Convicted Drug Dealer Is Set Free in Deputy Scandal

A convicted drug dealer has been released from state prison after a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge was informed that some sheriff’s narcotics officers who testified against the dealer may have falsified evidence, according to sources and court documents.

The district attorney’s office has told lawyers for at least four other convicted dealers that their clients also may have been convicted with false and perjured evidence.

In a highly unusual move, prosecutors sent advisory letters last month to the defense attorneys, based on information from investigators probing alleged money skimming by Sheriff’s Department narcotics officers.

Sources said investigators had received information that several sheriff’s deputies and one Los Angeles police officer may have manufactured evidence, perjured themselves or planted cocaine on some of the suspects.

Three of the deputies have been suspended, though not indicted, as part of an investigation into allegations that narcotics officers stole more than $1.4 million from drug dealers and money launderers.

Sgt. Robert R. Sobel, who pleaded guilty last month in the money-skimming case, has also been implicated in three cases where tainted evidence may be a factor.

In addition to Sobel, who has been cooperating with authorities, nine sheriff’s narcotics officers have been indicted for allegedly stealing drug money.

Since last fall, more than a dozen state and federal prosecutions have been dropped or dismissed because deputies involved in the money-skimming scandal were key witnesses.

The latest disclosures, however, represent the first time that the scandal may result in convictions being overturned.

“The money-skimming allegation is abhorrent,” said one county prosecutor who spoke on condition of anonymity. “But this stuff goes to the heart of our judicial system: the credibility of our police officers.”

According to court records and sources close to the probe, local and federal investigators are scrutinizing at least three criminal cases involving sheriff’s narcotics officers alone and two cases involving a Los Angeles Police Department narcotics detective who worked closely with the Sheriff’s Department.

In one case, Superior Court Judge Michael Tynan ordered the release last December of Trosper Parie, who was serving a five-year sentence in California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo.

The judge took the action after prosecutors informed him that arresting deputies may have lied about the circumstances that led to a search of Parie’s apartment and the discovery of more than 11 pounds of cocaine.

“I’ve been in practice 23 years, all in criminal law, and I have never seen anything like this,” said Parie’s attorney, Jeffrey Brodey. “I was bowled over by what the judge did.”

Parie, who had served seven months, was released on his own recognizance. Brodey said that he will file to overturn Parie’s conviction.

Tynan declined comment on his decision. But Curtis A. Hazell, acting head of the district attorney’s major narcotics and forfeiture division, said he had recommended Parie’s release after advising the judge about the possibility of tainted evidence.

“The Sheriff’s Department came to us on that case and on several other cases and indicated that they had received information that might materially affect or alter facts in cases where convictions were obtained,” Hazell said.

Prosecutors considered dismissing several cases on their own but were advised by the district attorney’s appellate division that they could not take that action unilaterally, Hazell said.

As a result, he said, the district attorney wrote defense attorneys a letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Times.

The letter told the attorneys that their clients may have been convicted as the result of “false and perjurious” testimony. The letter noted that this information came from “the ongoing investigation of corruption among deputies assigned to the Sheriff’s Narcotic Division,” but did not elaborate.

However, the defense lawyers were assured that the district attorney’s office will join them in seeking a court hearing to review the convictions.

“This is extremely unusual,” Hazell said. “It simply has never occurred before in the major narcotics division.”

Although Hazell would not discuss the specific allegations, court records and sources close to the investigation indicate that some narcotics officers are suspected of falsifying information used to obtain search warrants, of lying about what they observed during drug raids and of planting cocaine.

One case involving the alleged planting of cocaine stemmed from the 1986 arrest of Parie.

According to court records, four members of the Lennox sheriff’s station’s narcotics crew--Sgt. Sobel and Deputies John Edner, J. C. Miller and Robert Tolmaire--had arrived at Parie’s Los Angeles apartment on June 18, 1986, after reportedly receiving a tip from an anonymous informant. The informant claimed that Parie had 88 pounds of cocaine and $100,000 at his home, according to Tolmaire.

Although the officers had no search warrant, the deputies testified that they kicked down the front door after smelling marijuana smoke and hearing someone trying to flee.

After entering the apartment, the officers said they saw an open window and a man running away. During their subsequent search, the deputies reported finding more than 11 pounds of cocaine and $3,000 in cash in a closet.

