Ex-L.A. Policeman Held in Cocaine Case

An Anaheim Hills man identified as a 12-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of running a $100,000-a-week cocaine ring in Orange County.

Agents of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration identified the former patrolman as Modesto Benigno Perales, 38, who Los Angeles police said was suspended in January, 1987, and fired last January after an administrative hearing.

Perales was assigned to the Central Division in Watts. He was under investigation for allegedly running names through the police department’s computerized crime files as part of an outside business, according to LAPD Cmdr. William Booth.

Ralph Lochridge, a DEA spokesman, said Perales was arrested at the home of his girlfriend in West Los Angeles.

Three others were arrested Tuesday on suspicion of being part of the operation: Maurice Hernando, 28, of Santa Ana; Luis Tejeda, 57, of Santa Ana, and Hugo Oscar Hernandez, 43, of Anaheim. Only Hernandez, on parole from Orange County for possession of cocaine, was unarmed, but none of the suspects resisted, Lochridge said.

An informant led narcotics investigators to the drug operation, which was wholesaling between 7 and 10 kilograms of cocaine each week in Orange County and adjoining areas of Los Angeles County, Lochridge said. The sales were bringing Perales and his associates $70,000 to $100,000 a week, but it is not known how long the operation had been under way, Lochridge said.

Perales and Hernando recently traveled to Colombia to arrange for the importing of 320 kilograms of cocaine into the United States, Lochridge said.

Small quantities of cocaine and heroin were purchased undercover from Perales and Hernando, and eventually a kilogram of cocaine was bought from Hernando, Lochridge said. Agents searched the suspects’ homes and other locations in Orange County on Tuesday but did not report finding any significant evidence, Lochridge said.

Internal Investigation

According to Booth, Los Angeles police began an internal investigation of Perales after the department received an anonymous letter alleging that Perales was using a police computer for outside business. Perales had been ordered to stay away from witnesses in the investigation when in March, 1986, he contacted a witness in Santa Ana, Booth said.

Charged with insubordination, Perales was suspended without pay in January, 1987, and an administrative board voted last January to dismiss him, Booth said.

“Our narcotics people have been interested in him for some time now,” Booth said, but he added that Perales’ alleged use of police computer files had nothing to do with drug trafficking.

According to the DEA, Perales, Hernando and Tejeda are scheduled for a detention hearing Thursday morning before a federal magistrate in Santa Ana. A magistrate ordered Hernandez detained during a separate hearing Tuesday, the DEA said.