Man Found Guilty After Victim Recants : Courts: Woman denied during the trial that her boyfriend had beaten her. But the jury was persuaded by 911 tape under a new policy.

A North Hollywood man has been convicted of beating his girlfriend after prosecutors used the tape recording of her 911 call to help persuade a jury to ignore her denials during the trial.

After jurors heard the 911 tape, Koeppel Hall, 25, an unemployed laborer, was convicted of misdemeanor battery. He was sentenced Tuesday to the maximum of one year in jail by a Van Nuys Municipal Court judge.

The case points up the vigorous approach that prosecutors can pursue in domestic violence cases: It doesn’t matter if the victim recants a story, or even if the victim refuses to press charges. Prosecutors can still press ahead.

“Our policy is to prosecute these cases to the utmost,” regardless of whether the victim is cooperative, said Deputy City Atty. George A. Schell, who prosecuted Hall.

Hall was found guilty of slapping, scratching and beating his girlfriend, now 22, on April 23.

City Atty. James Hahn said Wednesday that he instituted the policy because prosecutors routinely encounter victims who change their stories when the time comes to go to court, often because of pressure from a defendant.

The policy, he said, means that the victim, typically a wife or girlfriend, does not have the final say on whether to drop charges.

Sometimes, Schell said, the policy puts the prosecutor in the uncomfortable role of discounting the victim’s courtroom testimony.

But, Hahn said, “This way, we’re able to demonstrate to the jury when she was telling the truth. Was it the night of the offense, when she called 911? Or is it in court, where he’s looking at her directly across from the counsel table, and she’s saying what he wants to hear?”

Just after midnight April 23, Hall--whose nickname, according to court files, is “Little Insane”--became angry, the woman told Los Angeles police.

Hall, who was released from state prison in November, 1992, after serving about five years for manslaughter, slapped her on the face and neck, the woman told police. He pulled her hair and, she said, pushed her so hard that she hit her back on a bed frame. She said she fled their apartment and dialed 911.

During the call, the woman cried frequently. She pleaded for paramedics and between sobs said: “My boyfriend of mine just jumped on me. My back is bruised bad. My face is bruised.” Minutes later, officers spotted Hall at a convenience store at Vineland Avenue and Victory Boulevard and arrested him. Officers noted long scratches on the woman’s neck and back.

Two days later, the woman’s story had changed. She told a Los Angeles police officer following up the arrest that there had been no attack. She sometimes had scary “flashbacks,” she said then, and she had gotten scratched when Hall had tried to calm her.

When she came to court, she and Hall were seen hugging and kissing in the hallway.