Defender of Cops Becomes a Target : Law enforcement: The department’s senior representative for fellow officers facing misconduct charges finds himself accused of misconduct by police brass.

After almost two decades as a Los Angeles police officer who has championed the defense of fellow cops in trouble, Sgt. Beno Hernandez is about to take his turn on the proverbial hot seat.

He has been relieved of duty and accused of improperly influencing a criminal case, and is scheduled to attend a series of administrative hearings this month at Parker Center and City Hall to argue why he should not be forced to forfeit his badge.

The scrappy police sergeant vows not to go out without a fight. “If they try to take me down,” he said, “it will be like trying to tear the head off an angry animal.”

But if he loses, it likely will send a deep shudder through the ranks of thousands of Los Angeles police officers, who for years have turned to officers like Hernandez and other experienced police defense representatives to help them beat allegations of misconduct.

“If they break Beno down, they break down the whole defense league,” warned criminal defense attorney Howard Price.

Hernandez is the LAPD’s senior “defense rep”--a cop who acts in the role of a lawyer to defend other cops on administrative charges of misconduct--and he and his colleagues contend that the department is methodically trying to remove them from office. They said management views them as too savvy and too successful at beating the charges. They said the brass wants them replaced with younger, less experienced officers.

At least three of about a dozen defense reps said they have been drummed out of the department in the last five years, two others are closely watching their backs lest they be accused of misconduct, and two more say they have become so stressed that one developed an ulcer while the other literally witnessed his hair falling out.

At the same time, an unfair labor practices complaint has been lodged by the Police Protective League on behalf of the defense reps, and a City Hall ruling next month could determine how much future control the department will wield over the traditionally independent group of officers.

LAPD management officials strongly deny any harassment of defense reps, insisting to the contrary that the department is trying to bolster their strength. They acknowledge that the small number of defense reps are overworked and they note that Chief Daryl F. Gates wants each defense rep to handle only one case at a time.

But critics say such a requirement could weaken the overall effectiveness of experienced, trained officers defending their brethren.

Lt. Kenneth Small, who heads the Employee Representation Section, said he sincerely wants to improve the small unit of police defense reps and insists that they are not on the outs with top management.

“Overall, most of the command staff encourages people to do this kind of work,” Small said. “They think it’s good for the department.”

Patrick Thistle, a league attorney, countered that the department is trying to stymie the veteran defense reps because they have learned how to knock holes in discipline charges.

“They’ve become like pariahs,” Thistle said of the defense reps. “And now the department doesn’t want them around anymore. And when they do the slightest thing wrong, they can’t wait to discipline them. “

Under the City Charter, a policeman who wants to challenge accusations of misconduct can either defend himself, hire a lawyer or appoint a fellow officer as his representative.

Many officers cannot afford expensive legal counsel, nor are they sufficiently familiar with the discipline system to represent themselves. Most choose another officer to put on their defense in Board of Rights hearings, and they most often turn to the small cadre of veteran, experienced reps for the best defense.

Police policy also mandates that an officer not refuse to defend a colleague. Thus, a unique system has developed over the years where a handful of experienced defense reps handle well over 95% of the police misconduct cases. They end up juggling an average of seven to eight cases at a time.

After years of working under loose supervision and being stationed throughout the city, the defense reps were brought together last October into one unit, Small’s new Employee Representation Section on the eighth floor of police headquarters.

At the outset, Small issued a series of policy guidelines on how the defense reps are to perform their duties, with directives ranging from dress code and time sheets to their conduct regarding subpoenas.

“The people of Los Angeles are paying them $40,000 to $60,000 a year to do their job, and the people deserve to know they’re doing a good job,” he said. “I just want to make sure they’re putting in eight hours’ work for eight hours’ pay.”

But the Police Protective League, which subsequently filed the unfair labor practices complaint, argues that the controls are tantamount to harassment, and that Small is actually “spying” on the defense reps for the police Internal Affairs Division.

“Instead of being an aid to the reps, the unit has become a hindrance,” said league President George V. Aliano.

Cmdr. William Booth, the LAPD’s top spokesman, asserted that some of the senior defense reps are difficult to manage and don’t want to be supervised. “I can’t address all their feelings,” he said. “But my impression is that they find accountability revolting, and so revolting that they find it stressful.”

It is difficult to gauge the true success of defense reps.

