2 Drug Dealers Guilty Despite Deputy Scandal

In a partial victory for Los Angeles County prosecutors, two drug dealers pleaded guilty Thursday in a cocaine-trafficking case even though a sheriff’s deputy implicated in a money-skimming scandal was a key witness against them.

It marked the first time that prosecutors had salvaged a case involving sheriff’s deputies suspected of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in drug raids.

Local and federal prosecutors had lost eight consecutive cases since the scandal broke Sept. 1, either because the Sheriff’s Department refused to provide investigative records about 18 suspended deputies or the deputies themselves would not testify.

Three suspended deputies were involved in Thursday’s case, including an undercover officer who arranged a 220-pound cocaine deal with three men described by law enforcement officers as members of a major Colombian cocaine smuggling-and-distribution ring.

Daniel Archival and David Alvarado pleaded guilty to possession of money acquired through drug sales after prosecutors agreed to sharply reduce their prison terms from a maximum of 20 years to no more than three years. Charges against Archival’s brother, William, were dropped entirely in a carefully negotiated deal.

“We feel better,” said Robert Schirn, head of the district attorney’s major narcotics division, referring to the two guilty pleas. “If getting what you think the case is worth is a victory, then I suppose it is.”

Several months ago, before the money-skimming allegations surfaced, all three men had agreed to a plea bargain with long jail terms, prosecutors said. But the case against them was damaged because testimony of the suspended officers could no longer be used, they said.

The men were arrested last May in a “reverse sting” operation in West Los Angeles. They were accused of trying to buy 220 pounds of cocaine with $1.1 million in cash.

Daniel Archival, 34, faced eight felony charges that included possession of a handgun and explosives before accepting a three-year sentence. Alvarado, 32, who also faces drug-trafficking charges in North Carolina, pleaded guilty in exchange for a two-year prison term.

Defense attorneys said they agreed to a plea bargain because they feared that Superior Court Judge Alexander H. Williams III, unlike judges in prior cases, would not dismiss their case.

Richard A. Hamar, the attorney for Daniel Archival, said he thought that Williams, a former federal prosecutor, would “have fashioned an order” that would have allowed the district attorney to take the case to trial, where a jury could convict his client.

“They could have had a jury sitting there, considering my client with close to $1 million in a drug deal for 100 kilos of cocaine,” Hamar said.

Attorney James Blatt, who represented Alvarado, said he saw little choice but to bargain, because he was certain the judge “would have tried to tailor his decision to keep the case alive.”

Williams would not say whether he would have ordered the case to trial, but in an interview Thursday he characterized himself as “a conservative fellow.”

“I’m not afraid of doing whatever the law requires, but I make sure it is required,” the judge said about the possibility of dismissing the case.

Prosecutor Schirn has maintained that Thursday’s case and up to 10 other major cases involving suspended deputies should be allowed to go to trial because officers untouched by the scandal are available to testify to the facts of arrests and searches. He said state Supreme Court decisions support his position.

And, even though eight cases have been dismissed by judges or withdrawn by prosecutors, Schirn noted that “in most of the cases there weren’t any backup witnesses.”

Schirn would not predict whether Thursday’s guilty pleas will have a broad impact, but defense attorney Hamar said the absence of dismissals in the case “give (prosecutors) the club to get pleas in the rest” of the cases involving suspended deputies.

“This is just the beginning,” he said. “Things are now evolving and each case is going to be thought out more carefully.”

Nearly obscured in Thursday’s legal maneuvering were allegations by Daniel Archival of missing cash. In an interview with The Times, Archival claimed that, in addition to the $1.1 million seized, deputies took another $400,000 from him that was never turned in as evidence.

Hamar said in court documents that “a substantial amount of money” had been stolen during his client’s arrest and that he planned to base his defense on a claim that the sheriff’s investigation was conceived so officers could skim money.

Deputy Macario Duran, the undercover officer who proposed a cocaine deal to Alvarado, was suspended a month ago in the money-skimming probe. Sgt. Kenneth Allen and Deputy J. C. Miller, who were relieved of duty at the same time, also participated in the investigation.

However, prosecutors said that at least seven other sheriff’s officers were available to testify.