Torrance Police Ordered to Pay : Jury Finds Dept. Covered Up for Officer in Fatal Accident

Torrance police covered up a colleague’s responsibility for a fatal 1984 traffic accident, a Los Angeles Superior Court jury ruled Friday in awarding a $6-million civil judgment.

In its verdict against the Torrance Police Department, Chief Donald Nash and six officers, the jury found the cover-up followed a “custom and policy” within the department that deprived citizens of their rights.

The verdict--which could grow next week when the jury assesses punitive damages--goes to John Rastello of San Pedro, whose 19-year-old son, Kelly, died in the Aug. 30, 1984, collision with off-duty Torrance Police Sgt. Rollo Green.

Suit Charged Officer Was Drunk

Rastello and his wife, Geraldine, charged in their suit that Green’s drunk driving caused the accident and that his co-workers covered up for him.

“Maybe this will send a message,” said a tearful John Rastello, 67. “For five years I’ve been calling this the rape of the Rastello family. Maybe this will be of help to someone else down the road.” Geraldine Rastello died last December.

The jury found Green liable for the accident and ordered him to pay $375,000. The bulk of the verdict was levied against the Police Department, Nash, Lt. Noel Cobbs, Sgt. Michael Paolozzi, and Officers Steven Burke, Daniel Metzger and Richard Silagy. Paolozzi and the officers investigated the crash and checked Green’s sobriety. Cobbs was the ranking officer on duty that night.

The jury found the county’s third-largest Police Department violated John Rastello’s constitutional right to meaningful access to the courts by covering up Green’s responsibility for the crash.

Two other officers--Lt. James Papst and Officer Wendall Robbins--were cleared. In the final accident report, Robbins wrote that Green was partially to blame for the crash because he made an illegal left turn in front of Kelly Rastello. Papst, who was not at the scene, reviewed and approved the report the following day.

When the verdict was read, the officers sat speechless for several minutes.

“The system sucks,” Cobbs said when he emerged from the courtroom.

“It’s about time this thing was laid to rest,” Green said, before escorting his wife away from the courthouse.

Nash was not in court and could not be reached for comment. Lawyers for the Police Department declined to comment, but an appeal is expected.

Punitive Damages Due

Unless there is a settlement earlier, the jury will return Wednesday to decide whether Nash, Green, Burke, Cobbs, Paolozzi and Silagy should pay punitive damages. Those defendants were found to have acted with “malice, oppression or fraud.”

Deliberations had stretched over three days before the verdict late Friday afternoon. During the six-week trial, jurors heard testimony from more than 70 witnesses, many of whom had been at the scene of the late-night accident on Rolling Hills Road in Torrance.

Green admitted to officers after the accident that he illegally cut short the left turn onto Whiffletree Lane. Almost all other facts about the accident were contested.

Green testified that he had two beers and two drinks in the seven hours before the crash, but said he wasn’t drunk. Several witnesses said he appeared steady at the scene.

But one, Tony Andrie of San Pedro, told the jury that Green was “swaying back and forth.”

‘Phantom Witness’

Defense attorneys called Andrie “the phantom witness,” and questioned whether he was even at the intersection that night. They noted that no other witnesses recalled seeing Andrie, who was a high school acquaintance of Kelly Rastello’s. They also questioned why Andrie did not come forward until four years after the crash. He explained that he did not want to upset the Rastello family with the information and didn’t know how significant his observations were.

The defense said Rastello caused his own death by speeding on his Kawasaki motorcycle and failing to apply both brakes.

Green was given special treatment in several respects, the Rastellos said: The off-duty sergeant was not given a blood-alcohol test; a field supervisor used one of the department’s few untaped phone lines to report in from the scene of the accident; Green was not arrested but was driven home by police, and Green was given just one field sobriety test more than an hour after the accident.

The defense argued that the one test, checking the responsiveness of Green’s eyes, is the most accurate sobriety measure used by officers in the field. Green passed the test, eliminating questions about whether he was drunk, the defendants testified.

Police Files Combed

In order to hold the city liable, the jury had to find a “custom and policy” that led to Rastello’s rights being violated. Rastello’s lawyers set out to prove that theory with an unprecedented review of alleged acts of police misconduct spanning the last decade.

Internal affairs files revealed several incidents that had never before been made public: A veteran Torrance police lieutenant resigned in 1987 after being confronted by his teen-age daughter’s accusations that she had been molested for several years. The supervisor of the Police Department’s program for troubled teens was forced off the department in 1984 after accusations that he molested one of his charges, used drugs and possessed child pornography. The department denied there was a pattern of covering up misconduct.