Plea Ends Case Involving Lie, Officer’s Death

The widow of a slain Glendale police officer stood in court Monday to lambaste the man whose alleged lie set the stage for the ambush that took her husband’s life.

Ronald Davey, 52, pleaded no contest Monday to involuntary manslaughter in the 1997 slaying of Officer Charles Lazzaretto and was sentenced to three years probation in a deal with prosecutors. At the hearing, Annamaria Lazzaretto blamed Davey for the death of her husband. The couple had two young sons.

Officer Lazzaretto and his partner had gone to a Chatsworth pornography warehouse in 1997 to look for Israel Gonzalez, a domestic abuse suspect who worked there. They asked Davey, who also worked there, whether Gonzalez was present. Authorities allege that Davey lied and said no. Gonzalez eventually shot and killed Lazzaretto as he walked through the warehouse, then shot himself.

“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,” Annamaria Lazzaretto said in court.

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

The case had been scheduled for retrial this week. It has been almost a year since the first trial, when jurors could not agree whether Davey’s failure to tell police that Gonzalez was present made him responsible for Lazzaretto’s death.

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

Morrison said he agreed to the plea bargain because Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Ronald Coen said that, in the event of a conviction, he probably would sentence Davey to only three months in prison. 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 asked.

Davey’s lawyers said they were convinced that a jury would find Davey not guilty if he took the stand and explained what happened, which he did not do during the first trial.

“Frankly, I feel, and my client feels, that there is no legal responsibility on behalf of my client for what happened,” defense lawyer Mitchell W. Egers told Coen during Monday’s hearing.

He said they took the deal to avoid more strain on Davey’s already bad heart, and because it carried no additional 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 two sons, Matthew, 5, and Andrew, 6, cry 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 at Davey.

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