2 L.A. Officers, Target of Sting, Stole Money, Police Allege

Two Los Angeles Police Department officers, targets of an undercover sting operation, were caught last week taking a small amount of cash from a police officer posing as a narcotics dealer, department sources said Monday.

The patrol officers, who were suspected of stealing from people they have arrested, have been reassigned pending the results of an ongoing investigation by the Internal Affairs Division, according to police sources.

The two officers, working on loan to the narcotics division of the Police Department’s West Los Angeles Bureau, were members of a “chase team” called in to arrest a suspected drug dealer on Friday, sources said. But after arresting the “dealer”--actually an undercover police officer--the pair allegedly pocketed some of the money they had confiscated.

Sources said the amount of money taken was less than $100, but Cmdr. William Booth, who refused to name the officers or even talk about the details of the case, said any theft by a police officer is considered a serious breach.

“If the investigation establishes a prima facie case of a crime being committed . . . then we will present it to the district attorney to consider filing criminal charges,” he said.

The disclosure of the Police Department sting comes at a time when 18 suspended Los Angeles County sheriff’s officers face a federal grand jury probe into allegations that they stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from narcotics suspects during drug busts.

As part of that investigation, federal investigators had searched the home of one LAPD narcotics officer, but no action has been taken against that officer by either the Police Department or by federal authorities.

Police officials stress that this latest investigation is unrelated to the sheriff’s scandal. “This was an opportunistic thing, a small-time deal,” said one official.

Booth told The Times that the investigation was actually launched after the department received a complaint several weeks ago from a man who contended that he was missing some property after his arrest. “That property was located under circumstances that cast suspicion on a couple of officers,” Booth said.

In last Friday’s sting, narcotics detectives pretended to arrange a drug buy with an undercover police officer posing as a narcotics dealer, sources said. Then, the narcotics team radioed the two patrol officers to chase down the “suspect” and arrest him. After making the arrest, the two officers allegedly took the money from the man, sources said.

“It was not a significant amount,” said one narcotics officer familiar with the case. “It was like taking the pocket contents of a street dealer . . . but these guys went for the sting.”