Missing 911 tapes found in Lake County boating death

<p>Lake County Sheriff’s officials have found the recordings of emergency phone calls made in 2006 to Lake County’s 911 center the night a chief deputy’s speedboat crashed into a sailboat, killing one of its occupants.</p><p>The District Attorney’s Office requested the recordings in July 2007, several months after they had been automatically eliminated from the dispatch system. The system maintains recordings for 365 days, said Lake County Sheriff’s Capt. James Bauman.</p><p>The call made by the speedboat’s driver, Lake County Chief Deputy Russell Perdock, was saved because it had been requested in 2006 by attorneys in a related civil lawsuit.</p><p>The dispatch manager chanced upon the previously unknown recordings in an old e-mail attachment created by a former dispatch worker, Bauman said.</p><p>The discovery is not expected to delay the trial of the man charged with manslaughter in connection with the boating accident.</p><p>“I don’t think so,” said Victor Haltom, attorney for Carmichael resident Bismarck Dinius, who was piloting the sailboat. Dinius was charged with manslaughter because he allegedly was intoxicated and failed to ensure the boat’s lights were on.</p><p>Neither Haltom nor Lake County District Attorney Jon Hopkins had reviewed the 911 recordings as of Monday, but they don’t expect them to contain significantly new information.</p><p>Jury selection for the trial begins today but testimony is not expected to begin for several weeks. The trial has garnered nationwide attention from boaters, many of whom believe Perdock, not Dinius, should be on trial.</p>