LOS ANGELES : More Than $1 Million Raised to Aid Stacey Koon
Former Los Angeles Police Sgt. Stacey C. Koon, serving a prison term for the beating of Rodney G. King, has raised more than $1 million and possibly as much as $3 million through a direct-mail campaign, the campaign organizer said Monday.
The money will go to pay Koon’s legal bills and support his wife and five children, said Alfred Regnery, president of Virginia-based Regnery Publishing Co. The company, which published Koon’s book, “Presumed Guilty, the Tragedy of the Rodney King Affair,” launched the direct-mail campaign last year when Koon entered federal prison in Pleasanton to serve a 30-month sentence.
Koon and Officer Laurence M. Powell, both white, were convicted in a federal trial of violating the civil rights of King, a black motorist, during a March, 1991, confrontation videotaped by a bystander. A state court jury earlier had rendered not-guilty verdicts on Koon, Powell and two other officers, sparking four days of rioting in Los Angeles.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
