Ex-LAPD Intelligence Boss Named Interim Chief of Police in Corona

Retired Police Capt. John H. Cleghorn, who once headed the Los Angeles Police Department’s controversial Public Disorder Intelligence Division, will take the helm of Corona’s Police Department later this month, City Manager James Wheaton announced Thursday.

Cleghorn, a 26-year veteran of the LAPD, will become Corona’s interim chief on Aug. 15, Wheaton said. Cleghorn was the last commander of the LAPD’s public disorder division and the first commander of its successor, the two-year-old Anti-Terrorist Division.

Cleghorn will serve as chief until city officials find a permanent replacement for retired Police Chief Bob J. Talbert.

Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates, in a statement issued at Cleghorn’s retirement, described him as “an honorable, dedicated captain who did an outstanding job at PDID and ATD.”

When Cleghorn took over in 1982, the Public Disorder Intelligence Division was already the subject of a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of 131 individuals and organizations that claimed they were targets of illegal surveillance and infiltration by division officers.

During a deposition taken shortly after he took over the division, Cleghorn revealed the existence of a paid police informant who had allegedly infiltrated the groups.

The lawsuit was eventually settled out of court for $1.8 million, and the division was disbanded and replaced by the more tightly controlled Anti-Terrorist Division, under Cleghorn’s command.

Although Cleghorn was placed in the middle of one of the department’s most serious controversies, he reportedly emerged from the PDID without a scratch, developing a reputation among Los Angeles’ command officers as a good troubleshooter and one who could be sent to a problem area to lay down discipline and enforce the rules.

Now Cleghorn, 50, will take command of Corona’s troubled department, replacing Sam Lowery, a Riverside County chief deputy sheriff who has served as acting chief for nearly a year.

Lowery took command of the department last August when the Riverside County Grand Jury indicted Talbert and his deputy chief, Edward Sampson, on charges of conspiring to obstruct justice by ordering officers to alter their report of a fatal traffic accident.

A jury acquitted Talbert and Sampson of the charge in May after a three-week trial that was the culmination of more than a year and a half of bitter, often public acrimony between members of the Police Department and their chief officers.

Last week, city officials retired Talbert with a tax-free disability pension, saying ulcers and a hiatal hernia would prevent him from returning to work. Sampson, who requested a stress disability retirement shortly after he was indicted, remains on paid leave pending a psychiatric examination later this month.

Delays in getting reports of Talbert’s medical examinations delayed city officials’ decision to retire him, Wheaton said.

Cleghorn said Thursday that he had “been considering a second career” and “decided to take the interim assignment and apply for the permanent (position).”

He and his wife, Janet, are looking for a house to rent in Corona, Cleghorn said.

Cleghorn will be paid $28 an hour while he serves an interim chief, Wheaton said. The city manager hopes to have a permanent chief on the job by the end of October.