3 of Sheriff’s 4 Narcotics Units Allegedly Stole Cash

The theft of drug money seized by narcotics officers has been a widespread practice in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for several years and has involved members of three elite narcotics squads, federal investigators alleged in affidavits unsealed Wednesday.

In the most detailed disclosures yet in a broadening money-skimming scandal, the affidavits filed by FBI and Internal Revenue Service agents portray veteran sheriff’s narcotics officers as stealing money from suspected drug dealers and money launderers--and sometimes squabbling over cash taken during the raids.

Relying on information from one indicted officer, other deputies and their own months-long probe, federal investigators said that members of three of the four sheriff’s narcotics squads investigating major drug cases were involved or were aware that money was stolen during drug raids, the documents said.

No dollar amount was given for the alleged thefts, which some officers told investigators date back to the mid-1980s. But the affidavits, which were used to justify search warrants on the officers’ homes and businesses, noted that millions of dollars have been confiscated by the narcotics teams and outlined a problem more sweeping than investigators or sheriff’s officials had ever publicly acknowledged.

Ten officers, including all nine members of one of the sheriff’s major narcotics teams, have been indicted for allegedly stealing more than $1.4 million from suspected drug traffickers and money launderers over the last two years alone.

But in one case cited in the affidavits unsealed Wednesday, members of another narcotics squad reportedly bragged that they had “scored big” during a 1988 drug raid and stole several hundred thousand dollars. A week later, members of the crew took a trip to Mexico together, the affidavit said.

According to the affidavit, the primary source for that information was former Sheriff’s Sgt. Robert R. Sobel, one of the indicted officers and the head of the drug squad that was indicted two weeks ago. While the nine other officers pleaded not guilty, Sobel entered a guilty plea last week to conspiracy and filing a false income tax return and agreed to testify against his one-time colleagues.

Sobel, who resigned from the Sheriff’s Department this week, was prominently mentioned in the federal documents as a key source for some of the information obtained by investigators.

In one affidavit, FBI Special Agent Robert H. Hightower said Sobel told him that every money-seizure case involving the three major narcotics teams “in the last few years would be highly suspect.” He said that Sobel also had been told by one narcotics officer from another team that “dissension” had developed among deputies because some members were taking larger shares of the stolen money.

According to the affidavit, Sobel began cooperating with the government shortly after he was suspended last September along with eight fellow officers. At one point, he even met with some of his former deputies and reported on their conversations to federal investigators.

Describing the former sergeant as having received at least $125,000 in stolen drug money during the last two years, Hightower added that much of Sobel’s information was corroborated by investigators.

“Currency-skimming has become a practice, not a rarity, in those years,” Hightower noted in his affidavit, “and has increased in the past two years as the seizures themselves have increased.”

Citing Sobel’s statements, along with other information gathered by investigators, Hightower concluded that members of the three sheriff’s teams “and their close associates share in or at least know about the fact that currency is being stolen during these narcotics raids” and that they also were engaged in laundering the money to avoid detection.

Federal prosecutors would not comment on the affidavits, but Undersheriff Robert Edmonds said the alleged involvement of other major narcotics squads in the money-skimming scandal led to the department’s decision to disband the teams last fall.

“You have a glimpse at why we took that action,” Edmonds said, adding that additional suspensions may be a possibility as the investigation continues.

In addition to the 10 indicted officers, eight others have been suspended in the probe. The wife of one indicted deputy also was named in the grand jury indictment that contained 27 counts of conspiracy, theft, money laundering, filing false income tax returns and other criminal charges.

The grand jury indictment also claims the officers spent hundreds of thousands of dollars stolen from drug suspects on such lavish gifts as cars, boats, jewelry, furniture and vacation homes.

With the exception of Sobel, all have maintained their innocence.

According to the affidavit, the investigation into the money-skimming scandal began on Oct. 28, 1988, when an anonymous letter was sent to Sheriff Sherman Block and other top officials. The letter, purportedly written by the wife of a narcotics officer, alleged that her husband and his fellow crew members were stealing drug money and living “well beyond their means.”

When the letter was traced to a photocopy machine in the same center that houses the narcotics officers, investigators suspected that another officer had sent the letter. The following March, a deputy whose two sisters had previously been married to deputies working on major drug teams claimed that such squad members had been stealing money and property during raids since 1985.

Another deputy, who refused to give his name but said he was recruited for a narcotics team job, told a sheriff’s investigator that the narcotics officers even used a profile in determining whether or not to steal money during a drug raid, one affidavit said. “These thefts generally involved raids of South American or Latin American individuals who had little or no narcotics but large amounts of currency,” the affidavit said.

Another retired narcotics deputy allegedly told a top sheriff’s official that members of the narcotics bureau had invested money in a restaurant business that investigators contend required a net worth of at least $1 million and net assets of $600,000. When asked where such large sums were coming from, the retiree balked at answering, the affidavit said.