Inmate Freed as Rampart Cases Unravel

In the span of just a few hours Wednesday, Joseph Jones went from being a convicted felon contemplating six more years behind bars to a free man walking off a plane at Los Angeles International Airport and into the warm embrace of loved ones.

Jones, who authorities now believe was framed by rogue police officers from the LAPD’s Rampart station, is the second state prison inmate to be freed as a result of an ongoing corruption probe of the division’s anti-gang CRASH unit.

“I knew it was going to happen one day, I just didn’t know when,” Jones said as he entered a Southwest Airline terminal at the airport hours after a judge had overturned his drug conviction.

“I almost had a heart attack,” he said, referring to the moment he learned of his impending freedom. Despite the media attention that his release had attracted, Jones--flanked by his fiancee--seemed focused on reuniting with family members.

“Oh my baby boy,” the 36-year-old man said during a group hug with his fiancee’s two daughters and her grandson. “This is what I miss most. My family. . . . I’ve lost two years. I’m happy to be home.”

In addition to Jones, three other men had their convictions overturned Wednesday because the cases against them relied on evidence allegedly manufactured by ex-Rampart Police Officer Rafael Perez and his former partner, Nino Durden. A fifth man had pending charges against him dismissed.

Amid the court action, new details emerged about the alleged misconduct of Durden and Perez, who are at the center of the LAPD’s corruption scandal. They were portrayed in court documents and by defense attorneys as cutthroat opportunists who abused their badges for personal gain.

In some cases the officers were accused of stealing drugs, money and jewelry from suspects. In others, they were accused of planting guns and drugs on innocent people to facilitate their arrest on false charges.

Faced with such allegations against the two officers, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Larry P. Fidler ordered Jones, who spent nearly 2 1/2 years behind bars in Salinas, released from prison immediately. A second inmate is expected to have his sentence in another case cut by at least three years because a prior conviction was stricken. Others, who were no longer in custody, will have their convictions erased from their records.

The wave of court actions came two months after prosecutors went to court seeking the release of Javier Francisco Ovando, a young gang member who was shot by Perez and Durden and then framed and falsely imprisoned for assaulting the officers.

Perez, whose admissions and allegations are fueling the ongoing probe into the conduct of the Rampart Division’s CRASH unit, told authorities that he and Durden planted a gun on Ovando, who was unarmed at the time of the shooting, and then lied about the incident in court. Ovando served nearly three years of a 23-year sentence before he was released, and is now suing the city.

Under a plea agreement designed to shave time off his own prison sentence for cocaine theft, Perez continues to cooperate with authorities, providing information about allegedly corrupt officers and their misconduct. To date, more than a dozen officers have been relieved of duty in connection with the investigation. Durden is one of those officers and law enforcement officials close to the investigation say he is expected to face criminal charges.

Attorney David E. Brockway, who represents Jones, said Perez and Durden first tried to recruit his client as an informer, identifying drug dealers the two officers could rob. “When he refused to cooperate, they framed him,” Brockway said. Brockway said Jones knew Durden and Perez by reputation for years and had always tried to avoid them.

Despite the alleged frame-up, Jones expressed no bitterness.

“The justice system isn’t perfect, it’s run by people. People make mistakes,” Jones said.

When asked about his feelings toward Perez and Durden, Jones, walking with a cane, said he was too drained to respond. “I really don’t have much to say.”

In another drug case that was thrown out Wednesday, Durden is accused of stealing several pieces of jewelry from a suspect and both officers allegedly stole $1,500 to $2,500 in cash. One of the alleged victims in that case was the brother of a woman who is accused of helping Perez sell some of the eight pounds of cocaine he was convicted of stealing from LAPD facilities.

Yet another case dismissed Wednesday was the second in which Perez and Durden allegedly planted a gun on a suspect. In the 1996 case of Miguel Hernandez, court papers allege that Durden and Perez knew that Hernandez was on parole and decided to plant a gun on him after seeing him twice in the same evening. The officers allegedly “were in possession of a firearm which had been previously abandoned in a police car by a narcotics suspect,” court papers state. “It was that weapon that they claimed they had recovered from defendant Hernandez.”

Last month, LAPD investigators interviewed Hernandez, who maintained that the officers planted the weapon on him. He served eight months in custody before he was once again paroled.

Court documents filed Wednesday also provide fuller details on Perez’s secret plea agreement with prosecutors, which remains under seal. According to a declaration by Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard A. Rosenthal, Perez will receive a five-year state prison term in exchange for his cooperation with authorities.

The deal is voided and Perez can be sentenced to 12 years in prison if he makes “any false material statements or omissions,” Rosenthal stated in his declaration. Perez has been granted limited immunity for crimes in which he implicates himself.

Court papers filed in connection with cases also exposed the weaknesses of the criminal justice system when defendants, regardless of their innocence, face police officers who are willing to lie on the stand and judges who are accustomed to punishing with stiff sentences those defendants who decline plea bargains and exercise their constitutional right to a trial.

Jones wanted to submit to a polygraph test to prove his innocence in his drug case and fight what could have been a 25-year prison sentence. But he was advised by his lawyer to cut a deal.

His attorney, Brockway, said that had Jones been convicted of both the charges against him, he could have been sentenced to life in prison under California’s three-strikes law. “With that pressure over his head, and the very convincing and persuasive officers Perez and Durden testifying against you, what were his chances at trial? You can’t fight the police, you can’t fight city hall,” Brockway said.

Times staff writer Scott Glover contributed to this story.