Jury Sees Video of Deputies Taking Cash : Trial: The defense maintains that a sting operation tape shows correct undercover technique. The officers are accused of skimming money confiscated from drug dealers.

Jurors in the money-skimming trial of seven Los Angeles County sheriff’s narcotics officers Tuesday viewed portions of a videotape that showed two deputies pulling bundles of cash from a tote bag during an FBI sting operation.

The murky image of the deputies taking the cash from the penthouse suite of a Sherman Oaks hotel--considered a key piece of evidence by federal prosecutors--was part of the 19 minutes of videotape excerpts played in Los Angeles federal court.

The black-and-white video of Deputies James R. Bauder and Daniel M. Garner, taken by one of the six surveillance cameras in the Aug. 30, 1989, sting, shows the deputies entering the suite of a suspected drug dealer and transferring the cash from the tote bag to a smaller bag, then rushing out of the room.

Prosecutors have alleged that the two deputies, who are on trial along with five other veteran sheriff’s narcotics officers, stole the $30,000 as part of a longtime practice of skimming funds seized from suspected drug traffickers and money launderers.

But both officers and their attorneys said the video merely showed jurors a technique used by narcotics officers to seize a portion of the money in case a drug raid goes awry. They also blamed any theft that evening on former Sheriff’s Sgt. Robert R. Sobel, who is to testify this week as the government’s chief prosecution witness.

Vicki Podberesky, Bauder’s attorney, acknowledged that her client took money from the bag that had been left in the hotel room by an undercover FBI agent posing as a drug dealer.

“We’re not denying that,” she said after the tape was played in court. “We have a perfectly legitimate explanation for it. They took the money to ensure that the Sheriff’s Department would get something in the forfeiture case if the drug dealer got away.

“It was at Sobel’s direction we took the money,” Garner added, “and then we gave the money to him.”

Federal prosecutors claim that the deputies, along with other members of an elite sheriff’s narcotics investigations team targeted by the FBI sting, stole a total of $48,000 of the $498,000 in marked money that night, and at one point, jurors saw another video excerpt of deputies questioning the suspected drug dealer in his hotel room.

As the officers searched the room, the video showed Deputy Nancy A. Brown discovering hundreds of thousands dollars in cash hidden in a garment bag.

“Oh ho ho--Is this your bag?” Brown asked the undercover agent.

Later, Brown and Sobel were seen questioning the undercover agent about where he got the money and urging him to sign a disclaimer saying the money did not belong to him.

“(You) can say room service left it,” Sobel quipped.

With Sobel now a prosecution witness and both Brown and Deputy Michael J. Kaliterna--who also appears on tape searching the hotel room--not scheduled for trial until January, the only defendants shown on the video are Bauder and Garner.

Fellow defendants Terrell H. Amers and Ronald E. Daub were outside the hotel at the time, and another defendant, Deputy John C. Dickenson, was in a surveillance helicopter. Deputy Eufrasio G. Cortez, who had been working with the Internal Revenue Service on another money-laundering investigation, was never involved in the sting and raid. But Assistant U.S. Atty. Thomas A. Hagemann maintained that all the deputies, and Sobel, shared in the profits from the sting.

Prosecutors said the seventh deputy on trial, Macario M. Duran, had received money from an earlier theft. Duran’s wife, Maria, also a defendant, had helped hide the source of stolen drug cash through a series of financial transactions, Hagemann said.

The tape drew little visible reaction from the jurors, who also listened to a parade of government witnesses describe the sting and alleged evidence that prosecutors said was found in the homes of deputies tied to drug money thefts

But in one surprise, Garner’s attorney, Harland Braun, suggested that the federal government itself might be involved in massive money-skimming operations.

Braun asked one FBI agent whether he was aware of any investigations into reports that the federal government had laundered money for drug dealers and funneled some of the profits for clandestine operations overseas.

The agent denied knowing anything about such operations.

Later, Braun told reporters that Garner would testify that the government laundered drug profits that were then diverted by the CIA to both the Nicaraguan Contras and to Iran for weapons purchases. Braun declined to elaborate.