Ex-LAPD Officer Pleads Guilty to Cocaine Thefts : Crime: Ex-Marine admits stealing drug from evidence locker. Plea bargain comes as jury is being chosen.

A former Los Angeles police officer pleaded guilty Wednesday to stealing more than eight pounds of cocaine seized as evidence by other LAPD officers, authorities said.

Rafael Antonio Perez, a 32-year-old ex-Marine, pleaded guilty to eight felony counts stemming from four thefts of cocaine over a three-month period in early 1998.

The plea came as a jury was being selected in his trial on those charges. Terms of the plea agreement were filed under seal and will remain secret until Perez’s sentencing next month.

Perez, a nine-year LAPD veteran, was arrested last year after police officials discovered that six pounds of cocaine had been stolen from a police locker. Perez’s first trial on that theft ended in a hung jury in December. Since that time, investigators linked Perez to several other cocaine thefts at the LAPD.

“The case got stronger as time wore on,” said a top LAPD official. “It was an airtight case.”

One key piece of evidence prosecutors didn’t have in the first trial was a money trail showing that Perez had made $36,000 in cash deposits over the three-month span of the cocaine thefts.

“But for the diligent efforts of LAPD detectives, the case would not have been at the stage it was today,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard A. Rosenthal, who was handling the prosecution. He declined to discuss the terms of the plea agreement, under which Perez pleaded guilty to four counts of grand theft and four counts of possession with the intent to sell cocaine. Two other related charges were dismissed.

Winston McKesson, Perez’s attorney, said his client was “very satisfied to turn the page on this chapter of his life.”

For an agency that prides itself on being relatively corruption-free, the Perez case was a public embarrassment, which, as Chief Bernard C. Parks said at a news conference last year, tarnished the badge worn by every LAPD officer.

A task force was formed to investigate the crimes and is still probing the case to ensure other officers weren’t working with Perez.

After Perez’s arrest, informants and drug dealers came forward, saying Perez and other officers stole drugs and money from street dealers. Officers at the Rampart Station, where Perez was assigned to an anti-gang unit, have come under the most scrutiny over the past year. No other officer, however, has been charged with a crime in connection with the cocaine thefts.

Police officials were surprised by the brazenness of Perez’s thefts, particularly his biggest heist of three brick-sized kilograms of cocaine from an LAPD storage locker.

According to authorities, Perez allegedly went to the property room and signed out the drugs under another officer’s name, claiming to need it for court.

Police contend that Perez, who is married and has a young daughter, carried out an affair with a drug dealer who helped him sell the cocaine.

Times staff writer Scott Glover contributed to this report.