My name is Robert Mistriel. I am presently serving a 25 years-to-life sentence in a California State Prison for murder. A murder which I did not physically commit. A murder that many say could have been avoided if the officials of Kern County, California had not been complicit in a decades long cover-up of official misconduct, abuse of power, molestation of children, drugs, sex and murder.

From the ages of 13 to 17 (1977 - 1981) I was sexually, physically, and mentally abused by a group of Kern County political figures and business men known as the "Lords of Bakersfield." Inclusive within this group was California State Senator Don Rogers; Kern County District Attorney, Ed Jagels; Stan Harper, political campaign manager to both Rogers and Jagels; Kern County Personnel Director, Edwin Buck; Alfred Theodore "Ted" Fritts, Editor of the Bakersfield Californian; and many other political and influential business leaders in and around Bakersfield.

http://www.rgmistriel.com/

The Lords of Bakersfield

Until recently, it was a little remembered local legend, of interest mostly to conspiracy theorists

But in truth, according to Lords lore, these men -- a sprinkling of county executives, judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, even the newspaper's publisher -- were part of a loose-knit, secretive network. Some were homosexuals who preyed upon young men and boys, then used their positions of power and influence to protect one another from possible ramifications

Two seemingly soft sentences in homicide cases involving gay victims issued by Kern County courts, one in late 1982 and the other in 1984, got the attention of the state attorney general and helped inspire the creation of county civil rights commissions throughout California.

But at the same time, a number of well-connected local gay men -- accused of having unlawful sex with minors -- were never charged and seem to have escaped scrutiny or sanction almost entirely, according to a number of sources connected to the Lords legend

Five unusual murders over seven years, recounted in occasionally lurid detail by The Californian and others, combined with Lawler's tabloidesque analysis, makes for a smoldering body of fact, coincidence and conjecture. The characters intersect at interesting places -- and when they do, somebody occasionally turns up dead.

The hairdresser

Tarver owned a fashionable hair salon on Bakersfield's F Street known as Mr. T Westchester.

Among his supposed paramours, according to Californianreports at the time, was Robert Glen Mistriel, a 13-year-old male prostitute who'd been working the streets of Bakersfield and L.A. since age 11.

A gardener working in Tarver's yard the morning of Jan. 4, 1978, spotted blood seeping beneath the back door of the salon owner's Beech Street house. Police called to the scene found Tarver on the floor inside -- beaten, stabbed, nude and comatose.

Death of a school girl

every cop in town knew Glen Fitts' name.

Fitts had taught a good number of them how to be police officers during the 1960s and '70s, either at Bakersfield College, where he'd been a police science instructor, or at the Bakersfield Police Academy, where he served as training coordinator. Many others knew him through his work as Bakersfield's police commissioner

On April 9, during Easter break from Highland High School, 14-year-old Dana Charlene Butler disappeared. Her body turned up three days later, with 30 or 40 shallow knife wounds and two deep, lethal wounds. She'd been dumped near the Old Corral Cafe just west of Hart Park.

The Gatsby-like publisher

When Edwin A. Buck, personnel director for Kern County, was murdered on July 17, 1981, police almost immediately arrested Mistriel. It didn't take long for investigators to make the connection: Seems Mistriel had a tendency to drive around in cars owned by middle-aged gay men, including two who'd recently been murdered

At his murder trial two years later, Mistriel testified that he'd slept with many homosexual men of prominence, including two he'd lived with and worked for: Alfred "Ted" Fritts and Stan Harper.

Fritts, whom Mistriel described as "my best friend," was The Californian'seditor and co-owner -- and a party host of Gatsby-like proportions. His mansion at the corner of Oleander Avenue and Chester Lane in Bakersfield, nestled among many of the city's most historic homes, was the scene of frequent social events.

According to people close to Fritts at the time, then-Gov. Jerry Brown was known to have visited; so had then-Sen. Alan Cranston, presidential daughter Maureen Reagan and Randolph Duke, the clothing designer. Steve Perry and his mates from the rock band Journey stopped by. Actress Dyan Cannon once visited, using the occasion to pitch a movie project. Actress Sally Kellerman and columnist Ann Landers, who knew Fritts through the Hereditary Disease Foundation, were guests on separate occasions. Singer Barry Manilow showed up. So did local politicians

Mistriel was there, too, working as a "waiter." In a 1999 letter addressed "to whom it may concern" and written from state prison, Mistriel said he dressed in shorts and matching tank top, served drinks and generally tended to the needs of the male guests -- some of whom, he said, were in local government and law enforcement. Mistriel's letter has made the rounds among several Bakersfield attorneys and others.

There's more, I'm typing on a half closed laptop, so sorry

http://www.bakersfield.com/columnists/robert_price/the-lords-of-bakersfield/article_42e08a9b-df61-567d-bdbc-3477ed7cd82f.html