Two Who Fell From Grace Now Face Cocaine Charges : Crime: Arrests in drug sting are latest blows to ex-Dodger Thomas and former sheriff’s detective Ross.

They were two men who once moved in different circles, but whose lives have spiraled downward along parallel trajectories.

One was a boy of summer, a former Los Angeles Dodger and California Angel who was widely heralded during his playing days as the best utility man in professional baseball. The other was a seasoned Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department narcotics investigator, a well-respected detective with 18 spotless years behind him.

But Derrel Thomas and Rickey Ross saw their once-golden careers crash amid the glare of unwanted publicity. Thomas left baseball amid rumors of drug use and Ross lost his job after he was accused of the serial murders of three South Los Angeles prostitutes--charges that were dropped.

On Friday night, according to federal agents and San Fernando police, the troubled lives of Thomas and Ross became intertwined in a turn of events that compounded their separate tragedies. The two men were caught up in a narcotics sting operation in the parking lot of an Inglewood hamburger joint, arrested and taken into custody as alleged associates in one of Los Angeles’ myriad low-level drug rings.

Investigators say they arrested Thomas and Ross, both 41, after the pair showed up with $140,000--hidden in the trunk of a rented Cadillac--to buy 22 pounds of cocaine from undercover agents.

One law enforcement official said that as the agents searched and handcuffed the pair, a federal Drug Enforcement Administration investigator peered closely at Ross, recognizing a face that was once in the news.

“Are you who I think you are?” the agent asked.

“Yeah,” the suspect said. “It’s me.”

Thomas and Ross were booked on suspicion of possession of drugs for sale, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Grosbard. They were being held in lieu of $1 million bail each at Los Angeles County Jail and are scheduled to be arraigned Monday in Los Angeles Municipal Court.

Although investigators have no idea how the two men came to know each other, they say that by the time of their arrest, they had become friends. And by then, there was no anonymity left for Derrel Thomas and Rickey Ross, not even in a dimly lit parking lot.

Ross was arrested by Los Angeles police officers in February, 1989, and charged in the slayings of three South Los Angeles prostitutes. The case was dropped three months later after police admitted that ballistics test errors had mistakenly linked Ross’ gun with the murders. Ross was sitting in his parked car with a prostitute when he was arrested, and police recovered a small amount of rock cocaine in the vehicle. He later resigned from the Sheriff’s Department for “personal reasons.”

Ross lives with his wife, Sylvia, and their 5-year-old daughter in a neighborhood of sprawling $300,000 homes in Rialto. But he has been unable to find work since he left the Sheriff’s Department, his wife said Saturday.

“He’s a good man,” she said, speaking briefly after answering her front door. “It’s been rough, but it’s going to be all right.”

As for Thomas, his 15-year baseball career as an infielder and outfielder with the Dodgers, Angels and other clubs sputtered out in 1985 after his name surfaced during a high-profile federal cocaine trial in Pittsburgh.

“I truly feel that I was blackballed out of baseball,” Thomas, a Redondo Beach resident, said in a recent interview with The Times. “There is no reason why I should not be in professional baseball in some capacity.”

In March, three months after he was hired to coach Dorsey High School’s baseball team, Thomas watched in horror as one of his players died after shooting himself in the head aboard a team bus. At Dorsey, a school that has endured a run of bad news in the past year--from football games marred by gang shootings to the self-inflicted fatal shooting of Wilfred Wright III--officials and students reacted to Thomas’ arrest Saturday with numb resignation.

Despite Wilfred’s death, his mother, Grace Wright, remains the official “team mom,” traveling with the boys from game to game and lending moral support. She woke up Saturday with the news of Thomas’ arrest on her clock radio.

“How will the kids look at this now after he told them to confide in him and told them not to do drugs?” she asked. “I really feel for the kids. They’re going from one tragedy to another.”

Kevin Gibson, the school’s basketball coach, had much the same reaction.

“There seems to be a black cloud hanging over Dorsey,” he said. “It’s more than just gang fights. These are deaths and big things. The school has its problems, but these things just keep coming up every month.”

Law enforcement officials said they had known of Thomas’ alleged involvement in cocaine trafficking since last January, when federal agents and San Fernando police began their investigation. But agents only learned of Ross’ alleged involvement Friday night after he was arrested, according to DEA spokesman Ralph Lochridge, who described the narcotics ring as a “garden variety” operation.

A third, unnamed suspect also was arrested during the sting operation, and others are being sought, authorities said.

The investigation started when an informant told police that Thomas had allegedly approached him seeking a narcotics transaction, San Fernando Police Sgt. Mike Harvey said.

Several days later, agents were told that Thomas was seeking to purchase 10 kilograms--22 pounds--of cocaine, Harvey said. The task force then set up a “reverse sting operation” in which they planned to lure Thomas and his associates into buying cocaine from undercover agents.

According to Harvey, the ex-baseball player allegedly tried to act as a middleman for Ross, who was seeking to buy cocaine to sell on the street.

Undercover agents set up a meeting with Thomas and an accomplice, who turned out to be Ross, on Friday night at a McDonald’s on Century Boulevard near La Cienega Boulevard.

Shortly before 10:15 p.m., the two pulled into the parking lot in a rented gray 1988 Cadillac, police said. Three undercover agents emerged from a van to meet Thomas, who wore a gray and white jogging suit and a white baseball cap. Ross was clad in jeans and a designer T-shirt with a gold chain dangling from his neck.

While Thomas stayed outside, Ross went inside the restaurant with two undercover DEA agents. After a few minutes, Ross and the agents returned to the Cadillac, police said. Ross allegedly opened the trunk of the car, pulled out a small gym bag and displayed a stack of bills that police said totaled $140,000.

Ross put the bag inside the car’s trunk and went with the agents to their van. “He looked very nervous, like he was watching for police,” Harvey said. After sliding into the agents’ van, Ross allegedly was shown 10 kilograms of cocaine, authorities said. “He asked if he could open it up and take a sample,” the DEA spokesman said.

At that moment, the agents announced that Ross was under arrest. He offered no resistance. Neither did Thomas.

Kriss Halpern, one of Ross’ lawyers, suggested Saturday that the arrest of Ross might be linked to the $400-million lawsuit the former deputy filed in September, 1989, alleging that Los Angeles police and Chief Daryl F. Gates violated his civil rights when he was arrested on the murder charges that were dropped.

“One has to wonder,” Halpern said, “if it’s coincidence that we’re on the verge of bringing to trial a major case against the LAPD and Chief Daryl Gates.” He expects the lawsuit to be heard in federal court this summer.

Halpern said Ross and his family had suffered emotionally and physically since his arrest in 1989. “Rickey was put in solitary confinement across from Richard Ramirez for three months and both were called the ‘Double-R murderers’ by guards,” Halpern said.

Lochridge insisted that “this was an ongoing criminal organization. If they hadn’t purchased the cocaine from us, they would have purchased it from someone else.”

Times staff writers Kirby Lee, Louis Sahagun and Eric Shepard contributed to this story.