Jury to Begin Deliberations in Case of Police Chief, Aide

The careers of Corona’s two top law enforcement officers will be on the line as a Riverside County jury begins deliberations today on charges that Police Chief Bob J. Talbert and Deputy Chief Edward D. Sampson conspired to alter a police report about a traffic accident that claimed the life of a 17-year-old boy.

“You can’t conclude but (that) both defendants were going out to change that report,” Kevin Ruddy, the deputy district attorney prosecuting the case, told the Superior Court jury in his closing argument Monday.

During two weeks of testimony in Riverside County Superior Court, one present and two former Corona police officers testified that their superiors had ordered or attempted to persuade them to remove references to an obscured stop sign from the report on a 1982 traffic accident that resulted in the death of Warren Henderson of Corona.

Defense attorneys countered that because of the bias of disgruntled subordinates against the chiefs and because of inconsistencies in their testimony, the prosecution had failed to meet its burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Each of the chiefs faces a single felony count of conspiring to obstruct justice. Neither testified in his own defense during their three-week trial, but in closing arguments Monday and in public statements, defense attorneys Gerald Polis and Allan Sandquist have repeatedly denied that any conspiracy existed.

Talbert also claimed in a taped interview played for the jury last week that he knew nothing of the accident or the stop sign until a group of police officers brought a list of complaints about police management --including the allegation that the chiefs had ordered officers to alter and approve the accident report--to Corona City Council members early last summer.

The complaints came in the wake of a bitter contract dispute that resulted in a five-day walkout by Corona police patrolmen, sergeants and lieutenants in November, 1983. The City Council referred the issue to the Riverside County district attorney’s office for investigation, and last August the county Grand Jury returned a single-count indictment against the pair.

Talbert and Sampson, who are free without bail, are receiving their regular salaries from the city while on administrative leave of absence, said James Wheaton, Corona city manager.

If they are convicted, the chiefs face up to three years in prison in addition to the loss of their jobs, Ruddy said.

Talbert and Sampson’s defense was composed primarily of attacks on the credibility and possible bias of prosecution witnesses, attention to discrepancies in the witnesses’ testimony and closing arguments suggesting that had the chiefs been involved in a criminal conspiracy, they would have done a better job of trying to cover up their actions.

If the pair had been conspiring to squelch references to the stop sign’s obstruction, they would not have invited five of their subordinates and a city traffic engineer to witness and participate in their actions, defense attorneys argued Monday.

‘No Direct Responsibility’

Would a conspiring police chief “suggest that the (city) traffic engineer . . . personally go to the scene and personally observe the obstructed stop sign?” Polis asked the jury Monday. “Why invite additional persons, who have no direct responsibility for that accident (report)?”

Polis and Sandquist also argued that the prosecution had presented no evidence that their clients had ever discussed the Jan. 4, 1982, traffic accident or the potential for city liability that allegedly prompted them to hide the stop sign obstruction.

But Ruddy argued Monday that the testimony of then-Police Sgts. David Berkley, since demoted, and Larry Thayer, who left the department, concerning a 45-minute meeting with the chiefs at which Talbert allegedly told them he wanted the report approved without reference to the obstruction provides sufficient proof that there was at least tacit agreement between Talbert and Sampson.

Retired Sgt. Robert Terpening testified that Sampson told him to tell the officer writing the accident report, Bill Mumma, to delete reference to the obstruction, after Terpening and a city traffic engineer examined the intersection of Buena Vista and Ontario avenues and decided that although the sign was partially obstructed, it was not the cause of the accident.

Confusion About Sequence

What Ruddy’s case proved, Sandquist said in his closing argument, was that the police officers and other city employees who inspected or worked at the accident scene disagreed on the importance of the possible obstruction and that they were confused as to the sequence of events that followed the collision.

By synthesizing records of police officers’ days off and the court testimony of five of the officers, the jury can conclude that reference to the obscured stop sign could not have been deleted by Mumma until at least two days after Berkley approved the report on Jan. 9, 1982, defense attorneys said Monday.

The chiefs could not, therefore, have influenced Berkley and Thayer to approve an incomplete report, Polis argued, because the “altered report” did not exist.

And Terpening’s testimony, Sandquist said, provides no indication that a conspiracy with Talbert or anyone else was behind Sampson’s alleged actions.