The Region : Jury Rules 3 Officers Are Liable in Raid

A Los Angeles federal court jury decided that three law enforcement officers should pay $24,000 to a Cudahy woman and her daughter whose home was bombarded with tear gas in a futile attempt to find an escaped prisoner. The fugitive, Michael Wayde Mohon, then 38, was not found when heavily armed officers of the Bell-Cudahy Police Department and the Orange County and Los Angeles county sheriff’s departments stormed the home early on Jan. 18, 1985. The suit was brought by Lillian Corder, 71, and her daughter, Roberta Lombardo, 50, who were in the home when SWAT teams suddenly surrounded it about 3 a.m. Mohon, who had a long police record and was awaiting trial on charges that he tried to kill a Fountain Valley police officer, had escaped the day before by disarming an Orange County sheriff’s deputy. Officers went to the Corder-Lombardo home because Mohon’s wife was a friend of Lombardo and had been there during the evening. Sgt. Stanton Loder, of Bell-Cudahy Police Department, was assessed $7,500 in punitive damages; Sgt. Keith Brown, of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, was ordered to pay $15,000, and Cmdr. Roy Brown, of the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, was assessed $1,500.