Chief Gates’ Son Gets Jail Term on Narcotics Charge

The son of Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates was sentenced Tuesday to 90 days in County Jail for being under the influence of cocaine, his latest conviction in a long string of drug offenses.

However, the jail term was stayed until Aug. 25, when Municipal Court Judge J. Michael Byrne will review Lowell Gates’ progress in a 60-day live-in drug rehabilitation program. Court officials said the time that Gates spends in that program can be applied to the 90-day jail term.

Gates, 32, of Sierra Madre, was also sentenced to two years’ probation.

Byrne will also review on Aug. 25 the results of drug tests that Gates has agreed to take, court officials said. The tests will be administered by the county Probation Department.

Pleads Guilty

On April 11, the day his trial was set to begin, Gates pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of being under the influence of cocaine.

Gates was arrested March 9 along with five other people after sheriff’s deputies arrived at a Rosemead garage to investigate a report of a suspicious person.

Gates has a history of drug problems going back more than 10 years. He was convicted in 1978 of narcotics use and in 1980 for violating the terms of his probation when narcotics were found to be in his bloodstream.

Three years ago, he was convicted of robbery and theft in connection with stealing morphine-based narcotics from a Huntington Harbor drugstore.

Last year, he was found guilty of unlawful entry into his sister’s Irvine home.

Chief Gates publicly disowned his son in August, 1982, because of the son’s persistent drug use.

“He was the light of my life,” the chief said in 1985. “You and I have done a lousy job of telling our young people . . . that if they get involved in drugs, even to a minor degree, that it can very fast become major. It kills them.”