Ex-Policeman Gets Probation for Planting Cocaine in Motorist’s Car

A former Los Angeles police officer was sentenced Wednesday to three years probation for planting cocaine in the car of a man he had stopped for drag racing.

Timothy J. Cabezas, 28, of Reseda, who resigned from the Police Department when he pleaded no contest last month to a felony charge of false imprisonment, was also ordered to perform 300 hours of community service.

The incident occurred May 13 while Cabezas, a police officer for more than six years, was on foot patrol with his partner in an area of Van Nuys known for drug sales, according to court documents.

Arrested 2 Men

The officers arrested two men on suspicion of cocaine possession and, while driving them to the police station, stopped two cars that were drag racing, Deputy Dist. Atty. Herbert R. Lapin said.

Cabezas took the cocaine that had been found near the drug suspects and planted it in the car of one of the drag racers, Kevin Boyd, 22, of Pacoima, the prosecutor said. Cabezas then allowed the two drug suspects to go free and told his partner, Orlando Nieves, a police trainee, to pretend that the cocaine had been found in Boyd’s car, Lapin said.

Nieves refused Cabezas’ order to put the false version of events in a police report, so Cabezas wrote the report himself, Lapin said. Nieves reported the incident immediately to his supervisor, police said.

Cabezas, in a letter to a county probation officer, said that Boyd had become “irate and abusive” after he was stopped for drag racing and “unfortunately, I became upset.”

“I know I made a terrible mistake . . . . I just didn’t think clearly about what I was doing,” Cabezas wrote.

Ironic Twist

Ironically, Boyd was convicted of cocaine possession in a separate case four months after the incident and was subsequently sentenced to prison.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge David Horowitz sentenced Cabezas to probation and community service after reading a probation report that said “losing his job and the embarrassment has been punishment enough” for the former Van Nuys Division officer.

Lapin called the probation report “a little bit lenient.” He had asked the judge to sentence Cabezas to “some jail time,” which would have “sent a message” to other officers who might consider such an act.

Boyd was arrested Aug. 11 in the San Fernando Valley on cocaine and gun charges, to which he pleaded guilty Sept. 22, court records show. Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Darlene E. Schempp sentenced him to 16 months in state prison.