Orange County sheriff’s officials testified Tuesday they have uncovered dozens of pages of notes kept by deputies that should have been turned over before the double murder trial of community theater actor Daniel Wozniak.

Sgt. Kirsten Monteleone, the Orange County Jail’s custodian of records, told a judge she never knew that deputies in the special handling unit kept logs about Wozniak and a prolific jailhouse informant.

Adam Powell, commander of the sheriff’s investigative services, testified Tuesday that he, too, is stunned to learn of the logs and that no one in the command staff of Sheriff Sandra Hutchens knew of them, either.

The disclosures came in response to a hearing on the latest records subpoenaed by Assistant Public Defender Scott Sanders, who represents Wozniak and has waged an ongoing war with police and prosecutors over the secret use of jailhouse informants.

As Wozniak’s death penalty sentencing approaches, the notes on the convicted killer and prolific informant Fernando Perez were recently discovered buried in a jail computer system, sheriff’s officials testified Tuesday.

The Orange County District Attorney’s Office issued a statement late Tuesday blasting the Sheriff’s Department, saying prosecutors also had repeatedly requested all records on Perez, a Mexican Mafia leader who has been a key figure in the county’s divisive snitch scandal.

“The OCDA expects police officers to tell the truth and pursue justice,” prosecutors said in the statement. “The OCDA finds it distressing that these notes would be withheld from the OCDA, the court, and the public until this hearing. The OCDA has been assured by Sheriff Sandra Hutchens that she will take appropriate internal actions to address this issue.”

Sheriff’s Lt. Mark Stichter on Tuesday night responded that the department has worked to comply with all requests for documents and will continue those efforts.

“Sheriff Hutchens also desires all police officers to tell the truth and pursue justice,” he said.

Orange County Superior Court Judge John Conley ordered the supervisor of the department’s special-handling deputies – who work with jailhouse informants – to testify Tuesday and explain 78 pages of newly discovered notes.

Monteleone, who has been on the job for 15 months, said she was unaware that Deputy Ben Garcia and others kept the logs, which spanned 2008 to 2013.

“I have no idea how they were doing it, sir,” Monteleone testified. “I was surprised.”

After a deputy turned over notes in February in another criminal case, Powell said he sent out an email to more than 300 deputies asking them to turn over any notes they might have kept about their work in the jail.

On Tuesday, Conley turned over the notes pertaining to Wozniak and Perez to the public defender and prosecution team and issued a protective order sealing the records to the public.

An Orange County jury convicted Wozniak, 31, on double murder charges in December and recommended the death penalty in January.

Wozniak, of Costa Mesa, is scheduled to be sentenced May 20 for killing two friends – beheading one of them and scattering body parts in El Dorado Park in Long Beach in 2010.

Prosecutors said he staged the killing to steal money and finance his wedding.

Sanders contends that deputies improperly used Perez, the jailhouse informant, in the case. In October, before the trial, Conley ruled that Sanders “failed to show that outrageous government misconduct occurred” in the Wozniak case.

This week, however, Conley questioned discrepancies in the newly discovered deputy notes provided to the court.

On Friday, the judge received 50 pages of notes from the Sheriff’s Department. On Monday, the number grew to 78 pages of notes covering a wider period of time.

The discovery prompted Conley to call in the department’s custodian of records, Monteleone, to explain the handling of the documents.

She spent much of Tuesday discussing the documents, the deputies involved and her own lack of knowledge on the issue until recently.

It is not the first time the Sheriff’s Department has been accused of withholding records. In March 2015, Superior Court Judge Thomas Goethals found that deputies “either lied or willfully withheld” the existence of a record-keeping system for tracking jail inmates – including informants – known as TRED. The discovery of the TRED system caused a run by defense attorneys for the records.

The discovery of the new logs in the Wozniak case was triggered by another jailhouse informant flap involving convicted murderer Henry Rodriguez.

Goethals in February granted a retrial for Rodriguez, who is serving a life sentence for his role in the 1998 shooting death of a pregnant Fullerton woman. Goethals in his ruling said prosecutors failed to turn over records that showed a key witness in Rodriguez’s 2006 trial was a seasoned jailhouse snitch working for law enforcement agencies in several cases.

The District Attorney’s Office is appealing the ruling.

The day before he was set to testify in a hearing on the Rodriguez case, Deputy Robert Szewczyk turned over four years’ worth of notes he had kept while working in the jail’s special-handling unit.

Goethals determined the notes were not relevant in the Rodriguez case, but said he was surprised to see “documents like this suddenly wash ashore.”

“A cynic might say how many other such records are there floating around out there,” Goethals said in the February hearing.

Testimony on the newly discovered notes in the Wozniak case is expected to continue Thursday before Conley.

Contact the writer: tsaavedra@ocregister.com