Suit by ZZZZ Best Figure Against LAPD Dismissed

A federal judge in Los Angeles threw out a lawsuit Monday by a former ZZZZ Best carpet cleaning financial consultant who accused police of illegally searching his Encino home and falsely branding him a suspected money launderer.

Maurice Rind, 50, who was a consultant to the San Fernando Valley company owned by Barry Minkow, sued the Los Angeles Police Department, Chief Daryl F. Gates and three detectives for $15 million after the July 8, 1987, search of his house. Minkow was convicted last December of 57 counts of fraud and conspiracy and sentenced in March to 25 years in prison.

Rind alleged that his constitutional protection against illegal search and seizure was violated when police obtained a search warrant using false statements made by anonymous or nonexistent informants, and that Gates, in a news conference the same day, identified Rind as a money launderer linked to ZZZZ Best.

But U.S. District Judge Laughlin E. Waters dismissed Rind’s lawsuit, ruling that, because it was filed last July, a one-year statute of limitations on the case had expired.

Rind’s lawyer, Harvey L. Goldhammer, said he would appeal.