Rampart Officers Face Additional Accusations

Fallout from the Rampart station corruption probe continued to mount Friday, as yet another LAPD officer who worked in the anti-gang unit was relieved of duty in connection with allegedly fabricating a weapons case and an officer already under scrutiny was accused of manipulating evidence in a murder trial.

According to sources, the newly accused officer allegedly perjured himself when he supported the testimony of former Officer Rafael A. Perez, who said a suspect possessed an illegal weapon.

Sources said the suspect, who has not been identified, owned the firearm legally, but Perez allegedly tampered with it to render its possession illegal. Perez and the other officer allegedly lied to say that the weapon was in an illegal condition when they seized it. Despite the officers’ statements, the suspect was not convicted of any crime, sources said. No further details on the incident were immediately available.

The Los Angeles Police Department scandal broke after Perez was convicted of stealing cocaine from Police Department facilities and began cooperating with investigators to shave time off his sentence. So far, he has implicated himself and his partner in the shooting of an unarmed man who was imprisoned and must now use a wheelchair. Perez also has characterized a second officer-involved shooting, which left one man dead and two others wounded, as “dirty.” Investigators are also looking into allegations ranging from shakedowns of dealers to “code of silence” behavior that may have allowed misconduct and crime to occur undetected.

Since Perez began cooperating, 13 officers have been relieved of duty, including the one Friday. Two other officers have been fired in connection with an alleged beating of a suspect in an interrogation room at Rampart.

Sources also say that more officers are expected to be swept up in the scandal, which has already resulted in a criminal grand jury investigation. Meanwhile on Friday, a defense attorney said he filed a motion seeking a new trial in the murder case of an 18th Street gang member, based on an allegation that a Rampart CRASH (Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums) officer tied to the corruption lied about the circumstances surrounding a photo that was introduced as evidence during the trial.

In the motion filed in Superior Court, Deputy Public Defender Larry Farinholt said CRASH Officer Michael Montoya testified on Sept. 15 about a photo showing his client and two other gang members flashing gang signs.

Montoya testified that the picture was taken during a “consensual encounter . . . sometime in the summer of 1997,” according to court papers.

But as Montoya testified to that, Farinholt said, his client, Arian Cida, whispered into his ear that there was nothing consensual about the situation in which the photo was taken and that he and his friends had been detained for no reason.

In a telephone interview from County Jail, Cida said that he and the other gang members were forced by Montoya and another CRASH officer to pose for the photo outside a restaurant on Venice Boulevard that was a favorite hangout for 18th Street members.

“He made me pose for that. . . . He made me throw 18th Street [signs] with my fingers,” Cida said. If he and his friends refused to be in the photo, Cida alleged, Montoya “said he would plant a gun [connected to] a murder on us.”

In his motion, Farinholt argued that the photo was extremely prejudicial in what he called “a close ID case” in which jurors twice asked for testimony to be read back to them and took 3 1/2 days to deliberate before voting to convict Cida.

During his closing argument, Farinholt told jurors he was afraid the photo would “scare you nice middle-class folks into convicting an innocent man.”

Cida was convicted last month of first-degree murder and attempted second-degree robbery in the 1997 slaying of a man at a bus stop on Venice Boulevard, court records show.

Deputy Dist. Atty. John Morris, who prosecuted the case, declined to comment. Through his lawyer, Montoya also declined to comment.

Cida is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 18.

He insists that the photo played a key role in his conviction.

“That’s why I got convicted, because of that picture,” he said. “I never committed this murder.”

Hours after Montoya testified, in an unrelated development, Police Chief Bernard C. Parks announced that he had relieved 11 officers of duty. Montoya was among them, sources said.

According to police records, Montoya was present during two shootings that Perez has described as “dirty.” Both shootings, one of which left a man dead, are under investigation by the grand jury, sources said. In one case, Montoya allegedly shot a suspect who said he was unarmed and running away from officers.

Cida said his experience with CRASH officers was not limited to Montoya and his partner. He said he saw Perez shake down gang members in 1996.

“I saw him take money from my homeboys and beat them down,” Cida said.

Such shakedowns, he says, were not unusual for Perez and other CRASH officers.

“They always used to take our [money] and beat us down,” Cida charged, adding that he remained quiet for fear of police reprisals. “I could never come forward and say anything. They would come and get me.”