind, said Marc Stone, a battalion chief with the Orange County Fire Authority.

Stone noted it would be impractical to send a full fire-fighting crew, including air tankers and helicopters, to respond to each report. He described the decision to issue a smoke check as a “judgment call-based situation.”

Fire officials also said their initial response to the Oct. 9 report involved two agencies, a factor that delayed their response.

Griffith’s call came to Anaheim Fire at 9:26 a.m., and was transferred to the Fire Authority two minutes later, said agency spokesman Sgt. Daron Wyatt on Monday. But Anaheim Fire didn’t hear back from the Fire Authority until 9:43 a.m., when a request was made to dispatch Anaheim engines to the canyon.

That 17-minute delay has prompted Anaheim Fire and Rescue to implement a change in policy. Going forward, Wyatt said, Anaheim Fire will respond to calls in the canyons even as it transfers the call to the Fire Authority.

By the time firefighters and air crews reached the burning area first reported by Griffith, the fire was moving too quickly for easy containment. The fire jumped the 241 toll road, which connects Riverside and Orange counties, at 10:42 a.m. Soon after, the fire was swallowing homes in Anaheim Hills.

Among the first to go was the Canyon Heights home owned by Kevin Shaevitz, a chiropractor who has lived in the neighborhood since 2006.

Shaevitz said Monday he still has too many questions to formulate any opinions on the response of the fire service.

“You kind of feel like (you’re) in the Twilight Zone and you’ll wake up soon,” said Shaevitz. “I’m trying to get more information to understand exactly what happened.”

County officials also are seeking more information.

County Supervisor Shawn Nelson said he wants an independent investigation into the delay as well as the dogfight between the Orange County Sheriff Department’s helicopter division and the Fire Authority over the sheriff’s desire to get more involved in firefighting and rescue operations. The Board of Supervisors is expected to take up the issue at its next scheduled meeting, Oct. 31.

“It’s pretty hard to swallow they didn’t send someone out there urgently,” Nelson said Sunday.

The son of a high-profile Chicago politician died in February at a sober living home affiliated with addiction treatment provider New Existence Recovery.

In March, a co-owner of New Existence, possibly distraught over that death, died after an apparent overdose.

In addition, last month, a man committed suicide by hanging himself at a mental health facility run by embattled Sovereign Health. Also last month, Luminance Recovery in south Orange County filed for bankruptcy in the wake of shrinking insurance reimbursements, according to public records.

Such human and financial misery is a cranked-up version of what passes for normal in the region’s drug and alcohol recovery industry. Patients die often in rehab; and many rehabs are financially challenged.

But after years of being largely ignored by regulators and state lawmakers, the chaotic industry is starting to attract closer scrutiny.

The Orange County District Attorney launched a specialized task force in March to probe insurance fraud and human trafficking, seen as common abuses in the world of addiction recovery. The O.C. task force comes as other agencies, including the Los Angeles District Attorney and the U.S. Department of Justice, continue open investigations of some of the region’s bigger rehab providers. It also comes as state and federal legislators are proposing new rules aimed at cleaning up the industry.

“People in need of recovery are being exploited,” said D.A. Tony Rackauckas at a public hearing on rehabilitation exploitation and health care trafficking that attracted dozens of people demanding change.

Rackauckas’ bid to look harder at the recovery business comes in the wake of a Southern California News Group investigation into what is known in the industry as “Rehab Riviera,” the cluster of more than 1,000 licensed recovery centers and thousands of unlicensed sober living homes operating in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

The SCNG investigation found that rehab industry includes many unscrupulous operators who thrive on a business model that can turn a single drug addict or alcoholic into huge profit, often without providing much in the way of recovery services.

Some operators use offers of free travel and treatment “scholarships” to lure addicts from other states into Southern California. Those addicts then are signed up for health insurance via Covered California, often under false pretenses, with treatment centers paying the premiums and then billing insurance companies — a slight-of-hand move that can put hundreds of thousands of dollars into the operator’s pocket. Often, when the insurance runs dry, those addicts wind up on Southern California streets, destitute and still addicted. Sometimes addicts die while in the care of non-medical centers that would not be allowed to open in other states.

Many rehab operators are themselves former addicts or convicts, with little or no training in the science of addiction treatment — a fact that frustrates others who say their industry is suffering from a combination of poor oversight and greed.

“I’m thrilled to have this getting the attention of the DA’s office,” said Nancy Clark, who opened her substance abuse treatment facility in Costa Mesa in 1990.

