2 Versions of Frame-Up Emerge in Rampart Probe

Dueling theories of jealousy and revenge emerged Friday as motives for the framing of a gang member by Rafael Perez, the former Los Angeles police officer at the center of the department’s expanding corruption scandal.

Ruben Rojas, who authorities now believe was set up by Perez and his former LAPD partner Nino Durden, said he was targeted by the officers because he was having sex with one of Perez’s mistresses.

In a prison interview with The Times, Rojas said he was in his boxer shorts watching a video of the movie “Free Willy” on the night of March 5, 1997 when his telephone rang. “Don’t you know it’s bad to be messing around with someone’s novia (girlfriend),” warned the voice on the other end of the line. Rojas said he has since learned the voice belonged to Perez.

Minutes later, Perez and other officers burst through the door and Rojas found himself face-down on the floor with a shotgun pointed at his head, Perez daring him to make a move. “I’ll blow your [expletive] brains out,” Rojas quoted Perez as saying.

Perez, however, has told investigators that he framed Rojas not out of jealousy, but because he had learned that the veteran Temple Street gang member was plotting to have him murdered, sources said Friday.

The accounts, though different, provide a disturbing new window into the world of violence and criminality that engulfed LAPD officers caught up in the department’s unfolding corruption scandal.

Authorities and Rojas agree that Perez and Durden were predators who prowled the streets of the LAPD’s Rampart Division committing many of the same crimes they were supposed to prevent.

Rojas, despite having a state drug conviction overturned this week, remains in custody pending resolution of his immigration status and a hearing on a federal case, which his attorneys expect will also be thrown out because it is based on the dismissed state charges.

‘I Know I Can Break His Immunity’

In an interview at the Chuckawalla Correctional Facility on Thursday evening, Rojas said Perez, Durden and other Rampart officers were known as crooked cops on the street years before the current scandal broke.

The gang member claims he can implicate Perez and other officers in serious and violent crimes that have not come to light. Rojas said he is willing to cooperate with detectives and provide them details of additional misconduct by LAPD officers once he is freed from custody and the immigration hold is lifted.

As for Perez, who has been given limited immunity and a shorter sentence on cocaine theft convictions in exchange for his cooperation with authorities, Rojas said: “This man has to be stopped.” Rojas said he was aware that Perez’s plea deal will be nullified if it can be proved that he has lied or omitted facts about his involvement in crimes. “I know I can break his immunity,” Rojas said.

Perez’s lawyer, Winston Kevin McKesson, dismissed Rojas’ claims.

“The statements made by Rojas are complete and utter falsehoods,” he said. “But that is what you can expect of someone of his character.”

McKesson declined to comment on the disclosures that Perez framed Rojas because Rojas was planning to kill him. Even today, as he sits behind bars, investigators acknowledge that Perez’s life may be at risk, in part because of his activities before his arrest last year.

Durden’s attorney, Darryl Mounger, declined to comment.

Rojas’ lawyers, who filed a civil suit on his behalf in federal court Friday, declined to comment on their client’s alleged threats against Perez.

Attorneys Gregory A. Yates and Dennis W. Chang were present when Rojas was interviewed by The Times and said their client would have nothing more to say until he is released from custody.

According to Rojas, he met a young woman shortly after his release from prison following a 1995 armed robbery conviction.

Over the course of several days, he said, the two began a romantic relationship. While they were together, Rojas said, the woman would tell him about another boyfriend of hers, whom she claimed “does a lot of bad things.”

Rojas said she talked about the man being involved in shootings, robberies and drug dealing. “My boyfriend always gave me coke,” the woman reportedly told Rojas. Rojas and his attorneys refused to disclose the woman’s identity.

Rojas said he became concerned that he was sleeping with the girlfriend of someone who seemed like a major gangster.

“The first thing I thought is this dude’s gonna kill me,” said Rojas, a slight, tattooed, intense-looking man.

The night before his arrest, Rojas said he was hanging out with the woman at her apartment when she called someone he guessed was her boyfriend and started to describe Rojas over the phone in a teasing manner. Concerned about the call, Rojas said he left her place. As he walked down the street, he saw Perez and another officer park their patrol car and run into the woman’s apartment.

The next day he learned from a friend that the woman’s supposed gangster boyfriend was Perez.

“I said damn, this guy’s a cop,” Rojas said, shaking his head as he recounted the story more than two years later.

Perez, who is married, at the time was dating at least one other woman--Veronica Quesada--who authorities contend also helped him sell some of the eight pounds of cocaine he stole from police facilities.

Rojas said he confronted the woman about her relationship with Perez and she admitted it. Later that night, while he was home alone watching TV, he received the telephone call warning him not to involve himself with another man’s girlfriend. He hung up the phone and continued watching the video. Then he heard a knock at the door.

“Who’s there?” Rojas shouted.

“LAPD CRASH,” a voice responded. Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums, or CRASH, was the anti-gang unit to which Perez and Durden belonged.

Rojas said he thought some of his friends were joking around until the officers burst through the door and Perez pinned him to the floor and pointed a gun to his head.

Overturned Conviction

He said Perez, Durden and two other officers said they were looking for a gang member. After Rojas insisted he did not know the person’s whereabouts, Perez allegedly threatened to take him to jail. When Rojas asked him what for, Perez responded that he would “find something.”

Perez and Durden handcuffed Rojas and put him in the back of their squad car. En route to the LAPD jail, Rojas said, the officers stopped the car, took him out and removed his handcuffs.

With his hand on his gun, Perez told Rojas to run, the gang member known as Li’l Man recalled. Although he said he wanted to flee, he feared if he did he might be shot in the back by Perez.

Rojas gave the same account of his arrest to Rampart Task Force detectives who, in recent weeks, also interviewed him at Chuckawalla prison. Based on his account and Perez’s admission that he and Durden planted drugs on Rojas, a court commissioner overturned Rojas’ conviction.

In statements that prosecutors now believe are false, Durden testified at Rojas’ preliminary hearing in 1997 that he found a stash of crack cocaine near a telephone pole where Rojas was allegedly selling the drugs. Perez found powder cocaine in Rojas’ pants pockets, Durden testified.

Rojas said Perez and Durden were well-known by residents and gang members around the Rampart station, not just for their aggressive policing, but also for breaking the law. He said Perez liked to cruise in his patrol car staring at gang members as he puffed on a long cigar. He was also known for trying to cultivate informants for legitimate and illegal purposes.

“That was Perez’s tactics--if you became an informant he had dirt on you and he could ruin your life,” Rojas said. “If you didn’t help him, he’d send you to prison.”

He said Durden--who has since been relieved of duty and is under criminal investigation--also engaged in illegal conduct.

“He wanted to be a pimp, a drug dealer, Scarface and John Gotti all put together,” Rojas said.

So far, more than a dozen officers have been relieved of duty in connection with the ongoing corruption probe. The investigation also has resulted in seven convictions being overturned and two inmates being released from state prison.

On Friday, a judge overturned another man’s probation violation conviction after prosecutors said they no longer had confidence in the case that involved the testimony of Perez. Unlike other cases that have been overturned, Perez was partnered in that investigation by an officer other than Durden.

Sources close to the investigation say they expect additional officers to be implicated in the wrongdoing and more convictions to be overturned as a consequence.