LOS ANGELES : Officer Gets Maximum Term in Armed Robbery

A Los Angeles police officer, convicted of masterminding the armed robbery of a check-cashing outlet, was sentenced Friday to the harshest prison term possible.

In handing down the 5-year, 8-month sentence to Bobby Rydell Marshall, 36, Superior Court Judge Paul Gutman said anything less would send the wrong message to officers who have unblemished records and to children who admired Marshall.

To Marshall’s family, which counts among its members three other current or former law enforcement officers, Gutman said: “It’s tragic . . . it’s sad there is now a stain on your family’s name.”

But relatives who attended the sentencing blasted authorities for bringing what they said were trumped-up charges against Marshall.

“He was railroaded because he spoke up about the corruption in the Los Angeles Police Department,” said Annie Mae Johns, Marshall’s aunt.

Marshall contends that authorities wanted to discredit him because he gave information to the Christopher Commission--which investigated misconduct in the LAPD after officers beat Rodney G. King--and because he wrote a book that portrayed the department as being riddled with brutality and racism.

A jury convicted him of the 1992 robbery of an Anykind check-cashing outlet in Lawndale that netted $27,600. He was acquitted of conspiring to rob a second outlet. Two earlier juries had deadlocked.