Official Admits Error in Allowing Sheriff’s Captain to Receive Double Pay : Finance: L.A. County will not seek recovery of $70,000 improperly paid for his expert testimony at trials.

A 1990 ordinance prohibiting Los Angeles County employees from receiving any pay beyond their regular salaries for testifying as expert witnesses in cases involving the county was violated over a 2 1/2-year period, but there is apparently nothing that can be done to collect the $70,000 illegally paid, officials say.

S. Robert Ambrose, the attorney in the county counsel’s office who directed that the ordinance be drawn up, blames himself for not knowing what was in it and for unintentionally allowing the violation to occur.

But asked whether he will seek to recover the $70,000 paid to a sheriff’s captain commanding the West Hollywood station for providing expert testimony and other assistance in 35 civil “excessive force” cases from early 1991 to late 1993, Ambrose responded:

“Heavens no. He earned it. He did, in fact, earn it.”

Meanwhile, representatives of the district attorney’s office and the Sheriff’s Department say they agree with Ambrose that nothing can be done about what he calls his “oversight.”

It is “somewhat pointless” to go into the matter further, said Capt. Dan Burt, a spokesman for Sheriff Sherman Block, because “the ordinance in question appears to have no criminal sanctions.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Paul W. Turley, who conducted an inquiry into the matter, said: “A violation of one of these ordinances is not a crime. I don’t know exactly what kind of personnel actions are available to the county.”

Turley said it could have been a punishable offense under a provision of the California Penal Code if the sheriff’s captain, Clarence R. Chapman, had received compensation for his expert testimony at the same time he was performing his duties.

In a formal conclusion to an inquiry regarding the state code, Turley wrote:

“The evidence suggests that Capt. Chapman has engaged in a variation of double-dipping, getting paid twice by Los Angeles County for the same hours worked. While such a practice may offend elementary principles of propriety, it does not support the filing of a criminal action.

“In view of our factual and legal analysis of this matter, we will take no further action in this case and consider the case to be closed.”

His report discussed only the double-dipping question and the penal code and did not mention the county ordinance.

Chapman, a 27-year veteran of the Sheriff’s Department, said in interviews that he had not double-dipped, and he was supported in those assertions by Block. The sheriff said that station commanders are not held to any particular working hours because they are considered subject to be on duty at any time.

Block said he ordered a routine audit last fall of the county counsel’s payments to the captain and had referred the matter to the district attorney for investigation to be sure nothing wrong had occurred.

Ambrose said he had ordered a staff member to draw up the ordinance in 1990 when he was told that Ronald Kornblum, who was county coroner at the time, was enhancing his income by testifying against the county, and his deputies, in a number of civil cases in which people were suing the county for damages.

Kornblum, now an independent pathologist, denies he did that. “I did have cases (where I testified) in other areas of the country,” he said, but “I did not engage in anything within L.A. County.”

The County Board of Supervisors approved the ordinance and it went into effect in late 1990.

Ambrose said in an interview that he thought the ordinance merely prohibited testimony by county employees against the county for remuneration, not pay to those who testified for the county’s position.

He began using Chapman because he was an excellent, compelling witness, and believes that the sheriff’s captain was so convincing to juries that he saved the county a lot of money that it would have had to pay in judgments, Ambrose said.

However, Ambrose was informed by the Sheriff’s Department that the ordinance made Chapman’s work for him illegal, he said, and he informed Chapman on Sept. 28 that all such expert witnessing by him was being suspended.

Chapman, who has formed his own company to pursue expert witnessing in and out of Los Angeles County, said he is considering retirement from the Sheriff’s Department within the next several months and may decide to pursue the specialty on a full-time basis, unless he lines up another law enforcement position.

Two county supervisors, asked for comment on the apparently toothless ordinance, differed on what should be done now.

Board Chairwoman Yvonne Brathwaite Burke said: “If there’s no way to enforce the ordinance, maybe we should put in sanctions.”

But Ed Edelman said: “I think the ordinance needs to be rethought. Maybe, it should only prohibit paid testimony when it’s against the county.”