Wife of Slain Officer Puts Blame on ‘Lie’

The widow of a slain police officer stood in court Monday to lambaste the man who lied to police and set the stage for the ambush that took her husband’s life.

“One of [the Ten] Commandments is: Thou shalt not lie,” Annamaria Lazzaretto said in San Fernando Superior Court. “I feel if Ronald Davey was a moral person, my husband would not be dead and I would not be raising two little boys by myself.”

“I’ve been thinking about that for 2 1/2 years,” Davey replied, before his lawyers silenced him.

The exchange came as Davey, 52, pleaded no contest to involuntary manslaughter in the 1997 slaying of Glendale Police Officer Charles Lazzaretto, and was sentenced to three years’ probation in a deal with prosecutors.

Lazzaretto and his partner had gone to a Chatsworth pornography warehouse in 1997 searching for a domestic-abuse suspect who worked there, Israel Gonzalez. They asked Davey, who also worked there, whether Gonzalez was present; authorities alleged he lied and said no. Gonzalez fatally shot Lazzaretto as he walked through the warehouse, then fatally shot himself.

The case had been scheduled to be retried this week, almost a year after a mistrial was declared when jurors could not agree whether Davey’s failure to tell police that Gonzalez was present made him responsible for Lazzaretto’s death.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Larry Morrison said he agreed to the disposition because Superior Court Judge Ronald Coen said that, if Davey were convicted, he would likely sentence him to only three months in prison followed by probation, if the state Department of Corrections agreed. Davey’s lack of a criminal record practically guaranteed such a finding, he said.

“The question is, for a 90-day sentence, is it worth another trial with the family and the officers involved having to relive it?” Morrison said. “It seemed an appropriate time to close the case.”

Davey’s lawyers said they were convinced a jury would acquit if Davey took the stand and explained his actions--something he did not do during the first trial, where eight jurors voted for conviction and four for acquittal.

“This is the most unusual circumstance that I can imagine,” defense lawyer Mitchell W. Egers told Coen Monday. “Frankly, I feel and my client feels that there is no legal responsibility on behalf of my client for what happened.”

He said they took the deal, which gives Davey a serious criminal record, to avoid more strain on Davey’s bad heart, and because it carried no time behind bars.

“This is a man who never shot anybody, never intended anybody to shoot anybody and was shot at himself,” Egers said outside court. “Mr. Davey really is a good man who has suffered.”

Egers insisted Davey did not lie to police.

Annamaria Lazzaretto said her sons, Matthew, 5, and Andrew, 6, are reduced to tears on birthdays and the first day of school because they can only “look at a picture” of their father, rather than hold him close.

“They constantly say: ‘Mommy, why don’t I have a daddy?’ And that affects me every day,” Lazaretto said during Monday’s hearing, looking over at Davey. “I just want you to know that.”

Davey was indicted in April 1998 on charges of manslaughter and being an accessory after the fact. The latter count was dropped Monday as part of the plea agreement.

“None of this would have happened had he said Gonzalez had been there 10 minutes earlier,” Morrison said Monday. “They would never have entered that trap.”