Pacoima Cocaine Ring : ‘Rock House’ Landlord Gets Prison Sentence

A Pacoima man police called the kingpin of the cocaine trade in the northeast San Fernando Valley was sentenced Wednesday to four years in state prison for maintaining a “rock house” where drugs were sold.

Jeffrey A. Bryant, 34, pleaded guilty Feb. 12 in Van Nuys Superior Court to owning and operating one of the heavily fortified houses at which hard, rocklike chunks of cocaine are sold.

He could have been imprisoned for six years. In exchange for Bryant’s guilty plea, however, prosecutors agreed to accept the lesser term and to dismiss seven similar counts pending against him.

With time off for good behavior and with credit for 250 days served while awaiting sentencing, Bryant could be released in less than 16 months, court officials said.

Three Houses Raided

From June, 1984, to March, 1985, Los Angeles police and sheriff’s deputies staged five raids at three Pacoima houses owned by Bryant.

In two of the raids, police used their controversial battering ram to break into the houses, which had thick steel bars over doors and windows.

Police said detectives or informants had bought drugs at all three houses before the raids.

Bryant, who was not present at any of the raids, was charged under an obscure 1982 statute that makes it a felony to knowingly maintain a house where drugs are sold.

The law had not previously been used in the county against the owner of a rock house, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Stephen A. Marcus.

Significant Victory

The prosecutor said the Bryant case represented a significant victory over rock house operators because Bryant was convicted “even though we never caught him at the houses or with any drugs.”

The case will “serve as a warning to landlords that they will be prosecuted if they make money off drugs,” Marcus said.

At Bryant’s three-week trial--shortened by his guilty plea--the defendant’s telephone records were introduced into evidence, showing that, over nine months, Bryant made more than 300 telephone calls from his car phone to the three houses.

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

Police testified that Bryant, who owned several expensive cars and lived lavishly, told them his income derived from a Pacoima pool hall he owned and operated.

Detectives theorized that the lightly patronized pool hall was used by Bryant to launder his drug money.

Self-Styled Drug Dealer

One witness testified under a promise of immunity that he was employed by Bryant as a drug dealer at the three Pacoima houses.

Two of the raided houses are in the 13000 block of Louvre Street, and one is in the 11400 block of Wheeler Avenue.

Detective James Dumelle of the Los Angeles police said the three raids netted a total of $32,000 in cash, and four pounds of cocaine with an estimated street value of $182,000.

In the battering-ram raids, suspects inside the houses dropped drugs into pots of boiling grease and poured battery acid over cocaine in unsuccessful efforts to destroy the evidence, Dumelle said.

The detective said police suspect that Bryant used the proceeds from a 1974 savings-and-loan robbery to finance his entry into drug trafficking.

Bryant served 52 months in federal prison for the holdup, but no money was ever recovered, Dumelle said.