2nd Deputy Becomes Informant in Probe of Narcotics Officers : Corruption: Unidentified officer expected to testify at trial of co-workers on money-skimming charges.

A Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy has implicated narcotics officers in a money-skimming scandal and is secretly working with government investigators, it was disclosed Thursday.

The unidentified officer, described as a “confidential informant” by a top sheriff’s official, is expected to testify at an upcoming federal corruption trial. The officer is the second deputy known to be assisting local and federal investigators in their probe of county narcotics officers.

Former Sgt. Robert R. Sobel, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy and tax charges, has been cooperating with prosecutors in a money-skimming scandal that has led to seven other convictions, 17 indictments and more than 30 suspensions of deputies.

During a Civil Service hearing Thursday, a senior sheriff’s official testified that another deputy has stepped forward to assist investigators.

“He’s a deputy sheriff,” said Paul Myron, chief of the department’s detective bureau.

“He has not come forward in court yet, so he has not been identified (publicly),” Myron said during a hearing for Terry A. Daub, wife of a deputy convicted last year in the scandal.

Daub, a clerk-typist in the Sheriff’s Department, was fired in May after Myron said she refused to cooperate with investigators, signed a false income tax return and lied about her alleged role in laundering some of the cash stolen by her husband.

Ronald E. Daub, now in prison, was convicted last December of conspiracy, theft, tax evasion and money laundering. Although his wife has never been been indicted, Myron said sheriff’s officials believe that she was aware of the thefts and participated in counting stolen drug money and should be discharged.

Terry Daub’s attorney and union representative challenged Myron’s statement and asked him where he had obtained such information. Myron replied that it came in part from Sobel--although he did not refer to him by name--and the second, unidentified informant.

Later, Myron told The Times he could not name the officer nor describe his duties. “He knew what was going on, but whether he was a narcotics officer or not, I can’t confirm nor deny,” he said.

Asked what made the informant agree to cooperate, Myron said, “This is just my personal view, but I think he felt his position was so untenable that he better do something.”

The chief said the deputy is scheduled to testify next year at the trial of three sheriff’s narcotics officers and two former deputies who were indicted recently on charges of stealing drug money and laundering the stolen cash. The spouse of one ex-deputy was also indicted on money-laundering and tax offenses.

Asst. U.S. Atty. Steven Bauer, the lead prosecutor in the case, declined comment on the informant or whether he will testify in the trial scheduled to begin in January. “I can neither confirm nor deny that,” he said.

In protesting his client’s firing, attorney Fred Williams said Terry Daub had been an “outstanding employee” during her 20 years of county service and claimed the Sheriff’s Department was trying to purge the wives of deputies who have been indicted or convicted.

“Mrs. Daub is not by virtue of her marriage required to endure the ills of her spouse . . . this is a classic case of a marital status discrimination charge,” he told the hearing officer.

While news of a second informant surfaced during the commission hearing, Sobel was testifying several blocks away in federal court as a prosecution witness against six other county narcotics officers who worked with him and are now accused of civil rights violations and skimming drug cash.

Describing his days as head of that narcotics team, Sobel testified that his crew members took iron bars that had been seized as evidence from a drug house raid and installed them on the deputies’ work trailer in Lennox.

Sobel said Thursday that some officers who were not implicated in the civil rights case engaged in vandalism during raids in the Lennox area in 1985.

“I described them as avenging angels,” he said. “They were essentially going out and trying to run people out of town and not trying to cover themselves in police reports.”

Sobel also said that on one occasion deputies who assisted narcotics officers on a raid “totally destroyed a house” in Inglewood.

Sobel said he informed his lieutenant that “potential problems were developing,” but he testified he never directly told his captain of his concerns.