“What I’m seeing is a lot of (providers) who used to be addicted to dope are now addicted to money. They have come upon a business plan that’s incredibly profitable to them.”

New Existence

People who knew Tim Flinn said he was having a hard time after a client, 24-year-old Mark Vallas, died on Feb. 23 at a Huntington Beach sober living home associated with New Existence. Vallas was the son of former Chicago Public Schools CEO and Illinois gubernatorial candidate Paul Vallas.

The Huntington Beach Police Department’s investigation of Vallas’ death is ongoing, officials said.

Flinn also struggled with addiction, and co-founded New Existence in 2016 with friend Dylan Walker. One of Flinn’s last posts on Facebook said, “I would break my back for the ones I love…but how many would push the wheelchair for me after?”

Flinn was found dead at his Fountain Valley home on Tuesday, March 13, police said. He was a burly man covered with tattoos, but those who knew him said his tough exterior sheathed a tender heart.

“He was a stand-up guy who really cared about what he did,” said a former client. “He helped hundreds of people, maybe more than a thousand…  He’d say, ‘What can I do for you to keep you safe?'”

Flinn was apparently facing pressure on several fronts.

In addition to the Vallas death, and a complaint about the company’s advertising that had been filed with the state, the California Department of Health Care Services concluded in December that two New Existence homes in Costa Mesa constituted an “unlicensed facility in violation of the law.” A March update from the state shows that both facilities are now licensed.

New Existence’s business practices have also come under fire from people in the nearly-4,000-member, “It’s Time for Ethics in Addiction Treatment,” a Facebook group of rehab counselors and others who discuss problems within the industry.

Last year, a text exchange between Flinn’s business partner, Walker, and an addict, went public in that forum, laying bare an increasingly-common scam scam: Addicts demanding to be paid to get surgical implants of opioid-blocking drugs. The idea is that the addicts know rehab operators and doctors can bill insurance companies thousands of dollars per procedure.

“New Existence has not and will not engage in any unlawful or unethical treatment or business practice,” a spokeswoman for the company said by email when the text exchange became public in October. “Unfortunately, the addiction treatment industry is fraught with questionable practices, and we have encountered similar requests or demands in the past—which have all been rejected.”

But pressure on Flinn’s company didn’t go away.

Last month, Advocates for Responsible Treatment filed a complaint with the state Department of Health Care Services that said New Existence is licensed as a non-medical detox and did not appear to have state approval to provide incidental medical services. Still, the New Existence web site said, “Our specialized staff and doctors are handpicked to provide each client with the best medical detox care possible. From the moment the individual walks in they will be medically assessed by the on-staff doctor.”

The complaint filed with the state argued that New Existence’s message to customers was criminally misleading: “It is our understanding that this level of service belongs only in a clinic and therefore the operator is acting illegally.”

Walker declined comment for this story.

The Department of Health Care Services confirmed that it is investigating one death linked to New Existence. While it probes all deaths in licensed treatment facilities, both Flinn and Vallas reportedly died at unlicensed homes. Sober living homes are not subject to licensure or state regulation, and generally are not controlled by city zoning rules and other legal oversight because drug addicts and alcoholics are protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Last year, Huntington Beach code enforcement officers received five complaints about homes associated with New Existence’s owners, officials said. City records list complaints such as “over 10 people, bottles on lawn,” “Sober Living facility with drugs on premises,” “residents smoking marijuana, graffiti on fence” and “sober living facility with 14 people.”

Code enforcement officials visited the homes and found that the number of residents either was less than six, or that residents denied the facilities were sober living homes, or that officers couldn’t confirm the number of residents because no one responded, city officials said.

Whatever the pressures Flinn faced, industry observers suggest his death is stark evidence of how thin the line can be, particularly in California, between addicts seeking treatment and the people who often make big money by selling an opportunity for sobriety.

“Heroin won again, and that makes me very said,” said David Skonezny, a certified drug and alcohol counselor, who created the Facebook group that has been critical of New Existence, in reference to Flinn’s death.

“Here’s a guy who, at his core, was probably a good guy, but in the end, (he was) a victim of his addiction,” said Skonezny, who has served on the board of directors for California Consortium of Addiction Programs and Professionals.

“We need to have an honest conversation about what that looks like,” Skonezny added.

“I hope they memorialize Tim as a human being, but don’t overlook the hurt and harm that were caused through his actions.”

