Police Charity Calls Don’t Ring True, Officials Warn : Fraud: Some phony solicitors threaten to cut off 911 service if money is not donated. The LAPD gets nothing.

Telephone solicitation services are collecting millions of dollars under the guise of helping local law enforcement and rebuilding the Los Angeles Police Department, but none of that money is being turned over to the LAPD, city officials said Monday.

They urged residents to be skeptical of any phone solicitation requesting money on behalf of police.

“I am particularly disturbed by these so-called police charities because the public is innocently responding to the wrong people when they answer the call to help the cash-strapped LAPD,” Councilwoman Laura Chick said in a statement distributed at a news conference on the issue. “We must do all we can to stop this from happening.”

Art Mattox, a member of the city Police Commission, said he began investigating the solicitation companies a few months ago after receiving such a call himself. That investigation, led by LAPD Lt. Jim Voge, found that millions of dollars are being collected annually by solicitation services, some of which mislead and even threaten people who refuse to give money--falsely warning them, for instance, that officers will refuse to answer 911 calls if they do not get money.

Suspicious solicitation practices have long drawn the attention of state officials. Using a 1990 disclosure law, state Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren culled financial reports filed by fund-raising organizations and found that only 30% of the charitable donations made through commercial organizations were passed on to the intended charity, a process he called “illusory charitable giving.”

Although police occasionally succeed in arresting illegal phone solicitors, officials concede that the investigations are difficult. That is in part because many solicitors do not give out call-back numbers or addresses, instead sending a courier to pick up the contribution. The illegal operations also often pack up and move if they believe law enforcement officials are closing in.

Those same traits make it difficult to assess exactly how much money the solicitors are raising or where it goes, but even some licensed operations use up the vast majority of the money they raise before making any contributions to charity.

In Los Angeles, the police and firefighter solicitations appear largely directed at the city’s Korean and Latino communities, according to police investigators. They speculate that the firms have targeted newcomers to the United States in the hopes of exploiting their unfamiliarity with law enforcement traditions here. Although law enforcement agencies in some countries do solicit funds over the phone, the LAPD does not.

More than half of the 800 to 1,000 annual inquiries received by the LAPD about solicitations come from Latinos or Korean Americans, officials said. In many cases, the solicitors leave the false impression that they are police officers and that the donations will be used to purchase police equipment, officials said.

In one recent case, officials said, a Korean shop owner called to complain to the LAPD that his 911 service had been threatened by a telephone solicitor. That complaint is under investigation.

“That is deplorable,” Mattox said. “I can’t believe that someone would do something like that.”

Although threatening to cut off someone’s police service is illegal, officials also are concerned about many of the less extreme solicitations, even those legally made by licensed operators. They say solicitors are sometimes misleading, deftly creating the impression that they are police officers or that donations will go to the Police Department.

Officials said it is impossible to discern how much money is raised through telephone solicitations, but that one company alone generated $3 million last year. With 11 locally licensed groups, and others suspected of operating without licenses, Mattox said officials believe millions of dollars are being raised every year by solicitors purporting to work on behalf of law enforcement.

Of the 11 groups licensed to solicit money for fire and law enforcement associations in the city of Los Angeles, Mattox said, officials have been unable to find a single contribution made directly to the Police Department.

“These police solicitors give the public the impression that the money they solicit goes directly to the Police Department,” Mattox said. “That is not the case.”

He said one licensed group, which he declined to identify, raised roughly $3 million last year, enough to purchase 160 new police cars. Not one dime of that money was donated to the LAPD, he added.

The licensed groups are required only to have police officers or firefighters as members. Mattox said the Police Department is attempting to identify those officers and brief them on the way their names are being exploited.

In addition to the licensed organizations, officials said there are untold others that crop up and try to capitalize on the public’s fear and generosity.

For instance, LAPD officers are investigating a phone scam that targeted Valley residents after the recent fires, Mattox said. Operators of that fund-raising group, based in a hotel room, told potential donors that they were raising money to help police and fire departments recover after fighting the Malibu blaze.

In March, an Orange County phone solicitor attempted to raise funds after an officer was shot and killed. That solicitor pretended the money was going to a memorial fund. Outraged police officials tried to locate the perpetrator of that scam, but were unsuccessful.

“They take the hot issue of the day--last week it was the fire in Malibu, next week it could be the child molester in the Valley--and they exploit it,” Mattox said. “They take advantage of people.”

Councilwoman Chick has aggressively courted contributions for the LAPD in recent months. With many people coming forward, city officials are worried that generous citizens will be misled by the solicitation services into giving to organizations that have no affiliation with the Police Department. Solicitation services typically step up their efforts around the holidays.

Officials said that if citizens receive questionable solicitations, they should contact the Police Commission’s investigation division at (213) 485-2102.

Rather than give to telephone solicitors, Mattox and other officials are asking those who want to make a contribution to call their local LAPD station and ask for the name of its recognized booster organization. Those organizations funnel their contributions directly to the department.

“We need to rebuild the LAPD,” Mattox said in an interview. “We need to rebuild its spirit and morale, and we need to rebuild its equipment. And we need the public’s help to do that. But contributing to these groups is not helping.”