Deputy Denies Stealing Drug Cash but Says He and Others Suspected Captain

The first defendant took the stand Tuesday in the corruption trial of seven Los Angeles County sheriff’s narcotics deputies and flatly denied that he stole money during drug raids, but testified that he once suspected his captain of skimming drug cash.

Deputy Daniel M. Garner, who is accused with his fellow defendants of stealing $1.4 million from drug traffickers and money launderers, told federal jurors that he and other deputies confronted Capt. Robert Wilber with their suspicions after a 1987 drug raid.

Garner said he and other members of an elite narcotics investigations team had confiscated nearly “a million dollars” in cash during the raid when Wilber appeared at the scene and told his deputies he would take the money in his own car to narcotics headquarters.

“The captain took the box of money and left,” said Garner, who added that Wilber arrived late at the bureau headquarters in Whittier to book the money into evidence.

“It was in violation of everything we had been told and of his own edict,” Garner said of Wilber’s decision to transport the money alone.

When the deputies later looked at the box of money, some cash appeared to be missing, Garner said. The deputies confronted Wilber, who denied skimming money but said he erred in transporting it by himself, Garner testified.

Wilber, who headed the narcotics bureau for four years, now is chief of the Sheriff’s Department Aerobureau. Asked about Garner’s testimony, he told The Times that he is aware of the theft allegation but that an FBI investigation cleared him of any wrongdoing.

“I shouldn’t have taken that money alone,” Wilber said, “but I was a unit commander. I was the boss, and it never occurred to me that anyone would think I would ever take anything.”

Wilber said he never stole any money and that the FBI probe showed “there is no substance” to the allegation. He declined to provide any specifics of the investigation.

The FBI could not be reached for comment. But Wilber’s statement was the first confirmation that investigators had looked at any officers beyond lower-ranking deputies and sergeants in the corruption probe.

As the first defendant to testify, Garner sought to blunt federal prosecutors’ efforts to portray him and the other deputies as co-conspirators in a theft ring. Asked by his attorney, Harland Braun, if he ever stole any money from drug dealers or from evidence lockers, Garner replied, “No.”

“Did you take any money unlawfully?” Braun then asked.

“No,” the deputy replied in a firm voice.

Before resting their case on Tuesday, prosecutors had called 155 witnesses in an effort to show that Garner and the others not only stole money but spent it on condos, automobiles, jewelry and other luxuries.

Garner, however, sought to show that he obtained thousands of dollars in outside income from a car restoration business as well as sizable cash gifts from relatives and family friends. The car business, which included buying and selling cars at local auto swap meets, involved handling large sums of cash, Garner said.

A family friend, Ronald Moore, testified Tuesday that his father was like a surrogate father to Garner and gave the deputy $20,000 in cash in 1987 that he had kept in a bag in a freezer. Moore said his father, who was dying of cancer, kept the money in the freezer because he did not trust banks and other financial institutions.

Garner said he followed that example in keeping large sums of cash in his own home.