Third Trial Opens for 2 Drug Officers in Corruption Case : Court: The deputies lived like company presidents, prosecution says. Defense attacks convicted lawmen who will appear as government witnesses.

Two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies on trial for alleged money-skimming were part of a corrupt team of narcotics officers who raked off hundreds of thousands of dollars from drug dealers and once divided their stolen cash in a motel room, a federal prosecutor said Wednesday.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Steven M. Bauer said defendants Robert Juarez and Tyrone Powe joined other deputies in stealing drug cash and “spending money more like company presidents than officers of the law” on cars, vacation trips and home improvements.

“Ladies and gentlemen, in short, this case is about corruption,” Bauer told jurors in his opening statement.

Defense attorneys immediately challenged the government’s assertions and said their clients were on trial largely because of allegations made by several ex-deputies who have pleaded guilty to money-skimming charges.

“This is a case about corruption,” said attorney Terry Amdur, who represents Juarez. “You are going to see some of the most corrupt people testify in (this) case that you’ve ever seen. They are government witnesses.”

Attorney Joel Levine, who represents Powe, told jurors that the ex-deputies who are cooperating with the government were the masterminds of any thefts and are merely trying to implicate others in an attempt “to deflect the eyes of the government from the amount (of stolen money) they really received.”

The former deputies who are cooperating with the government include former Sheriff’s Sgt. Robert R. Sobel, who testified at the first two money-skimming trials. The first ended with seven convictions. In the second trial, which ended last week, the jury acquitted six former narcotics officers of 14 counts and deadlocked on 13 other counts.

Government prosecutors are expected to call former Deputies Virgil I. Bartlett and Eufrasio G. Cortez, who have pleaded guilty to theft and tax charges. Both worked with Powe and Juarez on an elite anti-drug squad known as the Major Violators II group or the Majors II team.

According to Bauer, members of the team began stealing small amounts of money at first--to buy pizzas after a successful raid. Television sets were then taken from drug dealers’ homes and narcotics officers soon began skimming larger sums of money, including $10,000 bundles of cash, he said.

Cortez will testify that thefts and other misconduct among narcotics officers date to the early 1980s, when he joined the narcotics bureau, Bauer said, and continued until deputies were caught in an FBI sting in 1989.

The single largest theft--allegedly involving Cortez, Bartlett, Powe and Juarez--was a 1986 case in which more than $200,000 was stolen from a drug dealer’s home, the prosecutor said. After the theft, the deputies met at a Norwalk motel where Cortez rented a room under his undercover name, Alfonso Cardenas.

“They went into the room, split up the money and left $50,000 richer,” said Bauer, who added that the deputies can be shown to have made large cash deposits or expenditures shortly after various thefts.

In denying the government’s charges, defense attorneys said their clients lived modestly and that any additional money spent by their clients came from legitimate sources, including rental income and money from family members.

A third defendant, Yhvona Garner, also denied charges that she helped her husband launder stolen drug cash and file a false tax return. Her husband, former Deputy Daniel M. Garner, pleaded guilty earlier to theft and income tax charges.

Yhvona Garner’s attorney, Phillip Deitch, said his client did not know that money used to buy family automobiles, a condominium and vacation trips may have come from stolen drug money.

“She had no sense that there was anything illicit or wrong about those transactions,” Deitch said.