OC DA Todd Spitzer under investigation for handling of murder case, alleged racial remarks

Embattled Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer is now under investigation by OC's top law enforcement watchdog.

The Office of Independent Review probe comes after weeks of controversy and growing calls for Spitzer's resignation.

"We are seeking to establish the necessary relevant facts about what was said at the meeting and what the consequences of those statements were and continue to be," O.C. Office of Independent Review Executive Director Sergio Perez said. "We want to make sure that folks can trust the criminal justice system, and that prosecutions are being carried out lawfully and justly, and so that's our goal at the end of the day."

Spitzer was allegedly caught on camera twice making racist remarks, once while speaking at an event about hate crimes - where he says he was quoting a white supremacist - and another while discussing a high-profile murder case.

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The video was taken in 2019 during an event with the Iranian American Bar Association. Spitzer was speaking about hate crimes and was quoting statements that were projected a screen as part of his presentation.

"I am the one who originally insisted on expanding oversight to the Orange County District Attorney's Office," Spitzer said in a statement in response to the probe. "Of course we will fully cooperate with any investigation. There is absolutely zero truth to the allegations."

The Office of Independent Review investigation focuses on how Spitzer handled the decision whether to seek the death penalty against a double-murder defendant, the head of the office said Friday.

Perez, the head of the Office of Independent Review, which works for the Orange County Board of Supervisors, said he could not comment on when or who made the complaint about how Spitzer handled the meetings with prosecutors regarding the Jamon Buggs case. Spitzer was pushing for the death penalty, but then changed his mind and is now seeking life without the possibility of parole instead.

"We're looking at the alleged statements made by the district attorney with regard to the criminal prosecution of Buggs,'' Perez said.

Spitzer came under fire for stating during the meetings with other prosecutors on the case that he asked about the race of Buggs' ex-girlfriend, who is white, because he was concerned that the accused killer may have shot one of the victims, who is also white, by mistake.

Spitzer cited cross racial discrimination because it is one of the main reasons death penalty verdicts are overturned, but that is usually because a witness picks the wrong person out of a lineup due to racial biases. Spitzer also said during the meetings that he knew of Black classmates in college who dated white women as a way of increasing their status. Buggs is Black.

READ MORE: OC district attorney accused of making racist remarks in case of Black defendant

Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer is being accused of making racist remarks while discussing a high-profile murder case last year.

Perez said his office was also looking at whether Spitzer violated Marsy's Law, which Spitzer himself championed as a lawmaker, because at least one Newport Beach investigator on the case complained in a letter to the judge in the case that when Spitzer walled off himself and the prosecutors in the case and assigned it to other prosecutors that it left the victims and police in the dark on the case.

"This will be an independent, objective assessment of that from a neutral third party so that people can trust the government is doing the work the right way,'' Perez said.

City News Service contributed to this report