Deputies Smelled a Sting; Target Came as a Surprise

The sheriff’s narcotics team smelled a sting.

As the deputies secretly watched a suspected drug dealer at a hotel restaurant in Sherman Oaks, they thought it odd that he boldly flashed a wad of cash after his meal.

In fact, little about the paunchy money-laundering suspect rang true.

Although the IRS had provided the tip, the suspect’s name and address seemed phony, his penthouse room too flamboyant. His contact, wearing a ponytail and snakeskin boots with spurs, looked like a caricature of a Colombian drug dealer. The deputies thought he might be a federal agent known as “Snake.”

Their suspicions were confirmed when one of them recognized another federal agent, then discovered a government car, a telltale Volvo with tinted windows, in the hotel parking lot.

The deputies figured that--as sometimes happened in their undercover work for the Sheriff’s Department--they had tripped over a federal operation. “This is a sting,” one commented.

He was right. The Aug. 30 stakeout at the Valley Hilton was a videotaped federal sting. However, the targets were not the bogus drug traffickers but the Los Angeles County sheriff’s officers themselves.

Two days later, nine officers--an entire elite crew of investigators that handled only major drug cases--were suspended from their jobs, their homes were searched and their names were disclosed by Sheriff Sherman Block in what he described as the worst corruption case of his administration.

Details of the sting were provided by suspended deputies, their attorneys and other sources who have seen portions of the government’s videotape. Federal investigators and the Sheriff’s Department declined comment on the account.

The videotape of the 12-hour stakeout has become a crucial piece of evidence in an ongoing local and federal probe into allegations that deputies have stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars seized during drug raids.

Captured on the videotape was dramatic footage of one officer in a suspect’s hotel suite hurriedly taking three $10,000 bundles of $100 bills from the man’s shoulder bag and putting them into his partner’s leather briefcase.

The FBI had planted about $500,000 in cash at the Hilton, but thousands never made it to the evidence safe, deputies were told.

The videotape was convincing enough for the FBI, IRS and Block to announce the probe at a press conference and subsequently to investigate a flood of tips from drug dealers who claimed that deputies stole cash in drug raids. Some of the dealers have been granted limited immunity and given polygraphs to test their truthfulness.

Block, who began the probe one year ago, suspended nine more officers on Oct. 3, and the scandal now appears to be the worst in the history of the nation’s largest sheriff’s department.

No charges have been filed. But the 18 suspensions have raised questions about how far the alleged corruption has spread.

Officers in all four of the department’s now-disbanded “major violators” drug squads have been suspended, as has a narcotics investigator at Industry Station, department sources said. Narcotics offices at the Industry, Lennox and Carson stations were temporarily padlocked during the second wave of suspensions and searches two weeks. The homes of a retired deputy and a Los Angeles Police Department narcotics officer were also searched, as was the Central California home of a deputy’s mother.

In addition, documents served in the most recent round of searches sought information on 28 officers, including five who were not members of the major narcotics units. Even more narcotics officers have been asked by superiors to consent to voluntary searches of their homes, sources said.

The officers on whom the probe focuses are mostly respected veterans. Competition was keen for the 40 or so jobs on the major investigations squads, partly because the pay was exceptional--many officers make $60,000 to $70,000 a year--but also because dress was casual and time clocks were not punched.

The job also carried prestige and a maverick image.

“People don’t really know what you do, (so) every once in a while when you come up with a lot of dope or a lot of money, they think you’re something special,” said one suspended officer, who like others spoke on condition that he not be identified.

Against that backdrop, the nine officers suspended on Sept. 1, the only nine publicly identified so far, formed a top drug team known for its aggressiveness and hard work--both traits of the unit’s leader, Sgt. Robert R. Sobel, a 19-year veteran.

“He’s the hardest charging sergeant I’ve ever worked for,” one officer said. “He demanded more out of people, kind of an all-or-nothing type guy. And he had that reputation long before he came to dope.”

Squad members broke roughly into categories of experience: seven veterans in their 40s, and two fast-track, 31-year-olds born only three days apart in 1958.

