A Newport Beach police supervisor raised concerns several weeks ago that the Orange County District Attorney’s Office was trying to “cover-up” racially charged comments made by DA Todd Spitzer, according to a newly-released memo he sent to a judge.

Court Depweg, an acting lieutenant in the police department’s detective division, informed a judge in a Feb. 3 memo that he had warned the head of the DA’s homicide division that “the actions by his office would affect our working relationship moving forward and it was disappointing that he and so many of his colleagues would try and cover this matter up, as we all know ‘the cover-up is always worse than the crime.’ “

In the memo, the lieutenant described the DA’s office as going behind the back of the victims and police by informing the court and the defense that they would not seek the death penalty against Jamon Buggs, a Black man who is accused of killing a White couple in Newport Beach. The memo also cites what the lieutenant described at the time as “information from multiple sources” that DA Todd Spitzer had made “an unsolicited, derogatory and racist comment about Black men/persons.”

Police and prosecutors work as partners on the prosecution team during a criminal case, and it is highly unusual for a police official to reach out directly to a judge to criticize the DA office’s actions or to weigh in outside of the DA’s office on what information should be shared with the court or the defense. Newport Beach police on Thursday declined to comment further on the memo.

Spitzer said at the time the police memo was written, his office was “very limited in what we could say because we had already gone to the judge and the issue was being litigated in court.” Spitzer previously said he was misquoted and taken out of context regarding the racial comments.

“It is completely understandable that there would be some confusion by other parties because the ongoing litigation prevented us from discussing details of the proceedings,” Spitzer said.

“When my head of homicide expressed to me that Newport Beach police had questions about the status of the case and asked if I would take a phone call, I told him they could call me anytime,” Spitzer added. “No one ever called me.”

DA spokeswoman Kimberly Edds said they had already reached out to the judge the day before the police memo was sent and met with the judge the day after that.

The formerly sealed memo was sent to Orange County Superior Court Judge Gregg L. Prickett, who released it on Thursday, a day after internal memos outlining the racially charged comments made by Spitzer were leaked to the media. The Register had previously requested that the filings in the case be unsealed, citing the potential significant public interest.

In a memo about an Oct. 1 meeting regarding whether to seek the death penalty in the Buggs case, former Senior Assistant District Attorney Ebrahim Baytieh wrote that Spitzer inquired about the race of Buggs’ previous girlfriends.

According to Baytieh’s memo, others in the room told Spitzer the question was irrelevant and inappropriate to consider during a discussion of the death penalty, but Spitzer disagreed and “said he knows many black people who get themselves out of their bad circumstances and bad situations by only dating ‘white women.” Baytieh later penned a correction amending the line to say Spitzer “knows many black people who enhance their status by only dating ‘white women.’”

Baytieh in the initial memo also alleged that Spitzer said he knew a Black student in college who dated only White women to get himself out of his “bad circumstances and situations,” a quote later amended to say Spitzer said he knew a Black student who dated only White women to “enhance his status.”

In his own memo to the judge, Spitzer defended himself by writing he was trying to determine the potential racial overtones in the Buggs case and other mitigating factors. According to the memo, Buggs wanted to kill the man he believed was dating his former girlfriend, who is White. And the female victim’s appearance was similar to Buggs’ estranged girlfriend’s, the DA added, raising questions about whether he misidentified the woman prior to allegedly killing her.

Spitzer fired Baytieh a week ago, publicly saying the dismissal was the result of an investigation into whether Baytieh withheld evidence in a 2010 murder case, resulting in the conviction being overturned. But Baytieh’s defenders contend he was actually fired for acting as a whistleblower regarding the racial comments.

In his memo, Baytieh contended that Buggs’ defense attorney should have been informed of Spitzer’s comments under the recent Racial Justice Act, which allows lawyers to challenge a conviction based on racial bias. Spitzer disagreed, and removed everyone at the meeting – including himself – from handing the case.

That changeover in the prosecution team appears to be what prompted Depweg, the acting lieutenant in the Newport Beach detective division, to write his memo to Judge Prickett, who is presiding over the Buggs case. Depweg in the memo expressed concern that the case had been assigned to a prosecutor who was not in the DA’s homicide division, and that the previous prosecutor told him that they could no longer speak to them about Buggs’ criminal case.

Depweg wrote that he expressed his concerns about a potential cover-up during a lunch with Steve McGreevy, head of the DA’s homicide unit. McGreevy responded that “he completely understood my position,” Depweg wrote.

Buggs, a personal trainer from Huntington Beach, was arrested several days after the bodies of 48-year-old Wendi Miller and 38-year-old Darren Partch were found at Partch’s home in the 2100 block of East 15th Street in Newport Beach. He is currently awaiting trial.

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