Sheriff Suspends More Officers in Drug Probe : Homes, Businesses of 9 Deputies Searched as Money Skimming Investigation Expands

Nine more Los Angeles County sheriff’s narcotics officers were suspended Tuesday, and their homes and businesses in California and Arizona were searched by federal agents as part of a widening investigation into alleged thefts of money during narcotics raids.

The suspensions, announced by Sheriff Sherman Block in a terse press release, bring to 18 the number of officers who have been relieved of duty since the scandal broke Sept. 1.

Block also disclosed for the first time that a police officer from an unnamed law enforcement agency has been implicated in the investigation, which he now dubs “Operation Big Spender.”

FBI, IRS Involved

“The Sheriff’s Department initiated this investigation, and we are committed to seeing it through with the assistance of our federal law enforcement colleagues,” the sheriff said. The FBI and the IRS are also involved in the year-old inquiry.

Block would not identify the newly suspended officers. But he said that eight of the deputies had been assigned to the Sheriff’s Narcotics Bureau and the ninth was assigned there until a recent transfer. The house of a recently retired sheriff’s deputy was searched by investigators, as was the home of the officer from another agency, the sheriff said.

In all, search warrants were served early Tuesday morning at 16 houses and four businesses owned by or associated with the suspended officers. Two of the searched homes are in Arizona and one is in Central California, the sheriff said.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Thomas Hagemann, who is directing the multi-agency investigation, could not be reached for comment.

One source close to the investigation said some of the narcotics officers were implicated after financial checks were done on them.

“They’re running assets searches on everybody and anybody who had anything to do with the sheriff’s (narcotics) operations,” the source said. “Anybody who came up with money they can’t explain, they are hitting with search warrants.”

Richard Shinee, attorney for the Assn. for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, said the union had been contacted by some of the suspended deputies, but “we don’t have any solid information as to the reasons” except for Block’s brief explanation.

Defense attorneys said dozens of prosecutions of alleged drug dealers are likely to be affected by the additional suspensions.

Since the first nine suspensions, two cases have been either dismissed or withdrawn because they rely on the testimony of some suspended deputies. And the district attorney has said about a dozen more cases are jeopardized.

David Wood, a director of Criminal Courts Bar Assn. of Los Angeles, said Block’s refusal to identify all suspended deputies puts prosecutors in an untenable legal position.

“It’s just incredible that they’re not naming the officers because that throws every one of those sheriff’s cases up for challenge,” said Wood, who represented one of the drug dealing suspects whose case was dismissed.

Wood also asked: “At what point does does Sherman Block have to start answering for the misconduct of so many of his elite officers?”

Union attorney Shinee defended the sheriff’s decision not to release the names because it would invade the privacy of the deputies, who have not been charged with a crime. Two unions had criticized Block last month for revealing the identity of the first nine suspended deputies.

When announcing the first nine suspensions last month, Block said the alleged money skimming was the worst case of corruption since he took charge of the nation’s largest sheriff’s department in 1982.

On Sept. 1, the sheriff announced that eight deputies and their sergeant--who made up one of four squads that investigated major drug cases--had been relieved of duty. Sources have told The Times that a videotaped sting operation two days before the suspensions caught at least two of the deputies transferring cash from a money bag to a separate pouch.

The other three major narcotics teams were disbanded two weeks later by Block, and about 30 officers from the units were reassigned to stations throughout the county.

Sources told The Times last week that officers in some of the disbanded units were also under investigation. Prosecutors have given drug dealers limited immunity to get them to detail their claims that hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash was taken from them by officers and never turned in, sources said.

Authorities refused to say whether the suspended officers had been members of the major narcotics investigations squads that were disbanded two weeks ago, but there were signs that the investigation had moved into local stations.

According to a log book at the Lennox Station, a captain from the Special Investigations Bureau of the Sheriff’s Department called at 6:45 a.m. Wednesday and “ordered that we post guards at the narco trailer and send arriving narco investigators” to narcotics headquarters in Whittier.

One source at the Lennox Station told The Times that the trailer, which houses the station’s narcotics operations, had been sealed as part of the investigation. But when asked if any of his officers had been suspended, Operations Lt. Tony Denis of the Lennox Station declined comment.

“We were told that all questions regarding the investigation should go through” the Sheriff’s Information Bureau, he said.

Deputy Richard Dinsmoor of the information bureau said there would be no comment beyond the sheriff’s written statement.

The officers initially suspended are Deputies Terrell H. Amers, James R. Bauder, Nancy A. Brown, Eufrasio G. Cortez, Ronald E. Daub, John C. Dickenson, Daniel M. Garner and Michael J. Kaliterna and Sgt. Robert R. Sobel. No charges have been filed against any of the officers.

Vacation homes, boats and cars belonging to some of the officers have been seized. Property valued at $300,000 recently was confiscated from Cortez and Daub in Arizona, according to federal documents.

The latest disclosures stunned other law enforcement officials who specialize in narcotics cases and who had been hoping that the damage would be limited.

“This is like Chapter 2 of a long book,” said Lt. Mike Post, head of Glendale Police Department’s Narcotics Division, which like a number of departments throughout the county has worked with the sheriff’s office on narcotics cases.

“I just think that it just heralds a new age in West Coast law enforcement,” he added. “You can never go back. Things will never be quite as innocent and quite as trusting as it was before.”

Times staff writer Yolanda Rodriguez contributed to this story.