Are Drug Dealers Believable? : Trial: Six narcotics officers are accused of violating the civil rights of traffickers. Defense will try to use the alleged victims’ unsavory pasts to discredit them.

During the civil rights trial of six Los Angeles County narcotics officers, convicted drug dealer Alander Smith gave the prosecution and defense something to savor.

Smith testified that sheriff’s deputies handcuffed him, slugged him with a flashlight, then stole fur coats, artwork and more than $10,000 during a 1985 drug raid at his Los Angeles home.

When cross-examined by defense attorneys, he admitted that he made $1 million that year selling narcotics and sometimes passed out free heroin to his best cocaine customers and complimentary hashish to his top marijuana purchasers.

“Is it fair for me to say,” asked defense attorney Larry Bakman, “that your house was a real supermarket for drugs for your neighborhood at that time?”

The question drew a swift protest from government attorneys, but Bakman had made his point:

How believable will jurors find the testimony of convicted drug dealers such as Smith? And will the jury be influenced by the fact that most alleged victims in the federal civil rights case are narcotics traffickers?

The 36-year-old Smith, now serving a term of life in prison, is one of more than a dozen drug dealers and their associates who are scheduled to testify for the government against the veteran officers.

The officers--Deputies John L. Edner, J.C. Miller, Robert S. Tolmaire, Robert R. Garcia and Edward D. Jamison, along with Los Angeles Police Detective Stephen W. Polak--had worked on a drug investigation team known as the Lennox Crew or the Southwest Task Force during the mid- to late 1980s. The sheriff’s deputies have been suspended without pay. Polak has been reassigned to desk duties.

Prosecutors contend that the officers stole more than $100,000 in cash and valuables during drug raids, planted narcotics on some suspects, falsified search warrants and police reports, and beat drug traffickers.

On Monday, former sheriff’s Sgt. Robert R. Sobel, who has already pleaded guilty to conspiracy and tax evasion in the money-skimming scandal, is expected to take the stand and give the first “insider” account of the alleged abuses.

But during the trial’s opening three weeks, the drug dealers and their associates provided the most dramatic testimony.

Convicted drug dealer Kevin Pinkard told jurors that deputies punched him in the stomach during a 1985 drug raid when he denied having any narcotics. The deputies then pulled down his pants, placed a glass over his genitals and shattered the glass with a baton, he said.

Pinkard also testified that deputies ripped a colostomy bag off another dealer during the same raid and hurled a third handcuffed suspect down a flight of stairs.

Inglewood apartment manager Craig Smith testified that he called an ambulance after seeing deputies beat a tenant--drug dealer Delanie Powell. When the manager reassured Powell that an ambulance was on its way, Deputy Tolmaire quipped: “An ambulance? You should have called the . . . morgue,” the manager testified.

Smith testified that deputies raided his home by smashing his picture window and tossing smoke bombs into the house.

After being handcuffed and hit on the head with a flashlight, Smith said, he watched deputies remove items from his home. Only later did he learn that some items--fur coats, a jade elephant, crystal figurines, and a Honda generator--were never booked into evidence and were found at the homes of deputies or their relatives.

According to prosecutors, the Lennox crew members during that 1985 raid--Edner, Miller, Garcia and Tolmaire--had taken part in the thefts and cover-up and also lied about finding narcotics in Smith’s car.

Smith, however, acknowledged that he had a sizable quantity of drugs and half a dozen guns in his house.

During cross-examination, Smith admitted selling 50 to 100 kilograms of cocaine a week--worth $750,000 to $1.5 million.

“How much money did you make in 1985?” asked Bakman, attorney for Edner. “Give me an estimate.”

Smith paused, then answered: “Close to $1 million.”

In identifying the items allegedly stolen from him, Smith testified that he had traded cocaine to addicts for some of the property, including the jade elephant and generator.

Testimony about the bartering system was only part of what amounted to a drug seminar for the jury.

Government witnesses described how to turn cocaine powder into rock cocaine and package it for street sale.

The witnesses, who included young dealers working in South Los Angeles to a 42-year-old musician who sold drugs from his Diamond Bar home, talked about fluctuations in the drug market over the years, from $15,000 to $40,000 for a kilo of cocaine.

Some dealers said they fortified their homes and armed themselves against neighborhood gangbangers and “jackers” who rob them. One dealer invited guests to a barbecue but brought them there blindfolded for security reasons, one woman testified.

Such testimony from prosecution witnesses also may help defense attorneys who have been arguing that the narcotics officers used force only to defend themselves against heavily armed dealers.

“The key question is whether jurors believe these officers have to be a little rougher with some of these guys in order to get the drugs off the street,” said one attorney who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Michael Emmick said prosecutors will have no comment on the testimony. In his opening statement, Emmick reminded jurors that even drug dealers are entitled to their civil rights.

He said the defendants were corrupt officers who may have stolen small quantities of money at first to obtain guns and equipment for their anti-drug war, but quickly began stealing large amounts of cash and property for themselves.

The officers soon began beating drug dealers to coerce confessions or turn them into informants and also lied in search warrants and police reports to justify their actions, prosecutors said.

In seeking to discredit the prosecution’s witnesses, defense attorneys have pointed out that many of the drug dealers and their associates had longstanding business or personal ties with each other. The attorneys also suggested that the dealers are testifying in hopes of getting reductions in their prison sentences or other considerations.

For his part, Smith insisted that prosecutors had made no promises, although he expressed hope that they will recommend a reduction in his sentence of life without possibility of parole.