No deal in Rampart cases

The Los Angeles City Council emerged from a closed session Friday without agreeing to settle several court cases brought by officers who say they were wrongly accused in the 1998 Rampart Division police scandal.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and six council members have openly opposed the city paying a $16.85-million settlement to the officers, even though the city’s lawyer believes taxpayers could be compelled to pay up to $40 million if the city loses at trial. A jury has awarded $15 million to three officers, but that judgment is being appealed.

Kim Colwell, an outside attorney representing the city in three of the cases, said Friday that the council rejected a settlement. “My cases go forward Monday, and I’m going to aggressively defend them,” she said.

Verdicts of that size could be devastating to the city’s financial health because it is experiencing a number of fiscal woes tied to declining revenues and rising costs.

Also on Friday, City Administrative Officer Karen Sisson told the council that the city’s reserve fund had risen in recent weeks to $136 million, but still well below the $201 million level targeted by the city.

The city has paid $8.6 million in police-related litigation thus far in 2007, according to the city attorney’s office, and is facing more than 250 claims stemming from the May 1 melee in MacArthur Park. In a report this week, Los Angeles Police Department officials admitted making numerous mistakes in their attempt to clear the park during an immigrant rights march. Television footage showed officers using batons and firing non-lethal bullets at marchers and news reporters.

The state’s open-meetings law permits closed sessions only when officials discuss employee discipline or legal negotiations that could be compromised if held in public. But the law requires that once any decision is made, it must be immediately announced. And Friday’s council session ended with no statement about the Rampart Division cases.

Four members of the Budget and Finance Committee voted against the proposed settlement last week, and Council President Eric Garcetti had voted against it as a member of the city’s claims board. Councilman Jack Weiss, chairman of the council’s Public Safety Committee, has also criticized the deal.

The Rampart Division scandal involved allegations by one LAPD police officer that others were dealing drugs and framing gang members for crimes they didn’t commit.

Four officers who had been cleared by the courts filed suit against the city claiming false arrest and malicious prosecution.

Joseph Y. Avrahamy, the attorney for the officers, accused the city of negotiating the proposed settlement in bad faith. Some city officials have said the city’s private attorney did not have the authority to negotiate any agreement -- something Avrahamy said he did not know until recently.

“We’re more disgusted by the process than by the fact that the settlement didn’t get approved,” he said.

Avrahamy also said that the city should have taken the deal now on the table for $16.85 million. “Potentially this could cost the city more, because these guys” -- the officers -- “were trying to be reasonable and take the verdict and make it all go away.”

The appeal of the $15-million verdict against the city is scheduled to be heard in federal appeals court on Nov. 7.

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steve.hymon@latimes.com