Contradictions Rock Drug Officers’ Trial : Jurisprudence: Questions have been raised about investigation that brought six county narcotics agents under prosecution. Eight previous convictions are also clouded by the proceedings.

In the end, the word of two FBI agents prevailed over the testimony of a chief prosecution witness and helped avert a mistrial in the civil rights case of six Los Angeles County narcotics officers.

But as the trial resumes today in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, the surprise disclosures that brought the federal court case to the brink of a mistrial have not faded.

“This case and this investigation will never be the same,” said one source close to the corruption inquiry known as Operation Big Spender. “We’ve opened a Pandora’s box, and no one really knows where it will lead.”

What the 3-year-old investigation already has produced is clear: eight convictions, 18 indictments, more than 30 suspended officers and a Sheriff’s Department so shaken by the money-skimming allegations that its elite narcotics teams were dismantled and replaced with new anti-drug squads.

But evidence that surfaced during the ongoing trial of five sheriff’s deputies and a Los Angeles police detective has raised serious questions about the investigation into alleged money skimming and other misconduct. And attorneys say it could still have a profound impact on both past and pending prosecutions.

“We’re still looking into this because there certainly is new information that we know now that we didn’t know then,” said attorney Jay Lichtman, who represents one of the deputies convicted last year in the first money-skimming trial. “The new information could have affected our trial.”

The controversy revolves around a series of government interviews with former Sheriff’s Sgt. Robert R. Sobel, who was the prosecution’s chief witness in the first money-skimming trial and plays a similar role in the current trial.

Sobel’s credibility has become a key factor as the government attempts to prove that the defendants violated the civil rights of suspects by beating them during raids, stealing their drug money and planting narcotics on them.

The mistrial dispute has raised questions not only about Sobel’s credibility but also his relationship with federal investigators and the conduct of the investigation. It was disclosed that:

* The FBI agent who first questioned Sobel developed a friendship with Sobel. Defense attorneys are expected to call the agent before the jury to explore whether that friendship may have blinded investigators to Sobel’s own misconduct.

* There were contradictions between Sobel’s testimony and his interviews, as reported by FBI and sheriff’s investigators.

* The accounts of FBI agents and a sheriff’s deputy who interviewed Sobel were sometimes in conflict.

* FBI reports regarding Sobel’s interviews omitted some information that was contained in handwritten notes made by FBI agents. Defense attorneys contend that information could help them impeach Sobel and other prosecution witnesses.

Defense attorneys said other inconsistencies emerged when hundreds of pages of additional handwritten notes by federal and local investigators were made available last Friday.

“These issues are going to be central to this trial because they go to the credibility of Sobel (and the other witnesses),” said Larry Bakman, who represents Deputy John L. Edner and will be the first attorney to cross-examine Sobel when he resumes his testimony today.

U.S. District Judge Robert M. Takasugi had excused the jury nearly two weeks ago when Sobel abruptly testified about making extensive changes on reports of his FBI interviews.

When prosecutors could not produce documents showing the Sobel corrections, Takasugi declared a mistrial but rescinded his ruling.

The agents--Robert Hightower and Charles L. Teevan Jr.--acknowledged that they had destroyed the drafts of those corrected reports, but Takasugi concluded that neither the agents nor the prosecutors had engaged in misconduct.

The judge was also swayed by newly discovered documents that Takasugi said could be used to reconstruct the destroyed FBI reports.

Some of those newly discovered documents came from the files of Deputy Bonny McCormick, a sheriff’s investigator who died earlier this year. They included McCormick’s internal memorandum of Sobel’s interview with Teevan and her handwritten notes of the corrections Sobel gave Hightower.

Government prosecutors, meanwhile, also provided hundreds of pages of additional handwritten notes taken by other investigators during interviews with Sobel and other potential witnesses.

“We’re doing it in light of the disputes between the parties . . . and the (judge’s) indication that he wants us to settle any disputes we can,” said Assistant U.S. Atty. Thomas Bienert. “We have decided to turn over the notes of witnesses . . . subject to our reaching an agreement on how those notes are to be used.”

Defense attorneys say they intend to call some FBI agents and other investigators to the witness stand to ask them about apparent inconsistencies between their notes and their reports.

During the mistrial hearing, some lawyers zeroed in on discrepancies between the notes taken by sheriff’s investigators and federal agents.

In McCormick’s notes, for example, Sobel--who is identified only as a “confidential informant”--describes how a kilogram of cocaine was taken from the trunk of an officer’s car and placed in another car to falsely implicate a fleeing drug dealer named “Freeway” Ricky Ross.

But in his FBI report, Agent Hightower quotes Sobel as saying that the cocaine was located in a bag and placed against a fence over which Ross had climbed--about 50 yards away from the car.

There also was an apparent discrepancy between a handwritten notation taken by Hightower and Sobel’s testimony of a theft he allegedly witnessed.

Sobel had testified that he saw a defendant--Deputy Edward D. Jamison--stuff a wad of $100 bills inside a vest during one raid, and then described how Jamison glared at him when their eyes met. But in his interview with Hightower in September, 1989, the agent wrote that Sobel “doesn’t think (Jamison) saw me.”

Defense attorneys also have pointed to information omitted from the FBI reports but found in the agents’ own notes.

For example, in his handwritten notes, Hightower wrote that Sobel had mentioned that Ross--the drug dealer, who is expected be a prosecution witness in the case--had been indicted in Ohio and Texas. But that fact was never included in Hightower’s FBI report.

When defense attorneys suggested that Hightower had omitted mentioning the Ross indictments to protect the credibility of a potential government witness, the agent said: “I don’t recall whether it was conscious, unconscious, subconscious or what. It was not included.”

The mistrial controversy underscored Sobel’s importance to the government and the excitement shared by investigators and prosecutors when the ex-sergeant first stepped forward in 1989.

The agent, now assigned to the Austin, Tex., office, described Sobel as distraught and suicidal during the first meeting with investigators. But in his handwritten notes, Hightower wrote that Sobel had told his interrogators to “bring files--I’ll name names.”

Hightower soon became Sobel’s case agent as the federal government placed a protective net around their prized informant. “Access to Sobel was very guarded,” testified Teevan, who said he had to obtain special permission to even interview the former sergeant.

As the agent closest to Sobel, Hightower testified that he developed a close relationship with him, calling him frequently and even taking him to meetings with his psychologist.

“You are also Mr. Sobel’s friend, aren’t you?” a defense attorney asked Hightower at one point.

“I consider him a friend,” the agent replied. “I didn’t go out and socialize with him.”

Some defense attorneys, however, are expected to pursue the friendship between Sobel and the FBI agent--as well the contradictions between Sobel’s testimony and that of the FBI agents. And they say the government will be forced to side with the FBI agents.

“That’s the beauty here,” said defense attorney David Wiechert during the hearing. “The government has a choice here. They can throw away the case or they can throw away Sobel, and they have thrown away Sobel.” But defense attorneys have their own dilemma: how vigorously should they attack a man who already has admitted to everything from acts of theft and perjury to marital infidelities?

“Rather than be repulsed by the guy, some jurors may develop sympathy for the guy,” said one defense source.

Meanwhile, some federal officials and law enforcement officials are just relieved to be continuing a trial that was on the verge of a mistrial only a week ago.

“We’re back in the game,” said one official, “and we don’t want to do anything to jeopardize things now.”