Officer’s Arrest Triggers Corruption Probe

The criminal investigation into a Los Angeles police officer accused of stealing six pounds of cocaine has broadened into a wider corruption probe, with detectives acting on tips from informants and narcotics dealers who say the nine-year veteran and other officers stole drugs and money from street dealers.

Some drug dealers allege that they were robbed by Officer Rafael Antonio Perez and one or more other officers, a police official close to the investigation said.

The source said detectives are “focusing on several” officers who worked with Perez at the LAPD’s Rampart station.

Since Perez’s arrest, detectives have fanned out through the community, interviewing informants and drug dealers as well as former and recent partners of the 31-year-old officer in an effort to determine whether there are other “dirty cops” on the force, several sources said.

According to one knowledgeable police source, informants and people involved in the illicit drug trade allege that Perez and other officers would “shake down” dealers under the guise of arresting them. Then, the officers allegedly confiscated the drugs and money and released the drug dealers, knowing that the victims would be unlikely to report them.

The source acknowledged, however, that some of the people who have come forward with information “don’t always make the best witnesses” because of their criminal backgrounds.

Perez, a former Marine, worked undercover narcotics and anti-gang assignments as well as patrol, police said. Detectives are looking into the personal contacts he made within and outside the department during all his assignments, sources said.

Details of the widening probe into other officers comes one day after prosecutors revealed that a pound of cocaine was discovered missing from the Rampart station in February. Prosecutors also accused Perez of criminal activity beyond the March 2 theft of the six pounds of cocaine from an LAPD property room.

In addition to the charges stemming from the property room theft, prosecutors allege that Perez tried to sell a kilogram of cocaine “through a confidential informant” in December. Prosecutors further allege that Perez “obtained leniency” in the sentencing of two convicted drug dealers who, police now believe, helped him distribute the cocaine. Veronica Quesada, one of the two suspects for whom Perez allegedly sought leniency, is his girlfriend, prosecutors say. The other alleged associate was her brother, Carlos Antonio Romero, whom Perez once arrested on a drug charge.

Prosecutors, however, have only charged Perez with the theft of drugs from the property room. Perez, who is married and has a young daughter, faces eight years and four months in prison if he is convicted. Earlier this week, he pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Attorney Winston McKesson, who represents Perez, said his client is innocent and is “shattered” by the accusations. McKesson said the district attorney’s case against Perez is weak and is not based on any eyewitness account or fingerprints linking the officer to the crime.

Investigators, however, contend that they have solid evidence against Perez, including handwriting samples they say match the signature used to check out the cocaine from the property room. Police allege that Perez impersonated another officer with the same last name to obtain the drugs.

According to a search warrant affidavit, which was made public Friday at The Times’ request, witnesses place Perez at the LAPD property room on the day of the theft.

The property room clerk remembered that Perez was “rude and condescending” when she handled a transaction for him, but she did not recall if it involved the three individually wrapped kilograms of powder cocaine, which is equivalent to 6.6 pounds.

One LAPD colleague also helped investigators focus on Perez when he was interviewed about Rampart’s missing pound of cocaine. Investigators questioned the colleague, a former Rampart officer, because he was initially under suspicion for checking out the drug from a property room, the affidavit shows.

Officer Armando Coronado convinced investigators that he had nothing to do with the missing pound of cocaine, the records show. However, during the interview, he revealed to investigators that he left Rampart’s anti-gang unit and was transferred to another division because of personality problems with some of the officers, including Perez.

Coronado said he complained to a supervisor that Perez “was conducting narcotics searches without concern for proper LAPD procedures or tactics . . . [and] without appropriately documenting his findings,” according to court documents. After his complaint, Perez and his partner gave Coronado “the cold shoulder,” according to a statement he made to investigators.

Coronado also told investigators that a paid LAPD informant told him that Perez “had tried to convince the informant to work exclusively for Perez” because “he could pay him immediately for the cases they worked together and that the informant would not have to wait until the [department] paperwork was completed to get paid,” the affidavit states.

The informant said Perez offered him “some of the dope and some of the money” if they worked together, according to the court documents. Coronado said he initially discounted the informant’s story because the person “B.S.’d a lot,” the court documents show.

Investigators interviewed the informant, who confirmed to them that Perez wanted to get involved in “large cases involving 10-20 kilos of narcotics,” court records show.

“Perez offered to pay the [informant] out of his own bank account so that [the informant] would not have to wait,” according to the affidavit.

In December, the documents contend, Perez said he would pay the informant $1,000 from his own pocket if the informant could find a buyer for a kilogram of cocaine.

Sting operations involving undercover drug buys are routinely documented by officers and must meet department approval. But investigators said Perez did not have formal approval for the transactions he was allegedly arranging.

Suspecting that Perez was involved in the theft, investigators started following him in April, the search warrant affidavit says. During this surveillance, Perez was spotted driving in an “erratic manner,” which investigators believed was intended to lose the officers who were following him, the documents state. A couple of times, Perez drove erratically while he was accompanied by another LAPD officer.

On April 15, Perez told his supervisor that he believed he was being tailed by FBI investigators because of his friendship with another LAPD officer, David A. Mack, who was charged with robbing a bank in December. Moreover, Perez had reported that he believed gang members wanted to kill him, the affidavit shows.

The court documents also allege that Perez frequently used telephones and pagers in a manner characteristic of drug dealers. The documents also allege that Perez made calls to and received calls from numbers listed under the names of suspected drug dealers.

As part of the investigation into Perez, detectives interviewed Quesada and Romero. During that interview, according to court records, investigators discovered that Romero was carrying a “plastic baggy which contained what appeared to be powder cocaine . . . [that] appeared to have been broken off from a larger brick.” A subsequent search of the siblings’ apartment turned up a photo of Perez “in plain clothes apparently giving a gang hand gesture,” and his pager number, the documents state.

The searches of Perez’s LAPD locker, cars and home did not yield any drugs, according to court records.