Police Get a Deal on Autos in Drug Bust

They were the sort of people one does not usually associate with the rough-and-tumble world of drug dealing at MacArthur Park.

There was a stockbroker. Two parents with children, one 4 and the other 5. A pop singer and actress named Apollonia. And, an accountant wearing blue alligator shoes who was driving a 1978 Mercedes-Benz.

They were among 51 people arrested Thursday and Friday after the Los Angeles Police Department and FBI agents conducted a two-day sweep against drug buyers at MacArthur Park and two other neighborhoods near downtown.

Police Chief Daryl F. Gates said the suspected drug buyers had come to the street-corner narcotics “supermarkets” to buy small quantities of cocaine or marijuana. Although most were released on their own recognizance, their cars were confiscated and police said they will seek to retain the vehicles and hand them over to local and federal law enforcement agencies.

“More and more I feel like a used car salesman,” Gates quipped Monday as he stood before 13 of the vehicles displayed on a grassy knoll at MacArthur Park. “This effort is designed to get at the users and to get at them in the hardest possible way--by repossessing a valuable piece of property.”

A dark blue BMW, a shining-black Mercedes-Benz, and a Ford Bronco with fewer than 300 miles on the odometer were among the 43 confiscated vehicles, valued conservatively at $300,000. One car bore a license plate holder identifying the owner as a member of a fraternity at Cal State Fullerton.

Los Angeles Police Detective Henry Machado said the suspected drug buyers did not take well to being arrested.

“They ask us if we don’t have more important things to do and say we should be arresting rapists and murderers,” he said.

The vehicles were seized under federal forfeiture laws that permit police to confiscate the assets of those suspected of buying and selling drugs. The action of seizing vehicles is taken as a federal civil suit that is unrelated to the criminal charges.

Gates said 844 vehicles worth more than $4 million have been seized since the LAPD began the confiscation program in January, 1988.

Also among those arrested Thursday night were three Japanese tourists. They were taken to a police command post set at up the northwest corner of MacArthur Park and released on their own recognizance.

Some, like Max Pfaffinger, an employee at a Studio City auto alarm installation business, denied they were purchasing drugs.

“The stupid thing is . . . there’s no evidence and they hold your car,” Pfaffinger said. “They’re busting everybody. I didn’t do anything.”

Pfaffinger was arrested but released at the command post that same evening. Having lost his roommate’s car to the police operation, he called a friend for a ride.

Police said among those arrested was actress Patricia Bernhardt, also known as Apollonia, a pop singer who appeared in the movie “Purple Rain.” Bernhardt was arrested for suspicion of possession of marijuana, a misdemeanor. One officer said Bernhardt told her that she was “buying weed for a role that she was going to play in the movies.”

Bernhardt could not be reached for comment Monday.