Briseno Deserved to Be Convicted, LAPD Sgt. Says : Reaction: Defense’s use of force expert contends that the acquitted defendant stalked King and was the only one who should have been found guilty.

Sgt. Charles L. Duke Jr., a decorated Los Angeles police officer who testified for the defense in the Rodney G. King federal civil rights trial, said Thursday that the jury in the case erred in two ways: by convicting two of the officers and by acquitting the only one he believes was guilty.

Duke accused Officer Theodore J. Briseno of stalking King throughout the incident in Lake View Terrace and maliciously stomping him near the end of the beating. Briseno was one of two defendants acquitted last week.

“Ted Briseno has a little man’s complex. He doesn’t have any qualms about hitting people who are in custody, and he wants to get his licks in so he can puff out his chest,” Duke said in an interview. “Briseno did what he did out of malice. He was the one who violated King’s rights.”

Told of Duke’s comments, Briseno’s lawyer, Harland W. Braun, said the sergeant was merely reacting to Briseno’s criticisms of his fellow officers. Although Briseno did not take the witness stand in the federal trial, he testified against them in last year’s state case, and an edited videotape of that testimony was played for the federal jury.

“Charlie resents the fact that Ted broke ranks with the other officers up in Simi Valley,” Braun said. “He’s never been able to forgive him for that.”

Duke testified during the federal civil rights trial of the officers, which ended Saturday after the jury found Sgt. Stacey C. Koon and Officer Laurence M. Powell guilty of violating King’s civil rights. Briseno and former Officer Timothy E. Wind were acquitted.

During his time on the stand, Duke, the defense’s chief expert on the use of force by police officers, defended the actions of Koon, Powell and Wind, but he pointedly was never asked his opinions about Briseno’s conduct.

Lawyers for the officers said later that they had agreed not to question Duke on that topic, in part because Braun had vowed to attack Duke’s credibility if the sergeant testified against Briseno.

Briseno was interviewed by The Times the day after the verdicts were announced. He said then, as he has long insisted, that he used his foot to hold King on the ground, not to punish him. In a paid interview for the syndicated TV program “Donahue,” Briseno reiterated that position and said he had always told the truth: “I took an oath, and I did speak the truth, and I think 24 people know that,” he said.

Duke was incensed by those comments.

“Ted Briseno did what he did to hurt Rodney King,” Duke said. “Everything he has said is a lie from start to finish.”

Duke added that Briseno can be seen on the videotape wielding his flashlight and looking for an opportunity to hit King with it. The stomp that Briseno administers near the end of the beating, Duke said, was unnecessary and malicious--essentially the same claim that federal prosecutors made against Briseno.

“He went in there to get his licks in,” said Duke, who added that because of his decision to testify on behalf of the defense in the civil rights trial, he was barred from continuing to teach use of force to Los Angeles Police Department officers. Duke said he filed a grievance Feb. 22 and has followed that with an unfair labor practices complaint.

In the interview, Duke blamed LAPD command staff for failing to properly train its officers to use force and for abandoning the defendants when the videotape of the incident came to light. Duke also accused jurors in the civil rights trial of “looking for a way to convict someone” and ignoring what he believes was ample evidence to support acquittals of Koon and Powell.

Duke was particularly angered by the treatment of Koon, who supervised the March 3, 1991, incident and who took full responsibility for the actions of the other officers. Koon has stayed mostly out of sight since the jury convicted him, granting one paid interview.

“I’ve talked to Stacey,” Duke said. “He’s incredibly strong. He recognizes that he will go to prison, and that he could go to prison for 8 1/2 years. . . . This is a tragedy to me. It’s a tragedy that the (police) department has orchestrated and that the federal government has carried out.”