Luminance

Luminance Recovery, a detoxification and rehab facility based in San Juan Capistrano, abruptly shut down last month without issuing paychecks, according to several workers who asked not to be identified because they fear it could affect their prospects for future employment.

Michael Castanon, founder and chief executive officer of Luminance, delivered news of the closure to about 100 employees during a company-wide meeting and conference call that lasted about 10 minutes.

After Castanon’s announcement, some workers left immediately, leaving others to help place dozens of clients at other rehab facilities in San Clemente, Laguna Niguel, Dana Point and Ladera Ranch, employees said.

Castanon later acknowledged Luminance’s financial difficulties.

“The situation is we are struggling with receiving insurance payments,” he said last month. “We have been subsidizing the company with our own cash. We have not been able to pay our investors and they have frozen our bank accounts.We didn’t anticipate it happening. We hope to be able to turn it around and take care of employee payroll.”

However, he wasn’t sure when workers might be paid.

There have been other repercussions since Luminance’s closure. Flat screen televisions, computers, a conference table and other items have been stolen in two break-ins at the company’s headquarters, and another at a sober living home in San Clemente, said Castanon, who believes the burglaries are related to his inability to cut paychecks.

“It’s tragic,” he said. “I understand people are upset.”

Luminance filed for federal bankruptcy protection on March 21, detailing liabilities of more than $2.3 million.

Last year, as the insurance industry looked hard at rehab operators, reimbursements fell from 45 percent of billed claims to just 25 percent, Luminance’s bankruptcy filings said. The cutbacks came as insurers argued that some providers were committing fraud.

Castanon and other Luminance officials were described as conscientious by several employees.

“Being part of the Luminance family was so much different that working in any other job in the recovery field,” said Holly Layte, a case manager for Luminance. “I feel they truly care about our clients. I understand the frustrations from employees, but we are in the midst of being paid from the insurance companies.”

Luminance asked the bankruptcy court for permission to use available cash to fund Castanon’s nearly $180,000 annual salary, and that of other key executives, in order to pursue collections.

Death at Sovereign

Mental health provider Sovereign Health has been having a rough time as well.

In June, after Sovereign became entangled in civil lawsuits with insurance giant HealthNet over the validity of its billings, it was raided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. More than 100 agents stormed Sovereign offices and treatment centers in south Orange County, hunting for evidence of health care fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy, “laundering of monetary instruments” and illegal payments for patient referrals, according to paperwork filed in federal court by attorneys for the company.

Like Luminance and many other providers, Sovereign has struggled because of reduced reimbursements from insurers. Last month, as Sovereign closed and consolidated several treatment centers, a 26-year-old client, Brandon Nelson, hung himself at a company facility on Calle Vallarta in San Clemente.

“All of our staff is deeply saddened by this young man’s death. Our thoughts are with his family and loved ones. Federal privacy laws preclude us from discussing this tragic event further,” said Haroon Ahmad, Sovereign spokesman.

The San Clemente-based mental health and addiction treatment provider is closing its facility in El Paso; moving its women’s facility in Chandler, Arizona, to a new and larger facility in Beaumont in Riverside County; and closing part of its treatment facility in Culver City, officials said.

The Beaumont facility is expected to open by mid-year. The Culver City center will continue to offer detox services, officials said.

“These changes were made in order to streamline our portfolio and improve our financial performance by focusing on our top-performing facilities: San Clemente, Palm Desert and Fort Myers, Fla.,” said a statement from spokesman Ahmad.

The company’s financial problems can be tracked, at least in part, to the ongoing legal dispute with HealthNet, in which both sides accuse the other of wrongdoing.

‘Shape up!’

At the D.A.’s hearing, Clark, the long-time rehab operator, said insurance companies are just as culpable for what’s happening in the industry as the crooked rehabs are.

“I talked to a dad yesterday. He has a policy out of Illinois,” Clark said. “It paid a program $180,000 for 90 days of treatment, and his son has been to nine programs, in nine different states. He is only 22.

“So it’s bad,” Clark said, surveying the crowd at Costa Mesa at the hearing.

Clark was in the dark about patient brokering and human trafficking in her industry until she started getting phone calls from people wanting to know how much her referral fee was, she said.

She was stunned to realize that they were demanding money in exchange for sending her a client.

“To the providers in this room I say, ‘You have to step up your game,” Clark said. “‘You have to stop feeling like everyone here is your enemy. And you really need to shape up.’”

