Judge Dismisses Suit Linked to ZZZZ Best

A federal judge Monday dismissed a $15-million civil rights suit filed by an Encino financial consultant who claims police illegally searched his home and falsely identified him as a suspect in a money-laundering scheme connected to Barry Minkow’s failed ZZZZ Best carpet-cleaning company.

Acting on a motion filed by the Los Angeles city attorney’s office, U.S. District Judge Laughlin E. Waters ruled that the one-year statute of limitations in the case had expired when Maurice Rind filed his lawsuit on July 13, 1989.

Rind, who was an investor in ZZZZ Best, sued the Los Angeles Police Department, Police Chief Daryl F. Gates and three Los Angeles police detectives after the July 8, 1987, search of his Encino home. He was seeking $5 million in general damages and $10 million in punitive damages.

Rind claimed that his constitutional protection against illegal search and seizure was violated when police obtained a search warrant using false statements made by anonymous informants and that Gates, in a news conference after the search, incorrectly said Rind was part of a money-laundering operation that involved ZZZZ Best.

Rind’s attorney, Harvey L. Goldhammer, called Gates’ statements “blatantly false and made with conscious disregard for the truth.”

Deputy City Atty. Linda Lefkowitz rebutted the allegations in Rind’s lawsuit, calling them untrue in an interview Monday.

She confined her arguments in court to the federal statute of limitations, which she said expired July 8, 1988, one year after Rind’s house was searched.

“Our position is he hasn’t been denied anything,” Lefkowitz said. “If he was really concerned about making a claim, he had a year to do so, and he just didn’t.”

Goldhammer argued that the statute of limitations has not expired because police are still in possession of Rind’s property--financial records, stock certificates and $10,000 in cash--which he maintains was seized on the basis of an illegal search warrant.

Goldhammer said he plans to appeal Waters’ ruling. “We’re dealing with a continuing wrongful action on the part of the city,” he said. “Since it is an ongoing wrong, the statute has not run out.”

Rind, 51, was twice convicted of stock fraud in the late 1970s. He has repeatedly denied wrongdoing in the ZZZZ Best case. No charges have been brought against him as a result of the July 8, 1987, search, but Police Cmdr. William Booth said the investigation remains open and “he’s still a person of interest to us.”

Minkow, the one-time whiz kid who founded ZZZZ Best in his parents’ garage and turned it into a fraudulent $100-million empire, was sentenced in March to 25 years in prison after being convicted of 57 counts of fraud in a case brought by federal authorities.

A separate legal action, brought by Art World of Los Angeles, is pending in state court. Art World, which employed Rind as a financial consultant, named the Police Department, Gates and the three detectives in a $10-million lawsuit filed in July. The suit alleges conspiracy and defamation for statements it says link Art World and Rinds to money-laundering operations.

The principals in Art World were not accused of wrongdoing, but Gates alleged the firm was used in a money-laundering operation.

The Times-Mirror Corp., which owns the Los Angeles Times, and KCBS-TV are also named in that suit because they printed or broadcast allegations made by police, said Wenona G. Paul, an attorney for Art World.

Lefkowitz said she will argue that the statute of limitations also has expired in that case.