FBI Agent Is Held in Contempt : Courts: He refuses to testify, under direction of Justice Department attorneys, about a federal inquiry into an L.A. police Special Investigation Section shooting.

Complaining that the Justice Department is putting “its own interest above the interest of justice,” a federal judge held an FBI agent in contempt Thursday for refusing to testify about a federal investigation of a Los Angeles police shooting that left three suspected robbers dead.

U.S. District Judge J. Spencer Letts said he reluctantly held Agent Richard Boeh in contempt because Boeh is only following the direction of Justice Department attorneys not to testify in a civil rights suit or even discuss the case privately with the judge.

After chiding federal attorneys handling the case, the judge delayed taking any punitive action against the agent while the Justice Department appeals his ruling.

The contempt order was issued midway through the trial of a $10-million civil rights lawsuit contending that the Police Department’s Special Investigation Section is a “death squad” whose officers opened fire without cause after four suspects held up a restaurant in Sunland on Feb. 12, 1990.

The one robber who survived and the families of the three dead men sued 18 members of the SIS, Police Chief Daryl F. Gates, Mayor Tom Bradley and members of the Police Commission for allegedly violating the robbers’ civil rights.

According to court documents, Boeh has been investigating the shooting for nine months. The documents indicate that he has testified before a federal grand jury about the shooting.

He was subpoenaed by Stephen Yagman, the plaintiffs’ attorney. Yagman said he believes the agent has information that supports the suit’s contention that the suspects were unarmed when they were shot--that they had only air pistols that they had locked out of reach in the trunk of their getaway car.

SIS officers have testified that they opened fire on the getaway car after seeing two of the suspects point guns at them. Police said the pellet guns they found next to the bodies of the dead suspects looked like firearms.

The Justice Department’s civil rights section in Washington has refused to allow Boeh to testify. Assistant U.S. Atty. Sean Berry asked Letts to invalidate the subpoena Thursday on the basis that the agent’s testimony would hinder an investigation of the shooting and violate secrecy rules involving testimony before a grand jury.

But Letts said the government was improperly relying on federal regulations governing investigations in attempting to block testimony by Boeh, who was lawfully subpoenaed by Yagman. Letts also said government attorneys offered no proof of their contentions and refused to allow Letts to privately question the FBI agent.

“The Justice Department has made a decision to put its own interest above the interest of justice,” Letts said. “The government has simply said: . . . ‘You will take my word for it.’ ”

Berry and Assistant U.S. Atty. Steven Clymer repeatedly told the judge that the government did not want to withhold information about the investigation, but insisted that they--not Boeh--would provide it to the judge in a private conference.

But the judge said that in a private conference earlier in the trial, government attorneys misrepresented to him what Boeh knows. Therefore, he said, he will not accept government attorneys’ statements about Boeh’s investigation.

“I don’t think it is possible to take someone else’s words for what Agent Boeh will say,” the judge said. “And I won’t. . . . The man is the witness. The Justice Department is not the witness.”

After the judge denied the government’s motion to throw out the subpoena for Boeh, the agent refused orders from the judge to discuss the case either privately with the judge or as a witness in court.

Letts said he did not wish to hold the agent in contempt but agreed with the attorneys involved that it might help speed a decision from the 9th District Court of Appeal, to which government lawyers are expected to appeal. He ordered the government attorneys to file their appeal by 3 p.m. today. He then recessed the trial, estimating that the delay could last a week.