Gates Prompts Fraud Probe in Search for Chief

An investigation of possible fraud by candidates for Los Angeles police chief was ordered Tuesday, after departing Chief Daryl F. Gates and a senior LAPD commander told the Civil Service Commission that some applicants used ghostwriters to prepare crucial essays on the department’s future.

“Quite frankly, I know a couple of people who went out and had that essay done for them,” Gates told the panel as he launched his latest salvo against the process set up to choose his successor.

Gates also told reporters after the meeting that he had “heard specifically about individuals” seeking the chief’s job who sought help writing the take-home essays, which were used to narrow the pool of candidates to 13 semifinalists.

But Gates refused to provide names or details, and later in the day he appeared to be retreating from his assertions, saying he was “basing everything on hearsay.”

LAPD Cmdr. Frank Piersol, who was disqualified in the first round of the chief selection effort, also told the commission during a public hearing that “one or two candidates didn’t even write these” essays. Piersol later said he had no specific information and based his remarks on rumors that an unidentified candidate from outside the Police Department had used aides to write his essay.

Members of the Civil Service Commission, calling Gates’ and Piersol’s allegations serious, ordered a Personnel Department investigation “to determine whether, in fact, any individuals have committed fraudulent or misleading acts in connection with their applications.”

If applicants did not write their own essays, it could lead to disqualification from the process, and, if they are city employees, possibly administrative discipline, said Personnel Department General Manager John J. Driscoll, who will conduct the investigation.

“We’ll pursue a full investigation. . . . It’s a real critical issue,” Driscoll said. Candidates were to submit their own ideas as to “what you would do as chief of police,” he said. Driscoll said he expected all of the semifinalists to be interviewed as part of the inquiry, but he did not foresee a delay in the selection process, which is moving toward the choice of a chief as early as April.

Later in the day, Gates’ spokesman said the chief “has got names that he’s heard through others” of candidates who are rumored to have had help in preparing their essays. But Cmdr. Robert Gil said the chief’s criticism was not directed at individual candidates, but rather at the process, which he said did not specifically prohibit using ghostwriters.

The first rounds of previous chief selections--including the one leading to Gates’ 1978 appointment--did not involve take-home essays, but instead required hours-long written exams where candidates met in a testing room on a given day.

In interviews, several of the semifinalists expressed surprise at the ghostwriting allegations, saying they prepared their own their own essays.

“Every word in it is mine,” said Los Angeles Deputy Chief Bernard Parks, considered by many in the department to be a leading contender.

Another semifinalist, Division Chief Lee Baca of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, said “without any equivocation” his essay was entirely his own. “There is no way a credible candidate, given the questions asked, could have a second party write the answers.”

Other semifinalists who defended their essays as their own were LAPD Assistant Chief Robert Vernon, Deputy Chiefs Mark Kroeker and Glenn Levant and Cmdrs. Robert Gil and Ron Banks. Other semifinalists could not be immediately reached for comment.

The tempest over the essays erupted when Gates showed up at a Civil Service Commission hearing to lend support to appeals filed by Piersol and two other high-ranking LAPD officers--Deputy Chief Ron Frankle and Cmdr. Art Lopez--who say they were unfairly eliminated from the competition in the first round.

Barry Levin, an attorney representing the losing contenders, said he asked Gates to address the commission, but did not know he would raise allegations about the essays.

A few semifinalists suggested privately that Gates was merely trying gum up the process of selecting his successor, which he has criticized as flawed.

In the wake of the controversy over the police beating of motorist Rodney G. King last year, Gates initially agreed to step down in April, but has recently said he will remain until June to fight a series of proposed police reforms on the ballot.

He also has said he wants to remain until a new chief is selected. After delivering a broad attack on the selection process Tuesday, he was asked if he might postpone his departure if the process is stalled by potential legal challenges or other delays. “With this process, I may never go,” he said, quickly adding, “Just kidding.”

Meanwhile, after nearly three hours of testimony, the Civil Service Commission denied the appeals filed by the disqualified LAPD officers, who had asked to be allowed to proceed to the next phase of oral interviews scheduled to begin next week.

The commission said it found no significant flaw in the first-round screening, which was conducted by a seven-member panel of civic leaders.

Commission President Casimiro Tolentino said panel members carefully reviewed applications and confidential materials and found no irregularities that would warrant overturning the process.

But the LAPD officers complained that their many years of experience in the department were overlooked, and the Personnel Department, citing confidentiality rules, refused to provide details on why they were disqualified.

The officers also alleged that the committee that reviewed the essays did not independently confirm the qualifications and accomplishments claimed, opening the process to what Levin called abuse by “puffery and deception.”

As commissioners repeatedly defended the process, one of those disqualified, Lopez, withdrew his appeal and walked out of the meeting after charging the panel was “predisposed already.”

Times staff writer Eric Malnic contributed to this story.