Deputies’ Skimming of Drug Money Told : Trial: Ex-sergeant says men under his command also routinely beat suspects and falsified reports.

The principal witness in the money-skimming trial of seven Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies testified Thursday that narcotics officers under his command routinely beat drug suspects, falsified reports and skimmed hundreds of thousands of dollars during drug raids.

Ex-Sheriff’s Sgt. Robert R. Sobel, who supervised three narcotics teams over a four-year period, told a federal jury that officers also planted drugs on suspects, perjured themselves and maintained “slush funds” with money skimmed from drug dealers.

When Sobel said he once threatened to stop the thefts, a deputy scoffed at his suggestion.

“He looked at me and said, ‘You can’t stop it,’ ” Sobel told jurors. “‘None of the other sergeants could stop it. We’ll just do it behind your back.’ ”

The testimony of Sobel, who has pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors, provided the first detailed, public disclosure of a corruption scandal that has rocked the nation’s largest sheriff’s department and threatens other local law enforcement agencies.

In his daylong appearance, the 45-year-old Sobel told jurors that he received more than $140,000 in stolen drug money as a member of the elite narcotics investigations team that is now on trial in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.

As he described how drug traffickers and money couriers were targeted, Sobel implicated each of the defendants--Deputies Terrell H. Amers, James R. Bauder, Eufrasio G. Cortez, Ronald E. Daub, John C. Dickenson, Daniel M. Garner and Macario M. Duran--as part of the money-skimming ring.

For example, Sobel said that in March, 1989, he and other members of the major narcotics investigations team obtained a search warrant for the Pico Rivera home of a suspected drug dealer. After discovering 28 kilos of cocaine in the garage, Sobel said, one of the officers also found a box of money in a locked closet and turned it over to the sergeant. Sobel then skimmed some of the money for his crew.

“I took a couple of bundles (of money) to my car and stuffed them in the kit bag in the trunk,” said Sobel, who added that he received $3,000 from the theft.

In a December, 1988, raid, Sobel said, deputies found money stashed in a car stereo box at a house in Wilmington. He testified that Cortez skimmed some of the money, before bagging the rest as evidence. The next day at the parking lot of the narcotics bureau headquarters, Sobel said, Cortez handed him his share of the money.

“Deputy Cortez said, ‘Here’s your Christmas bonus,’ ” Sobel testified.

Six months earlier, Sobel said, the deputies had “jammed,” or detained, another suspected drug trafficker after trailing him from Malibu to downtown Los Angeles. The deputies seized more than $1 million in cash, Sobel said. Then, two of the deputies drove off to an undisclosed location and removed hundreds of thousands of dollars, he testified. The next day, in the headquarters parking lot, Sobel said, Daub walked up with a shopping bag full of money to give him.

“ ‘I took so much it scared me,’ ” Sobel quoted Daub as saying.

When he opened the bag, Sobel said, he found $50,000. Asked what he did with the money, Sobel replied: “I spent it as fast as I can.”

In all, Assistant U.S. Atty. Thomas A. Hagemann took Sobel through 19 drug cases in 1988 and 1989 where money was allegedly stolen by deputies and had Sobel recite how he spent the stolen cash on such luxuries as a sailboat, grand piano, big-screen television, automobiles and $15,000 on home improvements.

In describing his participation in thefts that ranged from several thousand dollars to $500,000, Sobel made it clear that it was his deputies--acting individually as the chief investigator in each case--who actually stole most of the money and merely gave Sobel his share.

But defense attorneys, who will cross-examine Sobel today, disputed his story.

“His testimony is not to be believed,” said Jay Lichtman, Daub’s attorney, “and I don’t think the jury will believe him.”

Vicki Podberesky, Bauder’s attorney, said that her client is eager to take the stand and challenge Sobel’s characterizations that Bauder helped skim money--and in one allegation, planted narcotics on a drug suspect.

“We are ready to say that none of that happened,” the lawyer said.

The drug-planting and theft allegations were not relegated to the major crew, Sobel said. He testified that narcotics officers at the Lennox Sheriff’s Station, where he worked earlier, also stole drug money to feed a “kitty” or “slush fund” that paid for tools, guns and other items for deputies. Sobel said he participated in 20 to 30 such thefts, but could not remember how much money he stole while at Lennox.

Later, when he was promoted as supervisor of another anti-narcotics team, known as the Southwest Crew, Sobel said, he received $50,000 in stolen drug money and that team members beat suspects regularly, planted narcotics on suspects and lied about their activities.

Sobel named Los Angeles Police Officer Steven Polak, who was one of four LAPD officers on the Southwest crew, as one officer who planted drugs on a suspect. But Polak, through his attorney, denied the assertion.

“The allegations against Mr. Polak are a bunch of malarkey coming from the mouth of an admitted felon,” said lawyer David Wiechert, whose client, Polak, has been reassigned to a desk job.

While testifying Thursday, Sobel seldom looked at his former deputies as he painted an unflattering portrait of the officers bickering over money, engaging in racial slurs, growing suspicious of one another and spending extravagantly--including $3,200 in cash for a Christmas dinner for deputies and their wives.

Sobel, however, faltered when he described how federal agents searched his Westminster home on Sept. 1, 1989, and failed to find $12,000 in stolen drug money he had hidden in an oak desk.

After the agents left, Sobel said, he waited until dark and then took the money, drove to Seal Beach and “threw it into the ocean.” He then went to his sailboat, Sobel said, and contemplated suicide.

“I was going to kill myself,” he said choking back tears. “I decided to face the music.”

In his agreement with prosecutors, Sobel pleaded guilty to single counts of conspiracy and tax evasion, paid a $28,000 fine and forfeited the items he purchased with stolen drug cash. Sobel also was told he would not be prosecuted for other crimes if he cooperated with the government.

As part of that arrangement, Sobel said, he secretly tape-recorded a meeting on Sept. 25, 1989, with several deputies. Portions of the recording from that meeting were played Thursday to jurors who had to wear headphones to listen to the largely unintelligible tape.

What they heard were the suspended deputies grousing about the government investigation.

“I’ve never seen a case yet where a deputy or where a guy got done (convicted) where another deputy didn’t testify against him,” said Bauder at one point. “They ain’t got a (expletive) chance unless somebody gets up on the (expletive) stand, and in this case they got to corroborate it. . . .”

Times staff writer Richard Serrano contributed to this article