According to sources at the Orange County Sheriff's Department, David L. Brent–the veteran prosecutor who runs the district attorney's acclaimed homicide unit–was arrested with his wife on Christmas Day following a domestic dispute.
No other information was available officially, except that Brent was released from custody at Orange County Jail on Dec. 26. The prosecutor did not return a call for comment. Susan Kang Schroeder, the public affairs counsel for the DA's office, said to avoid a conflict of interest the matter has been turned over to the California Attorney General's office for a decision on whether charges will be filed.
A large man with a gentle demeanor and tremendous courtroom skills, the 53-year-old Brent has been a prosecutor for 24 years, conducted more than 50 murder trials, put six killers on California's death row and won a conviction in the sensational kidnap-rape-murder of five-year-old Samantha Runnion.
–R. Scott Moxley / OC Weekly
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.