Officer Fired in Sex Scandal Fights to Make a Comeback

Eleven years ago, Sgt. Roger M. (Hoot) Gibson stood at the center of one of the Los Angeles Police Department’s steamiest and most wrenching scandals: He was accused of being the “main man” behind a police burglary ring and of participating in a series of Hollywood sex parties.

Today he is a weathered 52-year-old grandfather, fighting for his name and pension, which he lost when he was fired amid the Hollywood Division scandals. Gibson has won several rounds--including last week, when a panel of U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals judges found that the city owed Gibson $626,000 and that he is entitled to apply for reinstatement.

After years of speaking only through his attorney, Gibson agreed to an interview Thursday and said that he wants to become a cop again--if only for long enough to sign his retirement papers and leave with his reputation officially restored.

“Let’s end this,” he said. “Let’s get it over with. Let’s do it.”

A decade of court battles does not end so simply. S. David Hotchkiss, the deputy city attorney who has handled the case from its beginning, said Thursday that he was preparing a brief asking the full 9th Circuit to reconsider last week’s ruling. If that fails, Hotchkiss said the city is prepared to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case.

“It’s not over until the fat lady sings,” he said. “And the fat lady hasn’t sung yet.”

The case that changed Gibson’s life began in 1981, when news broke that the internal affairs division was investigating a burglary ring in Hollywood. The burglars allegedly were police officers plundering Hollywood businesses while on duty.

One officer admitted to taking part in more than 100 burglaries. Another, who later died in a car crash, told internal affairs that Gibson was the ringleader.

Internal affairs investigators questioned Gibson about the charges and searched his home, car and police locker. Three months later, investigators showed up at his house again, armed with an order requiring him to consent to a search of his garage and car.

This time, Gibson refused.

“No matter how innocent you are, there’s always a limit. Everybody has that limit,” Gibson said. “I’d gone through this two times, and that was enough. I said no.”

Gibson was charged with insubordination, and more charges were added as the investigation continued. Joined by the Police Protective League, the union representing Los Angeles police officers, Gibson filed suit against the police department, the city and various county and city officials. On Aug. 13, 1982, Gibson was relieved of duty without pay.

With titillating charges of sex parties and burglar cops, the investigation drew enormous publicity. Rare was the day that the case did not make news. Turning on the radio or picking up the newspaper became painful experiences. Gibson and his wife, Kimberly, hunkered down with their three children. They struggled to make the house payments while the children weathered their classmates’ teasing.

“That was a very difficult time,” Kimberly Gibson said as she sat by her husband. “Good friends, close family and a good lawyer. That’s how we got through.”

When Gibson appeared before his disciplinary board, he admitted that he had lied to internal affairs investigators: Contrary to his previous denial, he now said he had once been at the Hollywood house where the sex parties were held. Gibson denied participating and said he left a spa when a nude woman entered. Gibson said he had lied initially because of “shame, embarrassment and marital” fears.

On the burglary charge, Gibson did not waver; he denied ever committing the crime.

When the board heard Gibson’s case, it accepted his version of that charge and found him not guilty. But it also found him guilty on 13 other counts, including the insubordination charge from the attempt to search his garage.

The board recommended that Gibson be dismissed. On Jan. 13, 1983, Police Chief Daryl F. Gates fired him. Gibson believes Gates turned on him because Gibson had fought against the charges, and he reserves his most bitter comments for the former chief.

“When Gates gets mad at you, his vengeance knows no bounds, no limits whatsoever,” Gibson said. “There’s no such things as rules, laws or regulations.”

Gibson’s firing ended 16 years with the Police Department and began a period in which Gibson bounced from job to job. He took up cabinet-making, earning a decent wage but struggling to keep up with craftsmen decades younger than him.

Meanwhile, his lawyer, Gregory Petersen, argued that Gibson had been dismissed because he refused to allow internal affairs to perform an illegal search on his house. The internal affairs officers did not have a criminal warrant, only an administrative order, and Petersen--an outspoken critic of the internal affairs division and a former cop--maintained that his client had been punished for exercising his constitutional rights.

After a trial and two appeals, the 9th Circuit agreed. When the court’s opinion was handed down, Petersen and another of Gibson’s representatives sent a letter to Chief Willie L. Williams, asking him to end the matter by officially giving Gibson his job back.

That will not happen, at least for now. The city’s attorneys plan to continue the legal battle.

The next round of appeals could drag the marathon case out for many months, but Gibson is no stranger to waiting. He says he will persevere until the case is over. And he is determined that it will not end until he walks out of Parker Center as a police officer--instead of a criminal.

“My ultimate goal is to clear my name,” he said. “Which means reinstatement. . . . Until I’m reinstated and I can walk out of there with my head held high, it’s just not enough.”