LAPD statistics show that of the 96 cases brought to administrative hearings in 1988, 88% resulted in guilty findings. Of those cases, 17 officers were removed from the police force, and the rest were penalized 1,755 days, up from 1,499 days the previous year.

However, the defense reps said the figures do not include penalty reductions and cases overturned in court on appeal. Hernandez, for instance, said that any reduction in discipline charges against an officer, no matter how slight, is a victory because “we’re trying to save officers’ jobs.”

He said he has handled more than 400 cases since the early 1970s, while the average defense rep lasts only two years in that role.

Hernandez said he was preparing the defense for 11 separate cases when he was relieved of duty in July, and now is set to attend the first of a series of hearings beginning today to save his job.

A 48-year-old Los Angeles native, he joined the LAPD in 1963, made sergeant eight years later and then ventured into defending problem cops.

In July, he was accused of assisting a defense attorney in the criminal case of a fellow officer whom Hernandez had represented administratively. Hernandez also is charged with failing to follow several department procedures by not filing daily reports on time and not notifying his supervisor that he had been subpoenaed as a witness in a criminal trial.

Cmdr. Booth, asked to describe Hernandez’s alleged improprieties, said: “The thread that runs through these charges is of someone who views himself as autonomous, as accountable to no one but himself.”

But Hernandez maintains that he did nothing improper. He said the defense attorney in the criminal case was helping him represent the officer before the police administrative board, so there was no breach of ethics. As to the allegations that he violated procedural rules, Hernandez said his supervisors have always been aware of his activities.

Darryl Mounger, an attorney who is helping defend Hernandez at his upcoming administrative hearings, contended that “Beno has been a thorn in their side.” But he added, “Beno Hernandez has not done anything that the chief of police hasn’t done.”

He declined to elaborate, but promised to prove at the hearing that Hernandez is being made an example to other defense reps who have learned to beat the system.

Mounger also once served as a police defense rep, but took a disability pension and resigned from the LAPD in 1985, after he said the department tried to set him up on phony misconduct charges.

“I had stomachaches and lumps in my throat,” he recalled. “I lost all my facial hair. My blood pressure was 146 over 97.”

Another longtime defense rep, Officer John Lewis, is on a medical leave, after developing what Thistle called an “ulcer the size of a barn door.”

Lewis declined to discuss his situation, but Thistle and others said Lewis’ medical problems worsened earlier this year when he felt he was under attack for representing fellow defense rep Beno Hernandez. They said he also was investigated for failing to obey minor paperwork requirements, which they characterized as a campaign of harassment undertaken because Lewis “wasn’t going along” with the department’s effort to oust Hernandez.

“John Lewis was loyal to the system,” said Enrique Hernandez, (no relation) a league attorney who is representing both Lewis and Beno Hernandez. “John believed there was fairness in the system, but later he caught Internal Affairs pulling some dirty tricks and he lost faith.”

Donald Weese, frustrated that he “could do nothing right in their eyes,” said he left his job as a police defense rep for less stressful employment as a Glendale real estate agent.

Weese said he was harassed by a commanding officer who forced him to work 40 hours a week as a detective, above the time he spent as a defense rep, and then refused to approve his overtime. Weese said he filed a grievance and then resigned.

“It’s a high-pressure, hurry-up-and-rush job,” he said. “You’re in a no-win situation. If you want to transfer somewhere else, no one will take you.”

Of those still doing the defense work, many said they worry about ending up like John Lewis or Beno Hernandez.

One veteran defense rep, who asked for anonymity because otherwise “it would ruin me,” said the harassment can be very intense sometimes, enough to effectively intimidate new defense advocates.

Another, Officer George Hofstetter, a 24-year veteran who has represented about 30 cops, said he is trying to “wind down” his cases and get out of the business.

“I’ve been administratively transferred from one division to another,” he said. “I’ve been talked to by members of the department who suggest maybe there are better ways to handle things.”

Meanwhile, he and others are closely watching the Hernandez case.

“If Beno’s gone and the unfair labor case doesn’t win out, it will have a chilling effect on all of our officers. A lot of guys accused of misconduct in the future won’t want to take a chance at trying to beat the rap. They’ll just take their punishment, whether they’re guilty or not.

“That doesn’t say much for the system. But I don’t know how else you can put it.”