Mistrial in Ex-Deputy’s Cocaine Case : Courts: Jurors deadlock 9 to 3 in favor of acquitting Rickey Ross of conspiracy to purchase 22 pounds of drugs from undercover officers. A retrial is likely.

A mistrial was declared Friday in the trial of former Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Rickey Ross, who was charged with attempting to purchase 22 pounds of cocaine from undercover officers.

After almost four days of deliberation, the jury deadlocked 9 to 3 in favor of acquitting Ross of three counts of conspiracy to purchase cocaine for resale.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Jane Winston said her office will probably seek to retry the case.

Ross’s attorney, David Herriford, said the case came down to the credibility of the prosecution witnesses against Ross, including ex-Dodger Derrel Thomas, a former co-defendant. And the jury must have decided, Herriford said, that these witnesses “were out-and-out lying.”

Juror Lorraine Bolden said prosecutors had contended that Ross “was a big drug kingpin” but did not prove it.

“There were too many holes in the prosecution’s case and they didn’t prove anything, in my opinion,” said Bolden, a customer services manager for an insurance company. “And a lot of the testimony against Ross was full of lies . . . with people contradicting each other.”

Ross declined to comment on the case, saying only: “They have continued to wreck and destroy my life. They are playing too many games with too many people’s lives.”

The mistrial represents another loss for the district attorney’s office in a well-publicized case. The Ross case was not as significant a loss as were the cases involving the Menendez brothers and the officers charged with beating Rodney G. King. Still, Thomas and Ross were well-known figures, and their case received substantial news media attention. This could have contributed to the jury’s decision Friday, the prosecutor said.

“It might be harder to convince a jury in a high-profile case,” Winston said. “Maybe there’s more pressure on a jury because they feel these cases are being so closely watched.”

Ross, an 18-year-veteran of the Sheriff’s Department, was arrested in 1989 for allegedly killing three prostitutes, although the charges were eventually dropped. His cocaine conspiracy trial was closely watched, not only because of his past, but because Thomas, a local baseball hero, was a co-defendant.

Ross has claimed that as a result of his multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the Los Angeles Police Department for his 1989 arrest, law enforcement agencies set him up for the cocaine bust.

“It sure looks like it could have been a setup,” Herriford said Friday. “A number of things happened after his arrest that seem to bear that out.”

The long, tortuous road to Ross’s mistrial began when a man facing a lengthy prison sentence for drug dealing agreed to act as an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration.

DEA investigators reportedly told him that, if he acted as an undercover informant, his sentence would be reduced. His mission, prosecutor Winston said, was to set up a drug deal.

The informant told drug agents, according to court records, that he knew Derrel Thomas during the 1980s, when he was the manager of the Barbary Coast, a topless bar in Gardena. The two had discussed putting together a cocaine deal at the time, according to court records, but one never materialized. The DEA authorized him to try again.

When Thomas, who was broke at the time and heavily in debt, was unable to line up a cocaine source, drug agents told the informant to turn the deal around. The agents would provide the informant with the drugs if Thomas could find a buyer.

Thomas and a hostess at the Barbary Coast, Cynthia Patterson, testified that they eventually located a buyer--Ross--and the cocaine deal was set up.

Defense attorney Herriford said Friday that both Thomas and Patterson, the key prosecution witnesses against Ross, were unreliable and had reasons to lie. Thomas testified against Ross during the trial in exchange for a prison sentence of no more than three years. Patterson was granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for her testimony.

There is no dispute that in April, 1992, Ross rented a Cadillac and had $151,000 in the trunk when he showed up at a McDonald’s parking lot, along with Thomas and the informant.

The prosecution contended that he was there to buy 22 pounds of cocaine from undercover agents running a sting operation. But Ross testified that he thought the money might possibly be used “for money laundering, not drugs.”

Ross’ problems began, he testified, in 1989 when he left the Sheriff’s Department. He had trouble finding steady work and faced foreclosure on his Rialto house.

At that time, he was trying to sell movie production companies the rights to his story of being wrongly accused and spending almost three months in a top-security unit of the County Jail. While he was negotiating with several production companies, he testified, he ran into an acquaintance at a bar whom he had met years earlier. The man, whom he called “a real wheeler-dealer,” turned out to be an informant for the DEA.

Ross testified that the informant promised to lend him $12,000 and help him set up a movie and book deal if he would transport a shipment of cash. He testified that he met an associate of the informant, who placed a gym bag full of money into the trunk of the rented car.

Ross said he headed to a McDonald’s parking lot, along with Thomas and the informant. When undercover DEA agents showed him a plastic bag filled with cocaine, he said, he initially did not know what it was. When the agents persuaded him to take the bag and he saw what was inside, he testified, he tried to leave.

But the prosecution contended that Ross was a “trusted member of a drug organization.” He removed a small folding knife to test the drugs, Winston said, and had no intention of backing out of the deal at the time he was arrested.