Officer Pleads No Contest to Framing Man

A 6-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department on Wednesday pleaded no contest to a charge that he framed a man for cocaine possession, and resigned from the force.

Timothy Cabezas, 28, who had been assigned to the Van Nuys Division, pleaded no contest to a felony charge of false imprisonment before Los Angeles Municipal Judge Alban Niles.

Cabezas entered the plea, treated the same as a guilty plea by California criminal courts, under an agreement that he will not receive more than a year in jail when sentenced Dec. 21 in Los Angeles Superior Court, Deputy Dist. Atty. Herb Lapin said. A second felony charge, preparing false documentary evidence, is expected to be dismissed, he said.

Cabezas tendered his resignation Wednesday from the Police Department, said Cmdr. William Booth, a police spokesman. Cabezas was removed from patrol duty after the May 13 incident and was suspended Oct. 1.

Booth would not discuss Cabezas’ prior record as a police officer.

On May 13, Cabezas and his partner arrested two men on suspicion of possession of rock cocaine, Lapin said. While driving the suspects to the Van Nuys station, the officers stopped another man on suspicion of drag racing, Lapin said. Cabezas allowed the two drug suspects to go free and told his partner to pretend that the cocaine had been found in the car of the drag-racing suspect, Lapin said.

Once at the station, Cabezas ordered his partner, a police trainee who was not identified, to write a report that would say the drugs were found in the car of the man accused of racing, Lapin said. But the partner refused, so Cabezas wrote the report, Lapin said.

Cabezas’ partner reported the incident to his supervisor. No action was taken against the partner.

The racing suspect was released. He later was arrested and convicted of a felony narcotics charge in a separate case in which he received a state prison sentence, Lapin said.