The younger officers are James R. Bauder, whose retired father had been a narcotics lieutenant in the department, and John C. Dickenson, winner of the sheriff’s top award for bravery in 1988 for going to the aid of an officer who had been shot.

Crew veterans were Terrell H. Amers, 22 years in the department; Nancy A. Brown, 17 years; Eufrazio G. Cortez, 14 years; Ronald E. Daub, 16 years; Daniel M. Garner, 18 years, and Michael J. Kaliterna, 19 years.

Cortez, Daub, and Amers socialized together, while the rest of the team generally went their own ways except for an occasional party, pre-work coffee or post-work drink, some of the officers said.

Cortez, Daub and Amers all have new speedboats, and each has bought a house on the Colorado River within the last year.

The boats and vacation homes of Cortez and Daub were seized last month by federal agents who claimed they were purchased with stolen money. Home furnishings and cars, including the 1988 Oldsmobile of Daub’s mother, have also been seized from the two.

Attorneys for Cortez and Daub have said that most of the deputies’ large purchases were made with money from gifts or with loans, which they are paying off with their family incomes.

Amers’ vacation home was searched two weeks ago, but neither it nor his new boat was seized, said a source close to the deputy. On the day of his suspension, however, agents did take a modest diamond wedding ring off the finger of Amers’ wife of four years.

Federal agents also seized last month the 31-foot sailboat that Sobel bought for $31,500 in cash and cashier’s checks in June.

Sources familiar with the suspended officers said that none had habits that would require large sums of money.

Of the suspended crew, only Daub was known to gamble regularly. A relative of Daub said the deputy once walked away from a Nevada casino with more than $25,000 in winnings. An officer said Daub once produced IRS receipts for thousands of dollars he had won gambling. Cortez would sometimes accompany Daub to Laughlin or Las Vegas, and Amers also joined them at least once, sources said.

“(Daub) has on occasion won money gambling. It’s well known,” said Jay Lichtman, his lawyer. “There’s no secret about it. He was thrilled.”

Cortez and Daub also are known for their strong wills: Cortez as a hard charger who makes a striking impression in court by wearing expensive-looking suits and a stern face; Daub as a self-assured but moody investigator who looks older than his years.

Garner, who holds a college degree, is said to have burned out on narcotics work early this year and had been off the job on stress leave until just a week before the Aug. 30 sting.

All of the officers have families. And all are now married, except Brown. Several have been described as family oriented, and sources said that one officer has taken his suspension so hard that he has sunk into a deep depression and his family fears he will hurt himself.

“You never expect (the department) to turn on you like this,” said a suspended deputy. “And the worst part is that once it happens, there’s nobody to talk to. You ask your (suspended) friends a question, and they don’t know why you’re asking it. They’re suspicious. So you’re just isolated.”

Problems have been compounded for Daub and Amers, whose wives both work for the Sheriff’s Department, because they have not gone back to work since their husbands were suspended.

Some officers say they have been watched by undercover investigators since the suspensions, and they think their phones are tapped. They still receive paychecks, and the department sometimes places phone calls to make sure they stay at home during the workday. They say they have been told they will be fired if they speak to news reporters.

“We know they’re surveilling us. We know the guys, we know the cars,” an officer said.

The prospect of suspension and disgrace was hardly a passing thought early this year when “Majors Violators 2” was melded into the squad that was eventually suspended. That was when Brown, regarded as an able undercover investigator, was added to the unit after a year with a federal Drug Enforcement Administration task force, and when the soft-spoken Dickenson was brought in to take Garner’s place.

Suspended officers said they rarely thought about whether their colleagues were stealing money.

“You have ideas, but I didn’t care to know,” said a deputy, who added that he would never have accused a squad member of theft. “That’s the last thing you want to do.”

Their primary goal, officers said, was to seize cash from drug-money launderers, not arrest drug dealers. Given their assignment, some deputies said it was inevitable that someone would be tempted to steal money. “It’s like hiring a guy to be a mechanic, and then they don’t want you to be greasy,” a deputy said.

