Ex-Sheriff’s Sgt. Sobel Concludes Testimony
A former sheriff’s sergeant, who is the chief prosecution witness in the civil rights trial of six Los Angeles County narcotics officers, stepped down from the witness stand on Friday after 17 days of testimony.
Robert R. Sobel, who once supervised the five sheriff’s deputies and a Los Angeles police officer now on trial, concluded his testimony amid a legal dispute over whether jurors should see a four-page autobiography Sobel had written to his psychologist in 1989.
Prosecutors described the self-profile, which includes references to Sobel’s childhood and law enforcement background, as the “cleanest and purest” statement by Sobel before he began cooperating with federal investigators.
But defense attorneys called the document self-serving, and U.S. District Judge Robert M. Takasugi told prosecutors that the profile could not be introduced in its existing form.
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