In a last-ditch effort to show William Ayres is competent to stand trial on molestation charges, families of alleged victims hired a private investigator to tail the once-prominent child psychiatrist last week to a restaurant in San Francisco.
A video shot by the investigator shows Ayres, who claims dementia has made him unable to aid in his defense, engaging in animated conversation with his wife and two male acquaintances.
The San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office is expected to announce Monday whether it will retry Ayres on the issue of competency. Ayres asserts dementia has sapped his cognitive abilities, preventing him from defending himself against sex-abuse charges leveled by several former patients. A jury in June deadlocked 8-4 in favor of finding Ayres unfit for trial.
A group of about a dozen people — including an alleged victim of Ayres and the families of several other alleged victims — paid for a private investigator to shadow Ayres after they heard rumors that he had been seen out and about, acting in a manner they felt was inconsistent with the defense’s portrayal of him in the competency trial.
On Thursday, a private investigator followed Ayres and his wife, Solveig, from their home in San Mateo to a lunch date at La Vie, a Vietnamese restaurant in San Francisco’s Outer Richmond District. The video, a copy of which was provided to this newspaper Saturday morning, shows Ayres holding a conversation with two men during the lunch, which lasted roughly one hour and 15 minutes. Ayres at times dominates the conversation, gesturing with his hands and smiling often.
Victoria Balfour, who helped organize the hiring of the private investigator, said the video contradicts defense attorney Jonathan McDougall’s depiction of a man whose mind is failing. McDougall did not respond to several messages seeking comment.
“They’re trying to portray him as some doddering old man who doesn’t leave the house,” Balfour said Saturday. “There’s nothing about it that makes him look incompetent.”
The investigator’s footage does not include any audio, as California law prohibits recording a person’s conversation without his knowledge, so there is no proof Ayres was speaking coherently. Balfour’s group interprets Ayres’ body language, however, as that of someone who was “holding court,” not a senile man whose ramblings are indulged by friends.
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The investigator took notes based on snippets of conversation he could hear. Among the topics of discussion was the recent Republican straw poll in Iowa, according to the notes, a copy of which was also provided to this newspaper.
Solveig Ayres, who sits silently through much of the lunch, was the first witness in the June competency trial, testifying that her husband was having trouble with his short- and long-term memory, once forgetting the name of his son. “He asks a question, he asks the same question 10 minutes later,” she told the jury.
Reached by phone Sunday morning, Solveig confirmed she and her husband were at La Vie on Thursday. Asked about the video, she declined to comment. “I can’t make any comment except he has good days and bad days and he was with very, very good friends,” she said.
William Ayres, who was 79 at the time of the June competency trial, is accused of molesting several young male patients over a period of many years under the guise of physical exams during psychiatry sessions. A criminal trial ended in a hung jury and mistrial in 2009. Before he can be tried again on nine counts of lewd and lascivious conduct with minors younger than 14, Ayres must be found capable of participating in his defense.
The group that paid for the private investigator is concerned that the DA’s office will concede that Ayres is incompetent, which could result in his transfer to a psychiatric institution such as Napa State Hospital. They are also worried the DA could cut a deal that enables Ayres to spend his days in a more comfortable facility, a proposition that District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe asserted Friday his office is not considering.
The group has been sharply critical of the DA’s handling of the case. Members claim the prosecution of Ayres, who was once a pillar of the community, has been halfhearted and plagued by missteps.
Wagstaffe said he is “mystified” by the notion that his office has not pursued the case aggressively. And he defended the work of the prosecutor in charge of the case, Melissa McKowan.
“We’ve been doing everything in our power to lock him up for the rest of his life,” Wagstaffe said. “We continue to be frustrated by the inability to, No. 1, move this case along as fast as possible and, No. 2, find 12 jurors willing to find him competent and guilty.”
The district attorney said under normal circumstances he would not retry a case in which a jury hung 8-4 against him. But he has authorized McKowan to pursue a second competency trial Monday if a satisfactory deal cannot be reached with the defense. “We are prepared to do that here, because this is such a serious case,” he said.
As for the videotape, Wagstaffe said Sunday that, on the eve of a possible retrial, he could not comment on its evidentiary value. “It’s evidence,” Wagstaffe said. “Potentially it could be used at trial.”
In addition to hiring a private investigator, Balfour and families of alleged victims have taken other steps to put pressure on the DA’s office, reaching out to politicians for support and filing a request for a change of venue with the California Attorney General’s Office.
A spokeswoman for the attorney general confirmed Friday that the office has received a letter regarding a change of venue but declined to comment further. Wagstaffe claimed Friday there is no legal standing for the change-of-venue petition, however, since these requests are valid only when there is concern about finding an impartial jury, which he said has not been an issue so far.
San Mateo County Supervisor Dave Pine, one of the politicians contacted by the group, declined to criticize the DA’s handling of the case, but said he is concerned that Ayres will elude a guilty verdict.
“It’s a very sad situation,” Pine said. “Mr. Ayres has destroyed the lives of many families. … We’re at a watershed point in the case and I hope justice is done. It’s been a long, difficult road for the victims to see justice done in this case.”
