Misuse of Police File Alleged by Private Eye : Litigation: Toluca Lake man, a former state Senate candidate, says an L.A. police investigator fed information to neo-Nazis, endangering his life.

A Toluca Lake private eye has sued Los Angeles city and Police Department officials and a police investigator, contending that the investigator illegally used LAPD computers to help neo-Nazi groups snoop on him, thus placing his life in danger.

In a lawsuit filed in U. S. District Court, private investigator Jan Tucker said civilian Police Commission analyst Robert Bauman accessed police computer files on him sometime before Tucker ran for a state Senate seat last fall.

The lawsuit contends that Bauman then gave confidential information regarding him to “organizations that were and are overtly hostile to Tucker and his political activities, including but not limited to neo-Nazis and organizations promoting neo-Nazi propaganda.”

The lawsuit names Police Chief Willie L. Williams and former Chief Daryl F. Gates, and alleges that the Los Angeles Police Department, in effect, condoned such spying by not vigorously prosecuting abuse of police computers and the confidential information they contain.

Filed Oct. 26 and served on city and LAPD officials last Tuesday, the suit also alleges that such an invasion of privacy violates Tucker’s federally protected civil rights.

Bauman, a 24-year civilian employee of the LAPD, was suspended for 10 days without pay last year by the city’s Civil Service Commission for unauthorized use of police computers. He has admitted running the names of several people, including celebrities and other prominent local individuals, through computerized police files. He said that he is a history buff specializing in extremist groups and that he ran some names at the request of other department employees, according to city documents.

City and police officials had no immediate comment on the lawsuit. Bauman, who now works in the LAPD’s Central Division, and also had no comment.

As a permit processor in the Police Commission’s investigation division, Bauman had access to computer files containing a wide variety of confidential police, criminal and tax records. It is legal for police and civilian investigators to access computer files, but usually only on a “need to know” basis, such as when a person applies for a permit.

Tucker alleges that Bauman looked into his files because Bauman was an “associate” of neo-Nazi organizations and other racist and fascist groups. Tucker said Bauman and those groups could use confidential information contained in police computers to see through the various aliases Tucker uses to protect himself, locate his whereabouts and put him “in mortal danger.”

In November, about the time that Tucker says he first suspected his files had been accessed, he was running for the state Senate in the 21st District on the little-known Peace and Freedom Party ticket. He lost. But that political activity, and his longtime role as an investigator for such controversial groups as the Jewish Defense League, made him a wanted man among neo-Nazi groups and other organizations, Tucker contends.

“Without knowing what (Bauman) accessed, I don’t even know what kind of protections to take . . . ,” Tucker said in an interview. “He probably knows certain aliases that I use. And if someone knows those aliases, they can find me. . . . For 10 years I was tracking down Nazis for the JDL.”

Bauman became the subject of an internal LAPD investigation when undercover officers became suspicious after spotting him at a Huntington Beach event sponsored by white supremacist Tom Metzger. When checking department computers, they determined that Bauman had been running checks on the records of scores of people.

Although police investigators concluded that there was no evidence to indicate that Bauman “was a terrorist or a member of a racist or radical group,” his suspension was upheld by the Board of Civil Service Commissioners because of the frequency of the violations. Hearing Examiner Fredric R. Horowitz called his actions a “serious breach of the public trust.”

Irv Rubin, head of the JDL, also has sued Bauman over alleged searching of his computer files. Assistant City Atty. Byron Boeckman, who is representing the city in both suits, had no comment on either case.

None of the public documents released in Bauman’s disciplinary case identify Tucker by name as someone whose files were improperly accessed. Tucker said he learned of the alleged security breach from a third party, who he said saw confidential police reports that include him in a group of 200 or so people whose files authorities say Bauman reviewed.

In interviews, Tucker could not point to a specific incident that led him to believe that his life was in danger or even that private information about him was leaked to anyone. In the lawsuit, however, he said he found swastikas daubed on his car at his home and on the doors of his office in 1985, and that he believes those were “proximately caused by the release of personal information regarding Tucker” by Bauman.

“He’s worked there for a long time,” Tucker said. “He could have accessed my files years ago.”

Tucker also said he has received many telephone threats in recent years and other invasions of privacy that he believes stem from someone illegally searching the police files.

No specific damages are sought in the lawsuit. But by suing police and city officials, Tucker said, he hopes to gain access to otherwise confidential documents that he says could shed light on what personal information about him has been accessed, and possibly who has received it.