Sacramento Man Sentenced for Altering DUI Court Records

On Friday, October 10, Hector Whitley was convicted in Sacramento's Superior Court on ten felony counts involving conspiracy, destroying court records, aiding and embedding computer fraud, and making fraudulent computer entries. This conviction stems from an investigation initiated by the Sacramento District Attorney's Office in 2007 after court staff noticed irregularities in the computer entries of several DUI cases.

The investigation revealed that numerous computer entries had been modified to show DUI cases as dismissed, when there had been no court order of dismissal. An audit of all 2007 cases revealed at least seven DUI cases where the defendant in the case had been arrested and charged, but then had failed to appear for their first court date. Normally, following a failure to appear, an arrest warrant would be issued for the individual. However, in these cases, no warrant was issued and electronic records were altered to indicate that the cases had instead been dismissed. Phony minute orders were even drafted for the court files to make the dismissals even more convincing.

Following the extensive investigation, the electronic changes were eventually linked to Whitley and Sacramento Superior Court clerk Fernando Marcos Catlin, who allegedly accepted as much as five thousand dollars from the individuals in order to make the DUI charges disappear.

Whitley has been described as the brains behind the operation to fix the results of the driving under the influence cases. He allegedly advertised his services in local Sacramento bars and then relied on his accomplice, Catlin, to alter the records in the court's computer system. In his closing argument made Thursday morning, Deputy District Attorney Don Steed summed up Whitley's involvement in the scheme saying, "He's the one who found the customers. He got the money. He promoted it by putting his name out there. He's getting the business to do the crime." Whitley himself admitted during trial proceedings that he collected approximately $11,500 from the defendants in exchange for the altering of their court records. Whitley also relied on local bartenders to get the word out around town that he could, "make drunken driving cases disappear."

Following Whitley's conviction, Deputy District Attorney Steed said, "Hopefully, we've caught all the cases. It's important that there be credibility in the system and that we carry forth on this to make the public know that this is a credible process and that justice be served equally to all." Chief Deputy Executive Officer of the Court, Ed Pollard, added that the Sacramento Superior Court has instituted some corrections to the electronic records system in order to prevent similar problems from occurring in the future.

All of the defendants who hired Whitley and Catlin to have their records altered have since pleaded guilty to their old drunk driving allegations and to new charges of aiding and abetting computer fraud. Each of the individuals was sentenced to probation and 90 days of sheriff's work project.

Whitley faces a term of six to eight years in prison as a result of the verdict which took just two hours to return, after nearly two weeks of trial proceedings. Whitley's accomplice, Catlin, pleaded no contest to the charges brought against him and faces a maximum of ten years in prison.

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