Landlord Accuses LAPD of Lying About Tenant’s Past

The Los Angeles Police Department is investigating allegations that a detective pressured a North Hollywood landlord into renting an apartment to a crime victim without disclosing that the man was a convicted child molester.

Stephen Xirinachs, the building manager who says he was duped, and his wife have filed a $10-million claim against the city, saying they have suffered emotional distress and a “loss of faith in the LAPD.”

The couple said LAPD Det. David Torres deceived them last July when he assured them that the crime victim, Manuel C. Acosta, 57, had a clean record and was a good citizen.

“Unbelievable,” Xirinachs said. “He put my children in danger. He jeopardized the health of all the children in the building.”

Police Lt. Anthony Alba said the department is investigating the Xirinachses’ allegations, but cannot disclose details because it is a personnel matter.

“We’re not sure what occurred; under what circumstances,” Alba said. “What compounds it is the fact that the individual complained through the media, but never to us.”

Xirinachs said he called every major newspaper and television news station in Los Angeles after filing the complaint last Friday to make sure police never made “such a serious mistake ever again.”

In 1989, Acosta pleaded guilty to committing a lewd and lascivious act on his girlfriend’s 6- and 12-year-old granddaughters while the couple were living in Tujunga. Despite the molestation, the couple has remained together. Acosta also was charged with molesting other girls, but those charges were dropped with his guilty plea.

Acosta received a suspended sentence, but later served a year in prison after violating probation. Under state law, Acosta also was required to contact local police officials and register as a sex offender wherever he lived.

In May 1997, while Acosta and his girlfriend were living in Highland Park, they were brutalized in a home-invasion robbery by two neighborhood men reportedly connected to a local street gang, according to the couple and police.

Because they were planning to testify against the suspects and feared retribution by other gang members, police offered to put Acosta and his girlfriend in the state’s Endangered Witness Relocation program, which helps pay expenses to move to a safe, undisclosed location.

The apartment they picked was in Xirinachs’ building, in the 12300 block of Burbank Boulevard in North Hollywood.

Xirinachs said he initially rejected Acosta’s application because of his poor credit history, but changed his mind at the urging of Torres, the lead investigator in the case. Torres, in uniform, told him the two were key witnesses in a rash of robberies, and handed Xirinachs $650 cash for the first month’s rent.

“He told me I would be doing my duty as a citizen,” Xirinachs said. “I did it because he was a police officer--and my respect for the police.”

Lt. Raul Vega, Torres’ supervisor at the time, said the detective did nothing wrong. When a victim or a witness is threatened, detectives have a duty to protect them, no matter who they are, Vega said.

“We had no idea that he was a sex offender,” Vega said. “He [Torres] was doing his job, the job you would want him to do.”

Torres, when reached earlier this week, said Acosta’s relocation had been approved by the district attorney’s office. A judge’s approval also is required before rent money can be issued, as was done in Acosta’s case.

Sandi Gibbons, spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office, said she could not comment on the case because information about people in the witness protection program is confidential.

Disposition of the case against the home-invasion suspects could not immediately be determined.

Xirinachs, a part-time actor, said he caught Acosta peeping into a tenant’s window a few months after he moved into the building and also found stolen property in Acosta’s apartment, accusations Acosta denies. Xirinachs said he decided not to call police because he did not trust them, adding that he evicted Acosta and his girlfriend in October.

Other residents in the building said they saw Acosta acting strangely, wandering around the building late at night, but never saw him steal or peep into windows. Acosta denied ever peeping into windows at the complex, but said he once “washed a lady’s windows” at her request.

Interviewed in jail Thursday, Acosta said he and his girlfriend left the North Hollywood apartment voluntarily because associates of the men who robbed them had discovered where they lived.

Xirinachs said he also remembers people “who looked like gang members” coming by the building looking for Acosta on several occasions.

Acosta said he and his girlfriend remained on the run for months, and eventually found an apartment in the South Bay.

In May, Acosta was arrested for failing to register as a sex offender at his new address, and has been in jail since. Acosta said detectives told him not to register, or report to his parole agent in Pasadena, while he was in protective custody.

“I wanted to report, but they told me no,” Acosta said from jail. “If it wasn’t for the witness protection program, I wouldn’t be in here.”

Acosta’s arraignment is scheduled for Monday.