Police Aide Disputes Briseno’s Testimony : Trial: She says that the officer in the King case never tried to report the beating to superiors, as he had earlier testified.

The breach widened Monday between three defendants in the Rodney G. King beating case and Officer Theodore J. Briseno when a Los Angeles Police Department employee testified that Briseno never tried to report the beating to the department’s Foothill station.

Called to the witness stand as part of Officer Laurence M. Powell’s defense, Leslie Wiley, who works as an aide to the Foothill Division watch commander, sharply contradicted testimony from Briseno. Briseno testified Friday that he was so incensed after his fellow officers beat and kicked King that he drove immediately to the station and tried to report the misconduct.

Briseno said that when he arrived at the station on the morning of March 3, 1991, there was no need to report the incident because he saw a computer message to the Foothill watch commander from Sgt. Stacey C. Koon stating that officers under his command had been involved in a “big time use of force” in Lake View Terrace.

But Wiley, a police service representative, said she was the only person who saw the computer message from Koon and that Briseno never showed up.

Attorneys for the other three defendants plan to use Wiley’s testimony to impugn statements Briseno made from the witness stand Friday, when he told the jury that he not only tried to stop the beating, but also tried to report it.

Her testimony also appeared to benefit the prosecution in that it showed that Wiley, after receiving Koon’s message about King, responded to the sergeant by sending her own computer message that sarcastically referred to King as “the lizard” and questioned whether he deserved to be beaten.

The beating occurred about 12:45 that morning. Eleven minutes later, Wiley said, she saw Koon’s message pop up on her screen. It said: “. . . just had a big time use of force. . . . Tased and beat the suspect of a CHP pursuit . . . big time.”

Wiley said she advised Lt. Pat Conmay, the Foothill watch commander, and Sgt. Richard Distefano, another supervisor at the station that morning, about the message and then, a minute later, responded to Koon with this message: “Oh well. I’m sure the lizard didn’t deserve it. Ha Ha. I’ll let them know. OK.”

To send that message to Koon, she testified, she had to clear his message off her computer screen. And she said that at no time during the minute that the message appeared on her screen did Briseno appear at the Foothill station or view her computer screen.

“He did not” see the message, she responded after Michael Stone, Powell’s attorney, asked her if there was any way that Briseno could have seen the message without her knowledge. “I know he did not.”

Under questioning from Briseno’s attorney, John Barnett, Wiley said she was only attempting to be sarcastic in the message to Koon and that she did not know whether King deserved the beating.

But, she said, police would not have used force on King “unless something occurred out there on the street for that to have happened.”

At the time she responded to the message, Wiley testified, she did not know that King is black. And, she said, she did not mean the term lizard to be a racial slur. Rather, she said, she learned the term from a police instructor, and said it is common for police officers to flippantly so describe the “low-life criminal element.”

“It was just a sarcastic joke,” she said. “And I feel like I can joke with any and all officers.”

Wiley also testified that Koon later arrived at the station and spoke with Conmay about the King beating.

“The lieutenant asked about the use of force and what kind of injuries had taken place,” she said. “Sgt. Koon said the suspect had a cut lip, probably from falling on the asphalt.”

Earlier testimony in the trial has shown that King suffered numerous facial cuts and broken bones, and some witnesses, including two California Highway Patrol officers and one LAPD officer, have testified that King was dealt several baton blows to the head by Powell.

If true, the blows would constitute deadly force and would be in violation of department policy, witnesses have testified.

Briseno, Koon and Powell, along with fired rookie Officer Timothy E. Wind, have pleaded not guilty in the beating. The trial resumes this morning, with two LAPD witnesses expected to testify in defense of Powell.