SANTA ANA – A frustrated federal judge on Friday dismissed drug charges against a man who claimed he was unfairly targeted by Orange County sheriff’s deputies, so the jailhouse-informant scandal that has unraveled more than a half-dozen cases in state court has now led to a case getting tossed out of a U.S. court.

In dismissing the charges against Joseph Martin Govey, U.S. District Judge Cormac J. Carney repeatedly questioned why the government had pursued a case involving only 37.7 grams of methamphetamine, particularly when it brought federal prosecutors into the local informant scandal and could have jeopardized an ongoing federal investigation about the use of snitches in Orange County.

“I am absolutely baffled the government charged this case and pursued it, particularly with the baggage of the witnesses,” Carney said during a hearing Friday morning at the federal courthouse in Santa Ana.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office declined comment.

In June 2017, Govey was arrested during a probation search of what law enforcement officials have described as a “known crash pad for white-race gang members” in Anaheim. His attorney acknowledged that Govey had methamphetamine but said it was for personal use, not for sale.

Two year’s before, an Orange County Superior Court judge dismissed an attempted-murder case against Govey. The Orange County District Attorney’s Office had charged him with soliciting a death, but chose to dismiss the charges after being ordered to disclose informant evidence.

A key witness in the drug case against Govey was sheriff’s Deputy Bryan Larson, a former member of the jailhouse unit that allegedly misused jail informants. Larson was among the deputies who invoked their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when called to testify in another murder case involving alleged informant misconduct and became the lead investigator in the federal drug case.

Govey’s attorney, Timothy Scott, had argued that Larson and other deputies caught up in the informant scandal were angered by the earlier attempted-murder charges against Govey being dismissed, and decided to settle the score by overstating the evidence in the drug case.

Federal prosecutors denied Scott’s allegations. They have noted that Larson was not involved in the attempted-murder case.

Had the drug case gone to trial, the judge was planning to allow the defense to question Larson in front of a jury about his past invocation of the Fifth Amendment, challenging the credibility of the deputy, whose testimony was considered key to the government’s case.

Judge Carney on Friday noted that he couldn’t recall being involved in another federal drug case “with such a low quantity” of methamphetamine.

“This is still a federal offense,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Bradley Marrett told the judge

Despite a trial that was set for next week, Scott on Friday said he was struggling to work through an estimated 75,000 pages of potential evidence the government had given him in recent weeks, documents tied to the informant scandal. Judge Carney said he was particularly concerned that on Thursday night the government had turned over to him an additional 20,000 pages of potential evidence.

Marrett told the judge that Govey’s attorney had asked for a wide range of documents, which had complicated the government’s efforts to turn over the material.

Carney described the release of so many pages on the eve of trial as a “document dump.” The failure to turn over the material earlier violated Govey’s right to a speedy trial, the judge said.