Officers Beat, Stole During Drug Raids, Ex-Sergeant Testifies : Courts: Prosecution witness says five former deputies and an L.A. detective slipped into lawlessness while members of an anti-drug team.

An ex-Los Angeles County sheriff’s sergeant testified Monday that six of his former narcotics officers stole money from drug dealers, planted drugs on suspects and joked about beating dealers with fists and flashlights.

Robert R. Sobel, testifying in the federal civil rights trial of five sheriff’s deputies and a Los Angeles Police Department detective, said the officers were an “aggressive crew” who carried out hundreds of search warrants but slipped into lawlessness as members of an anti-drug team.

Sobel said activities his crew engaged in included “lying on police reports, falsifying search warrant affidavits, excessive force and skimming seized (drug) money. Also, planting narcotics on suspects.”

Sobel took the stand as a prosecution witness after several weeks of court appearances by drug dealers and their associates who testified that they were victimized by the defendants.

Deputies John L. Edner, J. C. Miller, Edward D. Jamison, Roger R. Garcia and Robert S. Tolmaire, along with LAPD Detective Stephen W. Polak, had worked together at one time or another as members of an anti-narcotics team out of the Lennox sheriff’s station.

All have proclaimed their innocence, but the 46-year-old Sobel, who once supervised the officers, quickly implicated his former subordinates.

He told jurors that from 1985 to mid-1987, he and his crew members stole cash from drug dealers 30 to 35 times, with individual shares ranging from $50 to $23,000.

At times, the officers would beat drug suspects who refused to answer questions or lied to the officers during raids, Sobel testified, especially if that lack of cooperation meant additional work for deputies or if an officer had been injured during the search.

“If we had to look around or if we got hot and sweaty, or if somebody got hurt, then the suspect got tuned up,” Sobel told jurors.

“Tuned up? Do you mean beaten up?” asked Assistant U.S. Atty. Michael Emmick, a government prosecutor.

“Yes,” Sobel answered. “If a suspect ran or didn’t do what you told them or if they were running to an area where we later found a gun, the suspect would be beaten big time then.”

Sobel said Miller and Tolmaire, in particular, had reputations for beating suspects. He said Tolmaire was known for using a black metal flashlight as “a club” on his alleged victims while Miller used his fists on handcuffed suspects.

“Bobby seemed to injure more people in the head . . . opening wounds that required more stitches,” Sobel said of Tolmaire.

Sobel also testified that the deputies would joke that Miller’s penchant for violence was so well-known that when “a suspect got tuned up real bad and looked like he went through a meat grinder, the crew would say it looked like Miller Time.”

The saying, adopted from a beer commercial, resulted in fellow deputies placing an electric sign for their narcotics trailer at the Lennox station that read: “Welcome, It’s Miller Time,” Sobel said.

Sobel, who has pleaded guilty to conspiracy and tax evasion charges, admitted doing nothing to stop the beatings except to caution the deputies to be more discreet. He said he also often “shortstopped” public complaints of beatings and thefts to protect his crew. By that, he said, he meant that he called complainants and tried to placate them by giving them the perception that complaints were investigated thoroughly.

The thefts, in which Sobel said he participated, began with cash skimmed from drug dealers and placed in a kitty to buy guns and equipment needed for law enforcement activities. The money was needed, he said, because deputies believed their department-issued revolvers could not compete with weapons carried by drug dealers and the tools were needed to break into fortified drug houses.

Skimmed money also was used to pay drug informants because deputies thought it took too long to obtain funds through the Sheriff’s Department, Sobel added.

But the thefts quickly escalated, he said, and deputies were soon stealing not only cash but clothing, tools, weapons, videocassette recorders, radios, binoculars, cameras and bottles of liquor.

At one point, Sobel testified that Deputy Garcia stole a bag of sweat socks and underwear from a methamphetamine dealer during a raid in Lawndale. According to Sobel, Garcia told his fellow deputies that the underwear was still packaged when he took the bag but that did not prevent his colleagues from nicknaming Garcia “Dirty Drawers.”

Garcia’s attorney, Lindsay A. Weston, declined comment on Sobel’s testimony. Miller’s attorney, Robert Ramsey, also had no comment.

Attorney Roger Cossack, who represents Tolmaire, said he was looking forward to questioning the government witness. “Sobel will be proven a liar on cross-examination,” he said.