Records show more than 30 phone calls made from his jail cell to his attorney by a defendant charged with killing his girlfriend and their two sons were improperly recorded by authorities, a defense attorney said Friday.
Attorney Joel Garson — who is trying to get dumped attempted murder charges against his client, Joshua Waring, the son of a former “Real Housewives of Orange County” cast member — said he has found that 33 phone calls made by Shazer Fernando Limas to his attorneys were recorded over the past few years.
Garson filed a motion to dismiss charges against Waring based on outrageous governmental misconduct earlier this year. This week it was learned in those legal proceedings that the contractor that provides phone services to inmates has acknowledged that 1,079 inmate telephone calls to numbers that were designed as “do not record” were recorded.
The contractor, Global Tel Link Corporation, has blamed the problem on a software upgrade in January of 2015. On Thursday, the executive vice president of the company, Darren Wallace, will testify more about the problem to help attorneys determine whose calls were recorded and which ones may have been accessed by law enforcement or prosecutors.
Limas is charged with killing 31-year-old Arlet Hernandez Contreras and their two boys, year-old Fernando and 3-month-old Emmanuel, in the family’s Orange apartment in the 3000 block of West Chapman Avenue in mid-April 2012. Authorities found Contreras’ body, but they never found the remains of the boys.
Limas was eligible for the death penalty, but prosecutors decided not to pursue that punishment.
Two of Warings’ calls to his former attorney, Ray Chen of the Public Defender’s Office, were on a list of 87 calls that were accessed, meaning they were copied for investigators or listened to by law enforcement, Garson said.
There could be more calls that were improperly recorded, but it’s unclear because the data prosecutors and Garson have received from the contractor are difficult to sift through, Garson said.
Attorneys are hopeful that Wallace may shed more light on whose calls were recorded and accessed.
The breach has come as a surprise to prosecutors on the case. Senior Deputy District Attorney Cindy Nichols has pressed sheriff’s officials in court to provide more records of the calls to Garson.
Sheriff Sandra Hutchens on Thursday said she would ask the county’s Office of Independent Review to review the issue. She said she has directed GTL to correct the problem and discontinue recording the calls.
The issue could undo multiple cases as attorneys argue the possibility that law enforcement or prosecutors gained an unfair advantage by listening to the calls, which are supposed to be private by law.
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