LOS ANGELES - Five years ago, former District Attorney Gil Garcetti rejected a Los Angeles sheriff's case accusing Orange County businessman Michael Goodwin of murdering racing legend Mickey Thompson and his wife.

This week, Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley filed charges against Goodwin in the 16-year-old San Gabriel Valley double murder, just days, some say hours, before the 59-year-old suspect was scheduled to be released from an Orange County jail. People v. Goodwin, GA052683 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed June 8, 2004).

Orange County prosecutors had charged Goodwin in December 2002 with the Thompson murders, but a state appeals court recently said the county had no jurisdiction over the case.

Now Goodwin's attorneys say the filing by Los Angeles prosecutors is "a complete political persecution" aimed at bailing their Orange County neighbors out of a costly failed prosecution. "The Orange County district attorney has to find a way to avoid the embarrassment of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in prosecuting him, so they go up to [District Attorney Steve] Cooley and make a deal with him," Costa Mesa defense attorney Jeffrey Benice said. "It's an outrage this game was played to keep Mr. Goodwin incarcerated and in custody, when the Court of Appeal ordered his release."

Goodwin is accused of killing Thompson, 59, and his wife, Trudy Thompson, 41, on March 17, 1988, the couple were shot dead by masked gunmen on bicycles in the driveway of their Bradbury home. Los Angeles District Attorney spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons called Goodwin's attorneys liars and denied there was any deal to keep Goodwin behind bars.

"That's a lie," Gibbons said. "It was filed because it was reviewed by a very senior trial lawyer in our office, Pat Dixon, who felt there was sufficient evidence to proceed." Rackauckas, through a spokesperson, denied having a hand in getting the case up to Los Angeles. "It's hard to imagine ... how anybody could assign a political motive for getting justice for a brutal double murder," said Orange County district attorney spokeswoman and prosecutor Susan Kang Schroeder.

Benice and Goodwin's other lawyer, Jeffrey Friedman, say there isn't a lot of new evidence that wasn't presented to Garcetti, who reportedly rejected the case several times. Sheriff's homicide bureau Lt. Dan Rosenberg said Garcetti looked at the case and concluded there was insufficient evidence to proceed. Garcetti couldn't be reached for comment.

Gibbons said there was never a formal presentation or rejection of the case, but she acknowledged that Garcetti had reviewed the sheriff's material and agreed there wasn't enough proof to charge Goodwin. "They followed many leads but were never able to get anything," Gibbons said. Benice and Friedman say the only new evidence is a lineup that took place in 2001 in Los Angeles. Two of the Thompson's neighbors allegedly picked Goodwin out of a lineup of men and placed him near the murder scene the day of the killings, they said.

Friedman said the lineup was "just ridiculous. "The other people in the lineup didn't bear any resemblance," he said. "They were short. They were fat. "It's like going to the circus to get people for the lineup," he said. Gibbons said the lineup provided "additional evidence" that was never presented to Garcetti. She declined to specify but noted that the appellate court threw out the Orange County case on jurisdiction grounds, not for lack of evidence.

Prosecutors had argued the murder plot was hatched in Orange County, but the appeals court said they didn't prove it. Goodwin's lawyers accuse Thompson's sister, Collene Campbell, 71, of using her political pull to keep the prosecution alive. A former mayor of San Juan Capistrano, Campbell is involved in several victims' rights campaigns and groups, including the chair of the advocacy group Force 100. "Collene Campbell is an immeasurably powerful woman," Friedman said. Campbell, in a rare interview, said those contentions are wrong. "I don't know how to say this in a nice way, but they have lied about everything," Campbell said by phone Thursday.

In the June 11 article Cooley Finds New Evidence for Charges in Double Murder, the Daily Journal incorrectly stated when and where suspect Michael Goodwin was identified. Goodwin was identified a quarter-mile from the residence of race car driver Mickey Thompson and his wife, Trudy Thompson, days before the couple were killed. Additionally, the Daily Journal incorrectly stated the date of Goodwins arrest, which was in December 2001. The Daily Journal regrets the error.