Superiors emphasize cash seizures because the department gets to keep most money it confiscates, officers said. The Sheriff’s Department reported seizing nearly $34 million in 1988, much of it by the four crews that worked major cases. Most of that money will eventually be returned to the department.

A sheriff’s spokesman said that the seizure of drugs and money are “both very high priorities,” and equally important to the department.

The Hilton sting demonstrated how quickly and cleanly a cash seizure can be made, some crew members said. After $500,000 was taken from the phony Colombian dealer in his room, the man signed a waiver renouncing claim to the cash, was given a receipt for it, and walked away without being charged with a crime.

When the man was released, the deputies had gotten less information from him than a patrol officer would get from a speeder when writing a traffic ticket, one officer said. That the man would give up the money showed he was a criminal, but he had committed no crime, the deputy said.

If drugs had been found with the money, the case would have been more complicated. An arrest would have been necessary, and the man could have made a legal claim to the money, the officer said. That’s why simple money seizures are preferred, he said.

Such quick and available money is what led to the corruption of the crew of “Major Violators 2,” say federal complaints. Crew members have taken turns skimming from millions of dollars in confiscated cash, the documents say.

Videotape recordings of the first hour of the Hilton stakeout show that when the suspect left his top-floor hotel room, Deputies Garner and Bauder entered it and discovered a bag of money, sources said.

Bauder took the bag across the hallway to a room where deputies were conducting their surveillance through a tiny peephole in the door, sources said. But Sgt. Sobel told him to take it back so they would not tip off the suspect and risk losing out on an even bigger cache.

The sting tape shows that Garner carried a leather satchel back into the suspect’s room and that Bauder stuffed three $10,000 bundles into it, sources said.

Garner took the bag into the room because it contained a spare gun, radio and handcuffs, said his attorney, Harland W. Braun. Bauder apparently took the cash as evidence, in case the suspect somehow got rid of the rest, the attorney said.

Braun said that Garner gave the $30,000 to Deputy Brown, the lead investigator, at the end of the evening.

Brown and Sobel were responsible for all of the money seized, sources said. At the hotel, the two officers counted bundles of money totaling about $450,000 and packed it in two evidence bags, sources said. Meanwhile, the other officers were dispatched to look for suspects at two other addresses found on papers in the suspect’s room.

Once the stakeout was over, Brown, Sobel and Garner all drove to their Whittier headquarters, where Brown and Sobel placed the bags in an evidence locker, the sources said.

Mark Beck, lawyer for Sobel, said he would not comment on the account of money handling during the stakeout. Brown could not be reached for comment. Bauder’s attorney, Richard Hirsch, would not comment except to say that his client “was acting in the course of a lawful narcotic investigation.”

The snippet of tape showing the transfer of money into the satchel was played for some deputies on the day of their suspensions, as was footage that places seven sheriff’s officers and four Brea policeman in the room with the money, for at least a few minutes.

Brea officers, who served as backup, spent nearly the entire assignment outside the Hilton with Deputies Amers and Daub. Lichtman, attorney for Daub, said that by the time that group of officers entered the room, the money was sealed in evidence bags.

Dickenson, who spent the day assigned to an observation helicopter, never entered the room. In fact, one deputy said that he thought Dickenson, a member of the crew for just months, has been unfairly tainted.

Nor was Cortez in the room, since he had been temporarily reassigned to IRS drug investigations, said his attorney, Gregory G. Petersen.

“He was at home with his wife at the time of the videotaping and they (the feds) apparently confused him with a Brea police officer,” Petersen said.

It was not until the agents arrived without warning at the officers’ homes--36 hours after the stakeout--that they knew their evening’s work had been recorded and that the sting had been on them, not their Latin suspect.

“We thought we had a crook at the time,” one deputy said. “But we were (the ones) surprised.”

BACKGROUND

Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block announced Sept. 1 that he had suspended nine officers in one his “major violators” drug squads pending an investigation into whether they pocketed money seized in raids. Nine more members of the Whittier-based drug squads were suspended Oct. 3, but no charges have been filed in the case.