Disabled Man Sent to Prison for Tampering

A disabled Reseda man was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison Monday for intercepting law-enforcement secrets from a police radio frequency and attempting to sell the information to the targets of two government investigations.

Richard Lafferty, 61, was sentenced to the Lompoc federal penitentiary by U.S. District Judge William J. Rea after pleading guilty to six counts of obstructing justice in two Internal Revenue Service investigations, Assistant U.S. Atty. David Hall said.

Lafferty was indicted by a grand jury for tampering with the government investigations of two schemes to launder drug money. One of the schemes involved Russell W. Bledsoe, who allegedly headed a cocaine money-laundering ring and was killed in his Sylmar home in February during a shoot-out with police, Hall said.

The indictment alleged that from March to June, 1986, Lafferty listened to a particular police radio frequency for information he later offered to Bledsoe, two co-conspirators and Fernando Ramirez of West Covina, who was being investigated in a separate money-laundering scheme. He would not reveal the names of the co-conspirators because of a pending investigation.

There is no evidence that Lafferty knew either of the targets of the investigations, Hall said. However, he contacted the people and arranged to meet them at their homes, offering to sell them information about the surveillance, Hall said.

$2,000 Received

Lafferty attempted to sell the information to Bledsoe and his accomplices for $4,000 and actually received $2,000 for the information he provided Ramirez, the prosecutor said.

Bledsoe and Ramirez called police and informed them of Lafferty’s offers, Hall said.

An amateur radio buff, Lafferty had thousands of dollars worth of sophisticated interception equipment, Hall said. He kept two police scanners in his home and had one in his van, the prosecutor said. The radio equipment was seized after Lafferty was arrested by federal officers in April.

The maximum prison term for obstruction of justice is five years, but Lafferty received a relatively light sentence because of his failing health, Hall said. He suffers from a spinal tumor and a broken leg, the prosecutor said.

“I think it was a fair sentence,” Hall said. “It was less than we had ultimately hoped for, but it is still a significant sentence on a nonviolent crime.”