Ambush Linked to Drug Probe, Businessman Says

A Norwalk businessman who says he is suspected of laundering stolen money for Los Angeles County sheriff’s narcotics officers reported to authorities that he was ambushed by a gunman last week.

The businessman was not wounded, but his car was riddled with handgun bullets as he arrived at his La Habra Heights home around midnight Dec. 10, sheriff’s homicide investigators said. He returned the fire with his own pistol, they said.

A Sheriff’s Department spokesman refused to comment on the incident or to make police reports public, saying the case is confidential because it is part of an ongoing federal and local inquiry into alleged money skimming by sheriff’s narcotics officers.

Since September, the department has suspended 18 narcotics officers suspected of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in seized drug money.

The businessman requested anonymity because of concerns for his safety and said he has gone into hiding. He is a longtime friend of the Sheriff’s Department, Undersheriff Robert Edmonds said. He has donated a battering ram to the department for narcotics raids and has socialized with sheriff’s officers, Edmonds said.

The businessman told The Times in telephone interviews that federal agents seized records from his vehicle repair business Oct. 3 because they suspected him of laundering money for several suspended deputies who are his friends.

He said he believes that a blunder by sheriff’s detectives investigating the alleged money skimming caused the ambush and that Colombian drug dealers were behind the shooting.

Two detectives, he alleged, disclosed to a Colombian informant that the businessman had secretly assisted sheriff’s deputies in the 1988 arrest of four Colombian cocaine traffickers and the seizure of 1,635 pounds of cocaine.

The detectives, in a mid-November interview, told him that they had shown his name and picture to the Colombian informant, the businessman said.

The businessman has not been named officially as either a money-laundering suspect or as a government operative in the drug case, though he acknowledges that he is both.

Sgt. John Laurie, a sheriff’s homicide investigator, confirmed that he is investigating possible links between the shooting and drug dealers, along with the possibility that it could be connected to the money-skimming inquiry.

“We have to explore all possibilities, but at the present time we’re not focusing in on either (theory),” he said.

The 1988 drug case involving the businessman figures in the money-skimming probe, according to lawyers and law enforcement sources.

Diego Venegas, the alleged ringleader in the 1988 case, has told detectives that hundreds of thousands of dollars and some cocaine seized during sheriff’s raids in La Habra Heights and Long Beach were never turned in as evidence, the sources said.

Two sheriff’s officers suspended were involved in the Venegas raids. Deputy Stephen Nichols was the lead investigator in the case. Deputy Leo M. Newman, also relieved of duty, helped seize most of the money. Attorneys for Nichols and Newman have maintained their clients’ innocence.

Theodore Naimy Jr., attorney for Venegas, said his client is cooperating in the money-skimming probe in hopes that his 15-year prison sentence will be reduced. Venegas alleges, the attorney said, that “significant amounts” of his money are missing.

Naimy said Venegas has known the businessman’s identity for months.

He denied that Venegas was responsible for the ambush. He dismissed the idea that his client would be involved in an ambush, saying it could only hurt his chance for a reduced sentence.

“If (the defendants) were going to get rid of him, why wouldn’t they do it before they pleaded guilty?” Naimy asked.

Venegas and two other defendants, Christina Perez and Pablo Sanchez, pleaded guilty in late September to possessing cocaine for sale and received sentences ranging from 10 to 15 years in prison. A fourth defendant, Granados Humberto Sanchez, faces trial early next year. The businessman, whose identity has been protected, is not expected to testify in the case, Naimy said.

Echoing Naimy’s comments, attorneys for other Colombian defendants said there was no reason for their clients to try to kill the businessman.

The businessman maintained that his friendship with seven suspended deputies first drew him into the money-skimming investigation.

His business was searched and records were seized in October, but IRS agents said they found no evidence of money laundering, the man said.

“There wasn’t even one check to a deputy,” he said.

In mid-November, two sheriff’s detectives also investigating money skimming questioned him at his office and all but accused him of participating in the alleged theft of “more than $400,000” and drugs in the Venegas case, the businessman said.

The detectives told the businessman that the Venegas case file contained his name and that during the money-skimming investigation the file had been shown to a Colombian involved in the drug case, the businessman said.

Furious, the businessman ordered the detectives out of his office, he said.

Two weeks later, the businessman spotted a white, late-model Thunderbird following him, the same car driven by the gunman, he said.

“This has just jeopardized me so much,” said the man, who said he went into hiding.

“My wife and I are beyond being petrified,” he said. “This may change our entire life. It already has. . . . We may have to sell our house and get the hell out of here.”

Sources said the same two veteran sheriff’s detectives who questioned the businessman also interviewed Venegas for more than two hours in early October. A second set of sheriff’s investigators questioned him again more recently, the sources said.

The Sheriff’s Department would not respond to any questions about the conduct of the officers who interviewed the businessman. The officers could not be reached for comment.

Capt. Doug McClure said the department has been asked by the U.S. attorney’s office not to comment on the money-skimming probe. “We can’t comment on any part of that investigation,” he said.