Child Pornography-Related Charges Dropped : Evidence: Judge’s ruling that materials are inadmissible ruins case against former LAPD officer, prosecutor says.

Charges that a former Los Angeles police officer stole child pornography from evidence lockers were dropped Thursday after a prosecutor conceded he had no case without evidence a judge had ruled inadmissible.

The dismissal clears Walter (Ray) Bentley Jr. of two counts--a felony charge of receiving stolen property and a misdemeanor charge of possessing child pornography.

Bentley, 47, still faces 11 counts in a separate case alleging that he illegally gained access to police computer files and leaked confidential information to two private investigators in the San Fernando Valley, including a retired deputy LAPD chief.

The second set of charges arose when detectives searching Bentley’s Granada Hills home for evidence for the computer case found a pile of child pornography in a bedroom closet, including dozens of illegal magazines and several 8-millimeter films.

Most were stamped as LAPD evidence, and co-workers in the Juvenile Division contended there was no work-related reason for Bentley to have them.

But in December, Superior Court Judge Robert J. Perry ruled that none of the pornography could be used as evidence against Bentley because the search warrant used in the June 9, 1993, seizure was seriously flawed.

The detectives who prepared the search warrant failed to explain in an attached affidavit why they needed to search Bentley’s home or to list its address, leaving them with no legal reason to go there, Perry found.

Deputy District Atty. Alan Yochelson called the error an “accidental oversight” made by investigators who were preparing to search four locations and several cars.

On Thursday, Yochelson said he was still weighing whether to appeal Perry’s ruling on the evidence. The judge’s dismissal of the charges Thursday--a formality after his earlier ruling on the evidence--came after a brief hearing in Los Angeles.

Defense lawyer Darryl Mounger, who asked for the charges to be dropped, would not comment Thursday because of the charges pending.

Bentley could have faced three years in state prison had he been convicted of the two charges.

Mounger has said Bentley kept the magazines and films as memorabilia of his assignment in the Juvenile Division, and had also planned to use them in training sessions he sometimes led.

Bentley resigned from the force last year after 23 years of service rather than face departmental charges in the case, which began as an internal investigation.

The other men involved in the computer case--former Deputy Police Chief Daniel R. Sullivan and private investigator Thomas Whiteaker--were convicted and sentenced in separate plea agreements last year.

Both were fined $5,000 and placed on a year’s probation after pleading no contest to five counts of unlawfully possessing confidential criminal records.

Sullivan had led the LAPD’s Valley Bureau, overseeing five police stations, before he retired.