Panel Fires Light Rail Consultant Facing Trial : Transit: The county Transportation Commission cancels the contract of a former sheriff’s sergeant accused of embezzlement.

A security consultant on the $750-million Los Angeles to Long Beach light rail project was fired Friday after the county Transportation Commission learned that he faces trial for allegedly embezzling $9,500 while a sergeant for the Sheriff’s Department.

The commission approved a $75,000, six-month contract with John R. Stacy on Thursday to coordinate anti-crime efforts on the construction project. But Commission Executive Director Neil Peterson canceled the contract late Friday after The Times made inquiries about Stacy’s background.

Stacy, 47, was fired by the Sheriff’s Department last year after he allegedly forged his supervisor’s name to obtain $9,500 in unwarranted overtime during a 13-month period ending in February, 1987.

He is scheduled for trial Dec. 5 in Los Angeles Superior Court on embezzlement and forgery charges. An earlier trial ended in a hung jury.

After learning about Stacy’s legal problems, Peterson met with board members and commission staffers. Then he announced that he was canceling Stacy’s contract and ordering stiffer background checks on all private contractors who do business with the commission.

Peterson also said that he had reprimanded the two executives responsible for hiring Stacy about five months ago as an interim security administrator for the 22-mile light rail line to be completed next summer.

“An error in judgment was made,” Peterson said. “But once you get stung like this, you learn a lesson.”

Peterson said Stacy’s new contract, to go into effect next month, was revoked and his old one was canceled Friday because he did not “disclose fully” the status of his embezzlement case.

“We’re dealing with issues of basic integrity and representation of facts,” he said.

Peterson said the commission had not been informed that the county Civil Service Commission had refused this year to reinstate Stacy, who left the Sheriff’s Department in October, 1988.

Stacy’s attorney, Bradley Brunon, could not immediately be reached for comment on the contract cancellation.

Earlier Friday, Brunon said that Stacy had a right to work as a security consultant even though he had been terminated from the Sheriff’s Department after 22 years.

“He hasn’t been convicted of any offenses,” the attorney said. “And, in fact, 11 of 12 (jurors in the first trial) didn’t believe he committed these offenses.”

Brunon said that Stacy was entitled to the $9,500 in overtime but failed to follow proper administrative procedures. It was common practice for sheriff’s officers at the Los Angeles County-USC jail ward to sign their own time cards because their superior worked in another building, he said.

Light rail security director Louis Hubaud, who hired Stacy, said he did not tell the commissioners about Stacy’s background partly because he thought charges against him were dismissed last May when a Superior Court jury could not decide on his guilt.

“The more important thing was his technical ability and . . . (there was) a hung jury,” said Hubaud, who worked with Stacy in the 1970s when both were sheriff’s deputies.

In addition, Hubaud said he checked with Stacy’s former employer, the Sheriff’s Department, and was told “there was no problem” with hiring him.

Hubaud said he was surprised last month when other sheriff’s officials told him their investigation of Stacy was continuing and they refused to work with him on security matters.

The Sheriff’s Department, under a $1.1-million contract, is the law enforcement agency primarily responsible for providing security while the rail line is under construction.

Although Stacy was the liaison with the sheriff’s office and other local police agencies, Hubaud said he concluded that Stacy could still work effectively and recommended the new $75,000 contract. The six-month contract would have paid $49,600 in base salary, and up to $25,000 more in overtime and expenses.

Hubaud and Peterson characterized Stacy as an excellent employee who helped reduce vandalism and theft by alerting local police agencies to the problem.

“The other part of this story is that Mr. Stacy did a very good job over the months,” Peterson said.

The commission had lost about $350,000 to vandalism and theft before Stacy’s arrival, and has lost only about $24,000 since then, Hubaud said.

Commission members expressed surprise that they were not informed of Stacy’s background.

“I feel that if the commissioners had known all this, they might not have approved the contract,” Chairwoman Christine Reed said.

Commissioner Ray Grabinski said, “I’m obviously concerned that we weren’t briefed” about Stacy.

Peterson said that in the future consultants will be subjected to the same background checks and battery of questions as permanent employees.