SACRAMENTO, Calif. _ Indicted tomato king Frederick Scott Salyer may be cooling his heels under house arrest in his Pebble Beach mansion, but a series of phone calls made while he was held at the Sacramento County jail is now the focus of keen interest in the federal courthouse downtown.

The calls between Salyer and San Jose attorney Cynthia Longoria have been the subject of a fierce legal battle since the summer of 2010, with government prosecutors seeking permission to listen to the 119 calls and Salyer’s lawyers insisting they are protected under attorney-client privilege.

On Wednesday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Edmund F. Brennan, who listened to the calls to determine whether prosecutors can get access to them, rendered his decision.

“The salacious details of these cited conversations need not be repeated here,” Brennan wrote in an order that could release most of them to prosecutors. “Suffice it to note that they demonstrate a relationship that was personal, intimate and plainly not a professional attorney-client relationship.”

The order is the latest in an epic legal battle the federal government has been waging against Salyer, the scion of one of California’s land baron families and a multimillionaire accused of conspiracy, bribery and racketeering in an effort to corner the nation’s market for tomato products.

Salyer, who was arrested in February 2010 after years of investigation by the FBI, has denied the charges and awaits trial while sequestered at his Pebble Beach home on $ 6 million bail.

Before his release on bail, he languished in a Sacramento County Jail cell for seven months, and almost immediately began to draw scrutiny for the manner in which he took to his confinement.

At one point, a paralegal was found to have delivered to the jailed Salyer a stack of letters marked “Atty Client” that contained an emery board, some personal notes, a photo of a woman’s head and “a picture of her naked, holding two tomatoes in front of her body,” court papers state.

Another time he was recorded having a despondent and angry call with one of his daughters about his ex-wife.

“She has my life in her hands, and she’s just walking around … bragging about how she’s got me in jail,” he told his daughter Caroline.

“It’ll be a cold day in hell before she ever gets the house,” he added later. “I’ll give everything to the government, remember I mean I’ll do anything, I’ll destroy everything.”

Now, Salyer is facing scrutiny over the nature of his relationship with Longoria, who his lawyers have maintained is an attorney working on the case whose conversations should not be made available to prosecutors.

Typically, phone calls made from the jail are taped and a recorded warning announces at the start of the call that they may be monitored. Attorney-client calls are not subject to review by prosecutors, but both sides have fought since 2010 over the nature of the relationship between Longoria and Salyer.

U.S. District Judge Lawrence K. Karlton asked Brennan to listen to the recordings and decide the matter, and the magistrate concluded that “the recordings appear to be predominately of a personal nature in which Mr. Salyer had telephone visits with a girlfriend who happened to be an attorney.”

Brennan’s 27-page order does not give examples of the “salacious details” he found, but explains that the conversations included talk of friends, food, vacations and other personal matters.

They also included discussion of using the attorney-client privilege, which Brennan wrote was “revealing.”

“You ought to send me some pictures, I, you can put them in an attorney-client privileged envelope,” Salyer told Longoria.

“Oh, yeah, that’s what I want to do. I want to violate the attorney client, uh, uh, thing some more so that, you know, maybe they will ban my stuff.”

The calls also revealed that Longoria’s efforts to assist lead attorney Malcolm Segal with a brief were rebuffed by Segal. And, Brennan determined there were questions about whether Salyer actually was relying on Longoria for any legal advice.

“…(T)here are examples too numerous to quote in which Salyer explained at length to Longoria his own legal opinions and strategies but shows no reliance whatsoever on the legal advice or expertise of Longoria,” Brennan wrote.

He cited one exchange about grand jury proceedings.

“Salyer: You can’t have a lawyer.”

“Longoria: You can’t have a lawyer with you at a grand jury?”

“Salyer: What the hell law school did you go to? You go to Sears or Montgomery Ward, or a big discount Wal-Mart? You can’t have a lawyer with you in a grand jury.”

In fact, California Bar records indicate Longoria went to Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and is an active member of the Bar. However, neither Bar records nor directory information list a law office telephone number for her in the San Jose area. She did not respond to an email sent to the Yahoo.com account listed for her on the Bar website.

In the end, Brennan found that five of the conversations were privileged. The rest, he said, can be listened to by the government.

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(c)2012 The Sacramento Bee (Sacramento, Calif.)

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