Misconduct Blamed as D.A. Drops 25 Cases : Courts: Defendants were arrested by Pomona officers who now are suspected of wrongdoing.

The district attorney’s office has dropped charges in 25 felony cases in which arrests were made by Pomona officers who are accused of on-duty misconduct.

In addition, prosecutors expect to send out letters to defense attorneys in 20 cases that resulted in convictions during the past three years, giving them the option of making a motion to have the verdicts thrown out.

The troubled criminal cases are the fallout from a two-month internal investigation in the Pomona Police Department that found misconduct by eight of the nine members of the Major Crimes Task Force. The elite anti-drug unit makes most of the drug arrests in the city.

“We decided not to prosecute in 25 cases, mostly narcotics,” said Richard Jenkins, assistant head deputy district attorney in the Pomona office. “It’s a matter of credibility.”

Not all of the cases involved police misconduct, Jenkins said, but the wrongdoing that was found undermines the officers’ believability as witnesses. He said charges were dropped in some of the cases even before the internal investigation was complete.

In June, after the misconduct finding, Police Chief Chuck Heilman informed three officers on the task force that they were being recommended for dismissal. The officers--identified by Lt. Ron Windell and other sources as Philip J. Dotson, Michael S. Ezell, and John Crenshaw--have challenged the recommendation and will have a hearing. None of the officers could be reached for comment. William Hadden, who represents several of the eight officers up for discipline, did not return telephone calls and has declined to be interviewed in the past.

The department also recommended demoting Senior Officer Robert J. Patterson and suspending Officers Michael Oliveri, Burt Sanchez, Michael Keltner and Mondo J. Lanier for a few days without pay, a law enforcement source said.

The department has refused to give details about the misconduct, but city sources said that one of the officers up for dismissal falsified a police report by writing that he had found evidence in a suspect’s pocket when it actually was somewhere else. The two others who might lose their jobs were caught drinking alcohol on duty, the sources said.

The remaining members of the task force failed to report the misconduct, the sources said.

Jenkins would not give specifics of any of the criminal cases affected. He said the cases in which charges are being dropped involved five of the eight officers, and that the cases in which convictions might be challenged came after a review of arrests involving one of the officers. He said his office had no plans to review the cases involving all of the officers up for discipline.

City officials said Tuesday several of the officers were seeking a hearing. The police chief or the assistant to the city administrator are expected to hear the appeals in the next few weeks.

But Ron Yorizane, head deputy public defender in Pomona, said attorneys in his office will be reviewing all current and recent cases involving any of the officers accused of misconduct.

“The attorneys here will be filing appropriate motions to re-litigate closed cases,” he said.

For example, Yorizane said, his office will seek to overturn the conviction of a Pomona man who was recently sentenced under the “three strikes” law to 25 years to life in prison. The man had been arrested by two of the officers accused of misconduct, but was not among the 20 convictions in which prosecutors gave defense attorneys the option of moving for mistrial.

One of the officers testified that he saw the man drop something and later recovered a packet with a small amount of cocaine.