Veteran Officer Accused of Misconduct Resigns : Police: Granada Hills man was to have faced department hearings on 13 charges, including stealing pornography from evidence lockers.

A veteran Los Angeles police officer has resigned, on the same day he was to face internal departmental hearings that would have put him on trial publicly on more than a dozen misconduct charges, authorities confirmed Wednesday.

Officer Walter Ray Bentley Jr. of Granada Hills, a 23-year veteran, worked most recently in the department’s Juvenile Division before his suspension last August. He faced two separate department administrative hearings on 13 charges, including stealing pornography from locked evidence lockers and selling information he illegally retrieved from department computers to private detectives.

Because the most severe penalty the hearing officers could have imposed was dismissal from the force, those hearings have been canceled, said Capt. Eric Lillo, commanding officer of the Police Department’s Internal Affairs Division.

Some fellow officers, who asked not to be named, said that by retiring Monday, the day the hearings were to begin, Bentley avoided having to testify against himself in the board of rights hearings--which are open to the public and reporters--and prevented other witnesses from testifying against him.

Although Lillo had no comment on such speculation, he said Bentley “certainly retired at a time that allowed him to avoid the board of rights hearing.”

Nevertheless, Bentley, 47, remains under criminal investigation for allegedly using his power as a police officer to illegally gain access to confidential information in departmental computers. Police and prosecutors said Wednesday that that investigation will continue, as will an existing criminal case filed against Bentley last summer, after Bentley was arrested and charged with possessing child pornography and receiving stolen property. He has pleaded not guilty to those charges.

Bentley’s retirement “has nothing to do with the criminal case,” said Police Lt. Ken Welty, head of the Police Department’s Bunco-Forgery Division. “The only difference is that now he’s a civilian.”

The departmental charges lodged against Bentley--outlined in internal police documents--may provide material for additional criminal charges against him, because all the evidence gathered in the internal affairs investigation has been shared with the district attorney’s office, Lillo said.

It is up to the district attorney’s office to decide whether to file additional criminal charges.

“Most times we wait until our case is completed and present that to the DA’s office,” Lillo said. “But because of the high publicity of this case, there has been information exchanged with the DA’s people almost from the very beginning.”

The Times reported last August that the Police Department was investigating allegations that Bentley illegally gained access to confidential police information on nearly 500 people and sold them to private investigation companies, including one run by retired Deputy Police Chief Daniel Sullivan.

Sullivan has denied any wrongdoing.

Through his lawyer, Bentley refused to comment Wednesday on his retirement or the allegations lodged against him by the department.

Specifically, department investigators allege that Bentley improperly used department computers for non-law enforcement purposes, sometimes using the passwords of other department employees, and sold computer files to others outside the department for profit. Bentley also was charged in the internal complaint with illegally possessing child pornography and stolen property, according to the documents, which were obtained by The Times.

Bentley’s lawyer, Darryl Mounger, said his client’s decision to resign March 21, and thus retire with a 40% pension, had nothing to do with the hearings scheduled to start the same day. If he had waited another two years, the department said, Bentley’s annual pension would have been 55% upon retirement.

The board of rights hearings, though administrative, are similar to a civil-criminal trial. They are conducted by a three-member panel of police commanders and officers who hear sworn evidence from witnesses and review a far broader spectrum of evidence than that allowed in a criminal court, Lillo said.

For instance, a criminal defendant can cite his Fifth Amendment right not to incriminate himself through his own testimony. But in a board of rights hearing, an officer can be fired from the force outright if he does not issue a statement and respond to questions, Lillo said.