Indictments Expected Today in King Beating : LAPD: At least three officers will be named in civil rights charges returned by a federal grand jury, sources say.

Federal prosecutors will announce indictments of at least three Los Angeles police officers today on charges of violating the civil rights of Rodney G. King, sources close to the investigation said Tuesday.

According to one source, a federal grand jury meeting in Los Angeles returned the indictments Tuesday, but they were ordered sealed until today.

Although sources would not say which officers are to be indicted, at least three--Sgt. Stacey C. Koon and Officers Timothy E. Wind and Laurence M. Powell--have received letters from the U.S. attorney’s office identifying them as targets of a grand jury investigation.

The letters, which were mailed July 15, informed the officers that the grand jury was looking into “allegations of violations of federal civil rights laws arising from the arrest and use of force against Rodney King” by police officers on March 3, 1991.

A fourth officer, Theodore J. Briseno, was charged in state court in connection with the King beating. Briseno broke ranks with his colleagues during the state trial, saying he tried to stop the beating when he believed the other officers were getting “out of control.”

A source said late Tuesday that an indictment of Briseno on federal charges will also be announced.

The state trial ended when all four officers were found not guilty of all the charges except for Powell, who faces retrial in state court on one count of assault.

The not guilty verdicts touched off the worst riots of this century in urban America and prompted the federal investigation of the videotaped beating. As of late Tuesday, it was unclear whether Briseno would face federal charges.

“It sounds like they (prosecutors) are still going over that,” one source said. “He’s a mystery.”

The grand jury, which meets in secret, heard testimony Tuesday from a group of officers who were at the scene of the King beating but did not participate. Attorneys said all of those officers had been subpoenaed to appear before the grand jury, indicating that they have not been targets of the inquiry.

As news of the pending indictments leaked out Tuesday, some rumors suggested that U.S. Atty. William Barr would be in Los Angeles to announce them. Officials familiar with Barr’s schedule, however, said that his trip here had been planned for months and that he was not scheduled to arrive until Thursday night.

Legal experts said that if the officers are charged with violating King’s civil rights, the indictments will probably charge them with violating at least one of two federal laws.

The first makes it a crime for a group of two or more people to conspire to “injure, oppress, threaten or intimidate” any citizen in the free exercise of that person’s rights, which include the right to be safe from unreasonable search and seizure and the right to be protected from harm while under arrest. The punishment for that crime is up to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

The second major federal civil rights law makes it illegal for any government official to deprive a person of rights on account of race. That statute provides for one year in jail and a fine of $1,000, but a 1988 amendment changed the law so that the prison time can be increased to as much as 10 years in cases in which the victim suffers bodily injury.

Attorneys for the four officers said Tuesday night that they had received no word from the U.S. attorney’s office regarding indictments. Wind’s attorney, Paul DePasquale, said he called federal prosecutors Tuesday after hearing the rumors and had not received a response. “I find it hard to believe it’s going to happen without courtesy calls to an attorney like me,” DePasquale said.