Landlord Pleads Guilty to Running a ‘Rock House’

A 34-year-old Pacoima man pleaded guilty Wednesday to charges that he ran a cocaine “rock house” in the San Fernando Valley, bringing an end to the first trial in Los Angeles County of a suspected rock-house operator.

Jeffrey A. Bryant admitted after a three-week trial in Van Nuys Superior Court that he was aware cocaine was processed and sold in hard, rock-like chunks at a house he owns on Wheeler Street in Pacoima, and that he possessed cocaine for sale last June.

It was at another of Bryant’s homes in Pacoima that the Los Angeles Police Department first used its controversial battering ram in February, 1985, to gain access for a search.

Other Charges Dismissed

In exchange for his guilty plea on two of the nine counts against him, prosecutors agreed to dismiss the other charges and seek a sentence of four years in prison, rather than the maximum six-year term Bryant could have received if convicted on all counts. His sentencing is scheduled for March 12.

Bryant, described by police as the primary supplier of cocaine in Pacoima, was prosecuted under an obscure 1982 state statute that makes it a felony to knowingly maintain a house where drugs are sold. The law had not been used in the county against the owner of a rock house, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Stephen A. Marcus.

Although Bryant was not discovered on the premises during any of five police searches of three of his heavily fortified Pacoima homes, testimony during the trial revealed that he managed and supplied the drug operation.

Marcus said Bryant’s telephone records, introduced as evidence during the trial, showed that he made more than 300 telephone calls from his car phone to the three houses over a nine-month period.

“Many of the call were made at 2 a.m. and 3 a.m., times that landlords do not generally check on their tenants,” Marcus said.

In addition, one witness testified under a promise of immunity from prosecution that he was employed as a drug dealer at Bryant’s houses.

Location of Raids

The raids were conducted with search warrants in June, 1984, and January, February and March of 1985 at two addresses in the 13000 block of Louvre Street and in the 11400 block of Wheeler Avenue. Police seized a total of $32,000 in cash and four pounds of cocaine with an estimated street value of $182,000, according to Los Angeles Police Detective James Dumelle.

In two of the raids last year, Los Angeles police used the battering ram to break through steel bars on doors and windows. During those searches, suspects inside the homes dropped drugs into pots of boiling grease and poured battery acid over the cocaine in vain efforts to destroy it, Dumelle said.