District Attorney Ronald Calhoun's office has been yanked from prosecuting the upcoming felony perjury trial of former Hanford City Manager Jan Reynolds after a judge ruled that his office has a conflict of interest.

Imposing the recusal is a recent ruling by visiting Judge David Allen on the defense motion seeking to disqualify all local prosecutors based on the inherent bias argument.

As a result, a special prosecutor from the California Attorney General's Office is expected to try the case.

While no decision was immediately announced on scheduling, it is likely the trial will be delayed, as Allen set further proceedings to hear any pending motions for Aug. 13. Reynolds' trial has been delayed several times since last August.

Reynolds, 58, faces two counts of felony perjury charges for allegedly lying under oath to the grand jury during its investigation into a $200,000-plus severance package he negotiated with the city council, when he was pressured into retirement in 2005. Grand jury findings led to his prosecution in June 2006.

If convicted, Reynolds could face up to five years in prison.

The defense attorneys have been arguing for months that Calhoun's personal animosity against Reynolds directly influenced the grand jury investigation and its outcome, although the prosecution maintained the defense had no competent evidence to prove that.

Last month, both sides presented their oral arguments to the court on the recusal motion.

Allen issued his ruling in late June, but it has been placed under seal by his own order.

How Allen has ruled on the motion became public knowledge during Tuesday morning's hearing in the Kings County Superior Court, where Chief Deputy District Attorney Michael Reinhart told Allen that the attorney general's office is preparing to file a request for stay -- a sure indication that Allen had ruled in favor of the defense.

"It's a really important ruling dealing with some real core issues relating to this case having never been brought," Reynolds' attorney, Roger Nuttall, said outside the courtroom Tuesday.

"I'm hoping that they will take an objective look at the charges here. I've always been truly convinced that these charges were ill-conceived by the district attorney's office and not warranted in the first place," Nuttall said. "The bottom line is Mr. Reynolds is innocent of any wrongdoing. Hopefully, the attorney general's office will ferret that out."

The attempt to reach Reinhart after the hearing was unsuccessful.

Neither the district attorney's office nor the attorney general's office returned phone calls Tuesday.

Reynolds' prosecution has been a long drawn out process.

The case has been mired in issues such as the confidentiality of the grand jury proceedings and whether the prosecution has an inherent conflict of interest because of Calhoun's alleged animosity toward Reynolds and Reinhart's involvement in the grand jury interrogation process. It has undergone a grueling series of motions, hearings and arguments since last summer.

Reynolds faces two felony perjury charges for allegedly lying about the existence of his original 1990 employment agreement to the city council members in order to negotiate a better severance package.

The original contract would have given Reynolds only six months' worth of pay, less than half of what he received under a new contract he signed with the council in 2005.

Reynolds has maintained his innocence, saying that he had given each new city council member a copy of his original employment agreement and that the council still offered him the $200,000-plus severance.

But during the grand jury investigation, city council members said they had never received such a copy. Reynolds' former subordinates have testified in court that documents suggest city council members were indeed given the copy as part of city council orientation materials when they were first elected.

Reynolds retired in June 2006, after 16 years on the job, but stayed on the payroll to help with the transition for the administration under a new manager.

In November 2006, four months after the prosecution, Reynolds resigned from his transitional post, giving up salary and benefits totaling some $140,000. Reynolds' move came right after the city council adopted an improved pension system a year before anticipated.

(July 9, 2008)