Two hours later and armed with a search warrant, the same deputies raided the unoccupied house of William Barnes, who also had been named by the informant. The deputies said that they found more than $13,000 in cash and a plastic bag of cocaine stuffed in a Gucci bag under a bed.

After he was arrested, Barnes accused the deputies of planting the cocaine. Last year, his drug trial ended in a hung jury.

Brodey, who represents both Parie and Barnes, said that his clients have been interviewed by investigators who have also been looking into alleged money-skimming by Sobel and his crew at Lennox. He said in a court declaration earlier this year that sheriff’s deputies had informed him that Miller, Edner and Tolmaire “are being investigated for suspicion of committing perjury” in the Parie and Barnes cases.

“I have been informed that they (investigators) believe that . . . officers Miller and Tolmaire perjured themselves about their entry into Mr. Parie’s residence and about the location of contraband and the manner in which contraband was seized,” Brodey said.

In his declaration, the attorney did not detail the alleged perjury by Edner.

Sobel had led that Lennox team until he was promoted to head one of the major narcotics crews. Edner, Miller and Tolmaire--now a patrol sergeant--are among 10 officers who have been suspended in the probe but remain unindicted.

None of the officers could be reached for comment.

Tolmaire’s attorney, Roger Cossack, declined to comment, saying: “My client has not been arrested and has not been indicted. . . . There is nothing to deny or affirm.”

Sobel’s attorney, Mark Beck, refused to say whether his client has provided any information against his former team members.

“Suffice to say that any case he was involved in is a subject of inquiry,” Beck said, “including prosecutions that have already been completed.”

Sobel was involved in a third case where the district attorney has raised questions about tainted evidence.

In that case, Sobel worked with LAPD narcotics Detective Stephen Polak on a surveillance that led to the 1987 arrest of Sylvester Scott in Compton, court records show.

After stopping Scott’s sports car, Polak reported finding a baggie containing 118 grams of cocaine under the driver’s seat. Scott eventually pleaded no contest on a cocaine possession charge. But his attorney, Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., said his client, now in San Bernardino County Jail on an unrelated drug case, has insisted all along that the cocaine was planted.

Another Cochran client, Brett Lewis, was arrested in 1987 by Polak and other members of a Lennox-based task force who found a plastic bag of cocaine in a car. Lewis, whose prints were found on the bag, pleaded guilty last year to possessing rock cocaine for sale. In exchange, two other drug-related charges were dismissed, and he received five years probation.

In the Scott and Lewis cases, Cochran said he received a letter from the district attorney’s office advising him that false testimony may have been used against his clients.

“I was shocked to receive this,” said Cochran, a former prosecutor. “If they are writing letters like this, then I don’t think we’ve yet felt the full effects of this scandal.”

Polak could not be reached for comment.

But one suspended deputy who has worked with Sobel and Polak said the latest accusations are merely a rehash of old allegations.

“You’ve got crooks who want to get out of jail spouting this stuff and Sobel who wants to stay out of jail by offering this stuff,” said the deputy, who says he has been ordered not to speak to reporters.

Los Angeles police spokesman Cmdr. William Booth refused to discuss Polak or any other officer by name, but said no one has been disciplined in connection with the money-skimming case.

The LAPD is aware that prosecutors have raised the issue of tainted evidence in some narcotics cases, Booth said, adding that there is the “possibility of some involvement by a member of this department.”

In a fifth case where convictions are jeopardized, Daniel Archival and David Alvarado entered guilty pleas last fall after they were arrested by undercover sheriff’s officers who had posed as drug dealers wanting to sell 100 kilos of cocaine.

After arresting Alvarado, Archival and Archival’s younger brother, William, the deputies reported seizing nearly $1 million.

Charges against William Archival were dropped last fall because some of the key prosecution witnesses were deputies being investigated in the money-skimming case.

For the same reason, Daniel Archival and Alvarado were allowed to plead guilty to reduced charges of possessing more than $100,000 in drug money.

Alvarado received a two-year prison sentence, and Archival received a three-year term in the plea bargain. But last month they received letters informing them about the possibility of tainted evidence.

Attorney Richard A. Hamar, who represents Archival, said he is seeking additional information from prosecutors. “If it goes to the heart of our case,” he said, “we not only can set aside the plea but we should be able to go forward with a dismissal.”