Ads for drug and alcohol treatment soon will pop up again on Google searches — ending a company-imposed hiatus — but only from rehab centers that clear independent background screenings, the web giant said.

“We work to help healthcare providers — from doctors to hospitals and treatment centers — get online and connect with people who need their help,” said David Graff, senior director of global product policy for Google. “Substance abuse is a growing crisis and has led to deceptive practices by bad actors.”

Google is partnering with LegitScript, an Oregon-based company that does verification and monitoring to screen out scammers among online pharmacies. LegitScript is putting together a new certification program for drug and alcohol addiction treatment providers that includes criminal background checks. Oly those who pass can buy Google AdWords.

Getting that approval will not be inexpensive. The application fee is $995, pass or fail; and the annual fee for certification is $1,995 a year, according to LegitScript.

“All of us at LegitScript are really excited about this new program,” said CEO John Horton in a blog post. “In many ways, it’s a natural extension of the work we’ve done for years to make the rogue internet pharmacy problem — a driver of prescription drug abuse and other problems — smaller.”

The Southern California News Group spent a year probing the addiction industry and found it peppered with financial abuses that bleed untold millions from public and private pockets, and ineffective treatments that can endanger lives. Google ads didn’t help.

“(P)atients and their families need to know which treatment providers are credible and legitimate, and which ones should be avoided,” Horton wrote. “We hope that our program will help provide patients and our partners (like Google) information about which programs provide genuine treatment and which are, in essence, scams.”

The program, which will resume in July, will start slowly – certifying just 30 or so for the first few months as LegitScript ramps up its vetting process, Horton said.

Industry professionals were glad to hear of the change in Google AdWords, but were somewhat doubtful about whether bad actors could be completely weeded out. There are no universal standards to rate rehab centers.   

“If they can (screen) and do it well, it opens up an information stream for people seeking treatment,” said Jerry Jenkins, chairman of the National Certification Commission for Addiction Professionals. “But I don’t know how they’ll say ‘this is a good actor’ or ‘this is not a good actor.’”

Dave Sheridan, on the board of the Chandler Lodge Foundation, which runs a sober home in Los Angeles, said vetting was a good compromise.

“My guess is there are some bad operators who will find their way through. But anything is better than nothing,” said Sheridan.

Mark Mishek, president and CEO of the Hazelden Betty Ford Center, has been pushing for reforms to improve quality and prevent unscrupulous practices like deceptive marketing for some time.

“This solution from Google seems like a reasonable way forward,” Mishek said in a statement. “We want individuals and families to be able to find quality care quickly but also need to make sure Google is not a playground for fraudulent marketers. The devil will be in the details on these standards. So, we’ll have to see how they work in practice. But conceptually, this is a sensible step.”

Kyle McHenry, CEO of Vertex Healthcare Services, a billing and consulting firm, thinks the move is a good one.  “I wish they had done that three years ago,” he said.

Google, as the nation’s No. 1 addiction treatment referrer, has a special obligation to ensure that it’s not sending vulnerable people into harm’s way, activists have said. The move cut off at least $78 million annually worth of advertising in the U.S. alone, research firm Kantar Media told Reuters.

“This is a complex issue but we believe our partnership with LegitScript is a great first step in the US to help better connect people with the treatment they need,” said Google’s Graff.

The AdWords problem was brought to Google’s attention last year by a nonprofit called FacingAddiction.org. It was founded by Jim Hood, who lost his 20-year-old son to an overdose after maddening years trying to navigate the treatment universe, which felt more like finding a restaurant on Yelp than locating life-or-death help.

His organization has developed free resources on a wide range of addiction-related help – from prevention to physicians to therapists to treatment centers – but couldn’t compete with the big for-profit players. At FacingAddiction’s urging, Google stopped accepting rehab ads.

This new vetting process is a step in the right direction, Hood said, but he is looking forward to more.

Even after  vetting, “the preponderance of what you’re going to see are ads for treatment centers that are probably pretty expensive and represent a very small fraction of the total universe of places and things and people that are out there that could be helpful for people on the addiction landscape,” Hood said. “They’ll be from Laguna Beach or Delray Beach – and most people are new to this and don’t know what they don’t know.

“Not everyone needs to immediately go into residential treatment,” he said. “And best practices say that people should look for help close to home, where they have support. We want people to be able to get that information, too.”

Updated 4/23/2018 at 11:30 a.m. with Mishek comment