6 Officers on Anti-Drug Force Indicted

A federal grand jury on Thursday indicted five Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies and a Los Angeles Police Department detective on civil rights violations and conspiracy charges, accusing them of viciously beating suspected narcotics dealers, planting cocaine on drug suspects and falsifying police reports.

The 34-count indictment alleges that former members of a special anti-drug task force used leather “saps,” metal flashlights and their fists to shatter one suspect’s jaw and break another suspect’s arm. It also alleges that some officers tried to smother a drug suspect with a plastic bag and held the heads of two others under water in a hotel hot tub.

In addition, the narcotics officers were accused of skimming more than $100,000 during drug raids, stealing cocaine to plant on suspects and falsifying search warrants during a three-year period that ended in April, 1988. One deputy was charged with perjury for allegedly lying to a federal grand jury about his role in the incidents.

“The return of this indictment emphasizes the fact that the law protects the rights of every citizen,” said U.S. Atty. Lourdes Baird. “No one is above the law, especially those that have the responsibility of enforcing it.”

The grand jury indictment was the latest blow to local law enforcement agencies entangled in a corruption scandal that began 16 months ago with the suspension of nine sheriff’s narcotics officers. The charges come a month after six deputies were convicted on federal charges of stealing drug money and one deputy was convicted of a related money-laundering charge.

But unlike the previous trial, which centered largely on theft and tax evasion charges, the new indictment alleges a broader pattern of lawlessness by an elite corps of narcotics officers who worked out of the Lennox sheriff’s station.

The indictment also marks the first time that a Los Angeles Police Department officer has been charged with a crime in the broadening federal investigation, and Undersheriff Robert A. Edmonds said additional indictments may be forthcoming.

Named in the indictment was Los Angeles Police Department Detective Stephen Wayne Polak, 41, who had worked with the sheriff’s deputies in 1987 as part of a joint task force.

“I supposed you could look at it in a variety of ways and say, ‘Look, we only had one and the sheriff had a whole bunch (and) that puts us in a good light . . . ,’ ” said Police Chief Daryl F. Gates. “(But) even with one you feel betrayed. . . . It’s a letdown to all of the very fine narcotic officers that have worked day in and day out, who have handled millions of dollars. . . . “

Gates said Polak was reassigned to desk duty at the Central station before the indictments were announced. He has surrendered his gun, badge and identification and will continue to receive his regular pay pending the outcome of the charges against him.

The chief noted that the department will continue its internal investigation of Polak’s activities as well as those of the three other Police Department detectives who worked with him on the Southwest Region Wholesale Distribution Task Force.

The special anti-drug team had targeted “mid-level” narcotics dealers in Southwest Los Angeles and elsewhere, basing its operations in a trailer at the Lennox station.

The indicted deputies--John L. Edner, Roger R. Garcia, Edward D. Jamison, Jesse C. Miller and Robert S. Tolmaire--had teamed with Polak on the task force. The deputies had worked together when the Southwest crew was formed in 1986 and previously had worked together at the Lennox station.

The indicted officers who could be reached Thursday denied any wrongdoing. All are expected to surrender today and could be arraigned as early as next week.

“I’m innocent . . . ,” said Edner, who added that he could not comment further on the advice of his attorney. “We’ll just have to see when the trial comes.”

Roger Cossack, an attorney for Tolmaire, said he had not yet seen the indictment. But he defended the deputies as dedicated law enforcement officers who had risked their lives combatting drug dealers.

“I can tell you that I think all of these guys were soldiers in the war on drugs, and it’s an interesting problem that we now decide to prosecute the soldiers,” Cossack said.

According to the grand jury, the indicted deputies in 1985 “sometimes stole or ‘skimmed’ cash from drug dealers in order to maintain a ‘kitty’ that could be used to pay informants or buy weapons or other necessary equipment.”

But the deputies were soon skimming money for themselves and maintaining a “conspiracy of silence,” the grand jury said. In one alleged 1985 theft, several deputies divided $30,000 stolen from a dealer and took valuables such as a diamond ring, a jade elephant, a Honda generator and an air compressor from other drug suspects.

The same year, the grand jury said, Tolmaire struck a suspect named Alander Smith on the head with a metal flashlight while Smith was handcuffed and forced two other people “into a hot tub and repeatedly held their heads underwater.”

In 1986, the indictment said, Miller assaulted a man in a Lawndale residence with a leather sap, beating him hard enough to break his arm and cut his head. The man was then thrown down a stairway, the grand jury said. Miller could not be reached for comment.

The following year at an Inglewood home, Detective Polak and two of the deputies--Jamison and Tolmaire--assaulted a suspected drug dealer by “beating him with their fists, kicking him and smothering him with a plastic bag,” the grand jury said.

“It didn’t happen,” Jamison said of the brutality allegations. “I will maintain this now, I will maintain this throughout the trial, I will maintain until my dying day--I have not done anything wrong.”

Jamison said the indictment is based largely on information from convicted drug dealers and Robert R. Sobel, the former head of both the Lennox and Southwest crews.

“They obviously don’t have a case, especially if they’re going to put that liar Sobel on the stand and all those other crooks,” Jamison said.

Sobel was named Thursday as an unindicted co-conspirator but has already agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. At the earlier money-skimming trial, Sobel had pleaded guilty and testified against his former subordinates. And it was during that court testimony and his FBI interviews that Sobel said he participated with his fellow Southwest crew members in a variety of thefts, beatings and falsified police reports.

Like the first group, the newly indicted officers are veterans of narcotics enforcement, each with at least 15 years experience. Each officer faces a maximum of at least 43 years in prison and more than $1 million in fines:

Edner, 44, of San Dimas is named in nine counts including alleged theft of the diamond ring and lying to a federal grand jury.

Garcia, 45, of Anaheim is named in seven counts, including an allegation that he stole $3,000 from a Paramount house, gave $500 to an informant and put the rest in the unit’s “kitty.”

Jamison, 41, of Chino faces six counts, including an allegation that he stole $5,000.

Miller, 46, of Los Angeles faces 12 counts, including charges that he used a sap to beat suspects and broke another suspect’s jaw with his fist.

Tolmaire, 41, of Cerritos faces 18 counts, including charges that he used a metal flashlight to strike handcuffed suspects and planted cocaine in one man’s safe and then lied about it to ensure the man’s arrest.

Polak, 41, a former sheriff’s deputy from Lakewood, was named in 12 counts, including allegations that he planted cocaine on several suspects.

Attorneys for Polak said they have not yet seen the indictment. “We are confident he’s done nothing wrong and our expectation is he’ll be fully exonerated,” said his co-counsel, Susan Wiech.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles Police Department narcotics detectives expressed relief Thursday that no other members of their department were named in Thursday’s indictments. Four officers among the 450 assigned to the Police Department’s various narcotics units were rumored to be under investigation by the grand jury before the indictment against Polak was announced.

“One guy out of 450--not too bad,” said one veteran detective. “You’re always going to have a bad apple.”

Times staff writers Charisse Jones and Louis Sahagun contributed to this story.