Super-Trump 2020!

This local guy is steroidal Trump: Convicted of defrauding an elderly couple in a "gold mining" scheme, openly threatens judges, given to bizarre conspiracy theories, claims everything's rigged against him, & what'll you bet the wheelchair thing is strictly a Guy Caballero-style fake? Throw in a little (white) nationalism & it's Walthall 2020!!

A convicted fraudster was ordered out of a federal courtroom in Santa Ana Wednesday when he blurted out that he wanted his attorney fired for arguing that he was a conspiracy nut tricked by jailhouse snitches to plan hits on a judge, two prosecutors and a pair of FBI agents.

John Arthur Walthall, formerly of Laguna Beach, declared, “Enough! Enough of this. You are terminated,” as his attorney detailed the bizarre conspiratorial notions the 60-year-old defendant detailed in a 500-plus page “manifesto” that prosecutors allege was evidence of his desire to kill the federal officials.

As U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney admonished Walthall to stop speaking, he replied, “Your honor, I terminate this man … This is a false defense … Is there anybody out there who can get me an attorney? Help me.”

As federal marshals removed the wheelchair-dependent Walthall from the courtroom, he alleged he was “threatened” by one of the confidential informants, who is to testify against him, when the two were supposedly in the same van being brought to court this morning.

After Carney had jurors removed from the courtroom, he told the attorneys in the case, “I was anticipating this would be a problem,” so had a video camera set up in a holding cell outside of the courtroom so Walthall could view the proceedings outside of the presence of the jury.

Walthall, who was doing time in federal prison for a gold investment scheme, was indicted in December 2014 for allegedly soliciting the killing of U.S. District Judge Andrew Guilford, who sentenced him to 14 years behind bars, and the others. Walthall’s first trial in April ended with jurors deadlocked 10-2 for guilt.

Wednesday wasn’t the first time Walthall has caused a scene in court. At his April 30, 2012, sentencing, he bickered with the judge, tried to fire his attorney and ripped his fraud victims. At one point, the defendant’s son, Christopher, stood up and implored his father, “You have to stop.”

The latest case against Walthall centers around comments he allegedly made to fellow Lompoc inmates Crisanto Diego Trejos Ortiz and Antonio Rodriguez, as well as an undercover FBI agent, about hiring someone to abduct the judge and the others and kill them. Walthall became suspicious of Ortiz at some point, Assistant U.S. Attorney Fred Sheppard said.

“This defendant was getting pissed,” the prosecutor said. “According to him, in his own words, Diego Ortiz was either a snitch or a bullshit artist and he might go the same way as the others.”

Rodriguez told Walthall he knew of a “middleman” who could help get the jobs done, Sheppard said, and that man was an undercover FBI agent. Walthall allegedly told the agent, “Above all else they need to die, but first I want them tortured,” according to Sheppard. “Some of this may sound absolutely fantastical,” Sheppard said of the evidence.

The prosecutor recounted for the jury how, while awaiting trial in the fraud case, the defendant jumped bail and fled to Nevada, where he was recaptured. Before he jumped bail, he had a friend buy three guns for him, Sheppard said.

“When he said he wanted them dead he meant it,” the prosecutor said, alleging that Walthall told the undercover agent, “Everything I’m asking you to do has been in the works for three years.”

“And it wasn’t because he didn’t know what he was saying,” Sheppard said, adding the defendant has not had a psychological diagnosis that he is suffering from a mental illness.

Walthall’s attorney, Tim Scott, portrayed Rodriguez and Ortiz as scam artists who had a long history of “double dealing” with authorities as confidential informants while still committing crimes.

The two hit up a couple of other inmates with an offer to get out of prison by having “something done” to their judge, but they refused, Scott said. Walthall became an “outcast” in prison because he kept to himself and, when spoken to, he “would go off on one of his rants,” Scott said.

For Ortiz and Rodriguez, talking to Walthall was “just good fun and they enjoyed getting him going,” Scott said. “He would be off and running and they would elbow each other in the ribs.”

Then, “one day the light bulb went off and they realized John Walthall was their mark,” Scott said, alleging the two found out as much as they could about his client’s case and then “nursed” his conspiracy theories and “preyed on his paranoia.”

They got him to make incriminating statements so they could “play the hero” in the trial and get a break on their prison terms, Scott alleged. One of the other inmates the two tried to con before Walthall warned the prison warden the pair was “framing” Walthall, but the prison official said, “It’s none of your concern and I have orders from above,” Scott told the jury.

“The government did not heed the warning of this man,” he said, alleging Walthall was “entrapped.”

–City News Service