LAPD Detective Won’t Be Charged With Perjury : Law: One of 44 ‘problem officers’ said he falsified reports in ruse to help solve case, then forgot that when papers became court evidence. Prosecutors say proving intent to mislead would be hard.

Los Angeles Police Detective Andrew A. Teague will not face criminal perjury charges for falsifying evidence in a murder case, prosecutors disclosed Wednesday.

In an internal district attorney’s office work sheet made public Wednesday, prosecutors said they did not have enough evidence to convict Teague, an 18-year veteran and one of the 44 so-called “problem officers” identified in the landmark 1991 Christopher Commission report on the LAPD.

According to the work sheet, Teague forged suspects’ signatures on identification reports and then lied about it in court. But, prosecutors concluded, a perjury case against him would be complex, and a jury was likely to find he just made a mistake.

Because the law requires more to prove perjury, “the probability of conviction is slight,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Randall Baron wrote in closing the case against Teague.

Prosecutors had been weighing criminal charges since Sept. 1, when Police Chief Willie L. Williams announced that he was suspending Teague and his partner, Detective Charles Markel, another 18-year veteran. Markel upheld the notorious “code of silence” by not coming forward after Teague’s testimony, according to Williams.

An internal LAPD inquiry into Teague’s and Markel’s activities should conclude “very soon,” the department’s spokesman, Cmdr. Tim McBride, said Wednesday.

Teague, 41, racked up 18 citizen complaints in 18 years on the force. He had moved this year to the Van Nuys Division from the Hollenbeck Division on the Eastside. Markel also had been based at Hollenbeck.

The district attorney’s nine-page work sheet sets forth the complicated facts and law behind the decision not to prosecute.

On Nov. 29, 1994, Pablo Trujillo Jr. was killed in a drive-by shooting on the Eastside. Teague--at the time a detective in training--and Markel were assigned to the case.

On May 2, Teague was the sole witness for the prosecution at the preliminary hearing of the two men charged with murder in the killing, Girard Moody and Kevin Adams.

On cross-examination, Teague was asked about two photocopied “identification reports.” One appeared to show Moody’s signature; another appeared to have been signed by Adams. Teague testified that he was present when each man signed and that he had the original reports.

The bogus reports, according to defense lawyers, contained statements purportedly identifying a third man in the car, Racjon Floyd, as the shooter. Teague later told prosecutors he intended to use the statements as a “ruse” to pressure Floyd to identify the real gunman. Such a “ruse” is legal, prosecutors say.

After being asked in June by a defense investigator for the originals, Teague notified prosecutors that the originals did not exist.

Instead, he said, he had obtained the signatures elsewhere, then photocopied them onto the reports. Defense lawyers have said that Moody’s signature came from another police report and that Adams’ was taken from a vocational school sign-in sheet.

While Teague was within bounds to dummy up the reports, it was not proper to then testify falsely that he had been present for the signatures and that he had the originals, according to the work sheet.

Asked by prosecutors to explain, Teague said he had been very busy, was not properly prepared to testify May 2 and had forgotten that he had used the “ruse.”

Teague said he had no intent to mislead the judge or jurors. Markel, who also was interviewed by prosecutors, similarly denied any intent to mislead.

A perjury conviction requires a jury to find “willfulness,” meaning a decided intent to mislead. Without more to prove that intent, Baron said, a jury would be required to acquit.

Perjury charges against Markel were not considered because he did not testify May 2, prosecutors said. Murder charges against Moody and Adams were dropped in September.