Retired SLO firefighter cleared of racist threats says he knows who committed the crimes
A San Luis Obispo man who was accused of sending letters to local property management companies warning of violence if they rented to ethnic minorities — only to have the case dismissed due to contradictory evidence — says he has identified the actual culprit.
Richard Vincent Orcutt, a retired San Luis Obispo firefighter, filed a lawsuit in Superior Court Monday identifying a former neighbor he claims sent the racist letters, which Orcutt claims were a ruse meant to exact revenge for his complaining about the neighbor’s dog.
The case was initially investigated by the San Luis Obispo Police Department, which in June 2019 recommended that prosecutors file the hate crime charges against Orcutt.
A spokesman for the department said Wednesday that they were unaware of this new allegation and that detectives would be conducting a follow-up investigation.
The defendant in the civil case did not respond to attempts to reach him through social media.
The Tribune is not identifying the man, who says online that he now lives in Loomis, due to the lack of available details as well as anonymous threats Orcutt says he received when he stood accused of sending the racist material.
Orcutt — who initially faced up to 15 years in prison if convicted of 10 felonies — is suing the man for intentional infliction of emotional distress, and is alleging he committed the criminal acts of making written threats and creating false evidence. He’s seeking unspecified general and punitive damages as well as attorney’s fees.
“Accordingly, plaintiff Richard Orcutt should recover, in addition to actual damages, further damages to make an example of and to punish (the defendant),” the lawsuit says.
Letters said ethnic minorities ‘all need to be shot’
San Luis Obispo police in June 2019 investigated several handwritten letters sent to local property managers.
After Orcutt’s case dragged on in court for well over a year, it was dismissed in the interest of justice in September on a motion by the District Attorney’s Office after an FBI handwriting expert said it was not likely he sent the letters.
Copies of some of the letters released in court records ahead of a planned preliminary hearing Sept. 24 show that someone sent handwritten letters to several local managers of properties in the 1300 block of Cavalier Lane threatening violence if they rent to ethnic minorities and “homosexuals.”
The letters specifically warned against renting properties to Chinese, Filipino and Mexican residents, and that both they and the owners would be shot.
They claimed that there were “too many strange people walking up and down our streets,” and demanded that “your renters must be American.”
Another complained that a “gay male roommate” at one property “is engaging in homosexual activity.”
“They all need to be shot,” the letter reads. Each letter concludes with “Enough is enough!”
Orcutt was arrested at his home on Cavalier Lane during a search by the county regional SWAT team, in which more than 30 of Orcutt’s guns were confiscated. He was released from County Jail after posting $500,000 bail.
Sheriff’s and state Department of Justice forensics investigators did not find Orcutt’s fingerprints or DNA on the letters, placing much of the prosecution’s case on the FBI expert document examiner, who conducted three separate handwriting analyses, court records show.
Prosecutors dropped their case against Orcutt after the first two comparisons resulted in “no conclusion” and a third found that Orcutt “may not have” been the author, a category that finds significant dissimilarities but at least one limitation exists that prevents total elimination.
According to court records, Orcutt denied having anything to do with the letters and told officers during his arrest that he was being “swatted,” or was the target of a false police report aimed at generating a heavily armed police response.
Case may be the result of a dispute over a dog
Orcutt says the ordeal has cost him thousands of dollars and damage to his reputation, and his house has been egged. His defense attorney last month said the “absolutely horrendous” crimes still needed to be investigated.
According to the complaint filed Monday, Orcutt and the neighbor in the case lived near each other on Cavalier Lane beginning in 2018 until the defendant vacated a room he rented in a nearby house.
The lawsuit says that at some point during his residency, the neighbor “took a particular disliking” to Orcutt and wanted to “cause (him) trouble.”
“(Orcutt) is unaware of all the reasons (defendant) did so, but is informed and believes it was due in part to (Orcutt) having complained to (defendant’s) landlord about an adult pit bull dog that was adopted from the San Luis Obispo County Animal Services agency and brought into the (defendant’s) residence,” the lawsuit reads. “Subsequent to the complaint, (defendant) had to remove the dog from the premises, and ... the dog was returned to the Animal Services agency.”
The lawsuit says the threatening letters were postmarked May 28, 2019.
While the complaint includes the possible motive in the case, it does not any direct evidence or go into detail about how Orcutt and his legal team discovered the alleged suspect.
Asked what they have to back up the allegations, Jeffry Radding, Orcutt’s attorney, said Tuesday that it’s premature at this point to share the additional evidence beyond what is disclosed in the early court filing, but that more details may be released “in the foreseeable future.”
Provided the complaint Wednesday, San Luis Obispo police Capt. Brian Amoroso said it was the first the department had heard of the specific allegations against the person named in the suit. He said the agency’s detective bureau will be conducting a follow-up investigation.
Eric Dobroth, the county’s assistant district attorney, said via email Tuesday that he was not previously aware of Orcutt’s lawsuit, but said the neighbor of interest was identified during the criminal investigation of Orcutt.
Dobroth said the District Attorney’s Office not been provided nor had it developed any additional information in the case beyond that which compelled the DA’s dismissal against Orcutt.
Orcutt filed defamation cases against other neighbors
Since his case was dismissed, Orcutt has filed million-dollar defamation lawsuits against several neighbors he claims told San Luis Obispo police detectives they suspected he sent the threatening notes.
Orcutt’s lawsuits allege that the neighbors also told police that he owned “an arsenal” of firearms and threatened to use them over various grievances in incidents dating back to the late 1990s.
At the time of Orcutt’s arrest, the SLO County Regional SWAT Team seized from his home more than three dozen handguns, shotguns and semi-automatic rifles, as well as thousands of rounds of ammunition.
The status of the weapons was not immediately clear Wednesday.
A case management conference in the most recent lawsuit is scheduled for May.
