Woman Recants Allegations Linking Deputies to Slaying : Law enforcement: Anietra Haley says she was prompted by a private investigator and was trying to help the family of a Lynwood man killed in a drive-by shooting.

The woman who had alleged that sheriff’s deputies might have killed a Lynwood man in a drive-by shooting said Tuesday that a private investigator, hired by the victim’s family, had coaxed her to make the false accusations.

Anietra Haley, whose story launched an FBI investigation into the slaying of Lloyd Polk, 22, said that the private investigator had fabricated the story and that she had agreed to go along in an effort to help Polk’s common-law wife and her parents, with whom she was very close. Haley said she believed that Polk’s survivors would receive a financial settlement from the county if deputies were found responsible for his death.

“I really thought I was helping them,” she told The Times. “That’s why I got involved. I love them a lot and would do my best to help them.”

Haley, 24, who has worked as a cadet with the Sheriff’s Department, earlier had recanted her allegations against the deputies in a statement to sheriff’s investigators.

She denied in an interview that she overheard deputies at the Lynwood station planning to kill Polk--who was a plaintiff in a major civil rights lawsuit against Lynwood deputies--although Polk’s family and their private investigator, David Lynn, say that she made such allegations.

“I can’t go pointing no fingers at somebody who didn’t do it,” Haley said. “I’m not saying a deputy didn’t do it. But I just don’t know that.”

Lynn could not be reached immediately for comment on Haley’s statements. But his attorney, John Burton, said what Haley told The Times was ridiculous in its implication that “we can get someone who works with the Sheriff’s Department on a daily basis to make up a story that six deputies plotted murder. Nothing she said holds up.”

Her comments came a few hours after Lynn, accompanied by his attorney, appeared at a Los Angeles news conference to dispute charges by the Sheriff’s Department that he had induced the former cadet to implicate deputies in the shooting. The department had released videotapes of Haley telling investigators that she had been approached by Lynn and coached on the assassination story.

But the private investigator vehemently denied that account, saying that he merely forwarded Haley’s account to federal authorities.

“She came to me voluntarily and told me the story. I videotaped her and gave it to the FBI,” Lynn said.

Lynn is the lead investigator for attorneys working on a massive civil rights suit against Lynwood deputies.

Lynn said his own videotaped interviews with Haley will show that she freely made statements implicating deputies in the slaying of Polk, a refinery worker and ex-gang member who had accused deputies of breaking both of his arms in a beating 10 months before he died.

“When the tapes are released and the transcripts, you’ll see that this is impromptu,” he said. “She was not scripted. She was speaking from the heart. As a matter of fact, the first time we interviewed her, she had a Bible sitting in her lap.”

Lynn’s version was supported at the news conference by Teri Clark, who was introduced as Polk’s common-law wife, and her mother, Gloria Clark.

Describing Haley as a close friend of the family, both Clarks said the former cadet told them shortly after Polk’s death that she knew who may have killed him.

According to the Clarks, they were already suspicious about the circumstances of Polk’s death because uniformed deputies appeared after the midnight shooting even before the family could make a 911 call.

When Haley contacted them and allegedly tied the slaying to deputies at the Lynwood station, Teri Clark said she put Haley in touch with Lynn. Gloria Clark also told reporters Tuesday that Haley said she was recanting her story because investigators threatened to send her to prison for 26 years if deputies are convicted in the shooting.

Haley, however, said she was not pressured by either the Sheriff’s Department or the FBI to change her story and that her original story was false.

An FBI spokesman confirmed that the Polk slaying is under investigation but declined further comment.

Burton, meanwhile, said his client was the victim of “serious defamatory charges” and had acted properly in passing information about a possible assassination to the FBI and filing that information under seal with the federal court.

“Whether that’s reliable information or not is to be decided in the another forum,” Burton said. “What is true, though, is that this was not concocted.”