Local News in Brief : Warrant Issued for Jail Informant

A warrant was issued Thursday for the arrest of longtime jailhouse informant Leslie White when he failed to show up for sentencing on a purse-snatching conviction. White had been free on $10,000 bail.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Ernest Hiroshige issued the no-bail warrant after White sent word through his attorney, Paul Geragos, that he had had car trouble and would be late, but never appeared.

A major investigation was sparked last fall when White demonstrated for sheriff’s deputies that he could convincingly fabricate a murder confession from an inmate he had never met. White used a jail telephone and posed as a bail bondsman, police officer and prosecutor to get information about the murder case from law enforcement authorities.

At the time, White, a convicted kidnaper and car thief, was in jail on a parole violation stemming from his having snatched the purse of an elderly woman in the Mid-Wilshire area last March.

He bailed out of jail last month when his parole hold expired, but was to have returned to court Thursday for sentencing on his guilty plea to the purse-snatching charge.