2 Officers Likely to Face Corruption Charges

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office is expected to file criminal corruption charges next week against two LAPD officers, including one who faces separate allegations of attempting to frame a defendant in a pending third-strike murder case in the San Fernando Valley.

In what would be the first such filings since the city’s worst-ever corruption scandal broke in September, Det. Brian Liddy and Officer Paul Harper are expected to face charges of perjury and falsifying arrest reports in connection with a 1996 gun planting case, sources from the district attorney’s office said Wednesday.

Prosecutors have to move against Liddy and Harper by April 24 because the statutory deadline on the alleged crime is about to expire, sources said.

According to prosecutors, the officers planted a handgun on Allan Lobos, resulting in his arrest and conviction. The conviction was overturned earlier this year because of the alleged misconduct.

In addition to the pending charges in the gun case, prosecutors are continuing to investigate Liddy, Harper and numerous other officers as part of their probe into what they believe was a wide-ranging criminal conspiracy within the LAPD.

Charges against other officers may be filed soon, as prosecutors seek to beat the statute of limitations on alleged crimes, sources added.

According to investigative documents obtained by The Times, Liddy and Harper are implicated in a number of cases involving police crimes and misconduct. Over the past several months, prosecutors have successfully moved to overturn criminal convictions against three defendants who allegedly were victimized by Liddy or Harper. Neither officer could be reached for comment Wednesday.

Liddy, in particular, was described by ex-officer-turned informant Rafael Perez--the man at the center of the scandal--as being a crooked cop who routinely helped plant evidence, make false arrests and fabricate police reports.

Liddy, who once worked in the same anti-gang CRASH unit as Perez, was transferred to the Devonshire Division, where he was assigned to homicide. Currently Liddy’s integrity is under question in a pending murder case in which he was one of the lead investigators. The defense attorney in that case has charged in court papers that Liddy fabricated police reports and witness statements in an attempt to frame a man for a slaying last July 5 in Canoga Park.

Even if that allegation is not verified, prosecutors in the slaying case have been hamstrung by Liddy’s involvement because he has been suspended by the LAPD and cannot be called as a witness because of credibility problems. That means prosecutors will not be able to use statements in which the defendant, Paymen Patrick Parvizi, allegedly admitted to Liddy that he was at the scene of the shooting and confronted the victim.

A key witness in the case has also recanted a statement in which he allegedly told Liddy that Parvizi had confessed the crime to him, saying that he made that statement only after Liddy kept him handcuffed to a bench in the police station for hours and threatened to arrest him for parole violation. That allegation, sources said, is under investigation by detectives on the LAPD’s corruption task force.

The case is emblematic of the Rampart scandal’s ripple effect, which prosecutors concede could taint hundreds of criminal cases before the probe is complete.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Kateri Modder is moving forward in the murder case without Liddy, and has argued in court that because Liddy will not be called as a witness that Liddy’s connection to the Rampart corruption scandal is irrelevant.

Superior Court Judge Michael B. Harwin disagreed. Harwin last week granted a motion by Deputy Public Defender Daryne P. Nicole, who was seeking Liddy’s complaint history and disciplinary record from the LAPD, including allegations arising from the ongoing Rampart probe. Harwin ordered that information turned over to him for evaluation by next Friday.

Prosecutors declined to discuss the case, which stems from the July 5 shooting death of Francisco Escobar. According to police, Escobar and a friend, Adrian Canley, who had just come from a late night Fourth of July party where they had been drinking, were breaking into cars parked along Independence Avenue near Gresham Street.

Canley told investigators that Escobar was attempting to break into a dull-colored Chevrolet El Camino when a woman shouted, “Hey, somebody is breaking into your car,” according to court documents.

Seconds later a man appeared near the corner of a nearby apartment building and yelled at Escobar to get out of his car, according to police documents. Canley said the man was carrying a gun, aimed it at him and fired. Canley fled unharmed. Moments later, Escobar was hit. Fatally wounded, he collapsed in the street.

On July 7, Liddy and Det. Brad Cochran were assigned to act as the lead investigators on the case, according to police documents. That day the two detectives went to the apartment near where the gunman was seen standing just before Escobar was shot.

Cochran and Liddy interviewed Tracy Bassham, who lived in the apartment in the 20900 block of Gresham Street with her 9-year-old daughter and, at the time, a friend, Gina Crotts, according to police documents. Bassham told the detectives that she was awakened by gunfire sometime between 1:30 and 2 a.m. July 5. She said her friend Crotts told her to call 911, that someone had been shot. Neither woman claimed to have seen the shooting. Bassham added that the three were so frightened by the gunfire that they spent the rest of the night at a neighbor’s apartment.

Also present during the interview were two men: Parvizi, a heavily tattooed ex-con who police said uses the moniker “Sandman,” and David Cost. According to detectives, both men said they were not around on the night of the shooting, police documents state.

Two days later, the detectives interviewed Terry Weatherford, the neighbor who allowed Bassham, her daughter, and Crotts to spend the night at his home after the shooting. Weatherford, according to police reports, told Liddy and Cochran that he overheard Crotts telling Bassham what had happened that night.

“What I heard was that Tracy and her daughter were in bed and that Gina and this guy named ‘Sandman’ were in the kitchen area, when they heard someone breaking into Sandman’s car,” Weatherford told police. “Sandman went outside and argued with five guys . . . he then fired one shot and killed this guy.”

Detectives have not confirmed that account with either Bassham or Crotts, a defense source said.

According to police, Cost was interviewed by Liddy July 12 and told the detective that Parvizi admitted that he shot Escobar shortly after the detectives left Bassham’s house earlier in the week.

“I’m the guy they are looking for,” Cost quoted Parvizi as saying.

“Are you the guy that blasted that dude?” Cost said he asked.

Parvizi nodded yes, he said.

Detectives ran a Department of Motor Vehicles check on Parvizi and discovered that he drove a 1972 El Camino, the same make of car that Escobar allegedly was trying to break into right before he was shot. Parvizi was arrested Aug. 2, as he drove the car, near the intersection of Sherman Way and Haskell Street.

During the arrest and booking process, he allegedly blurted out incriminating statements, again in the presence of Liddy.

At one point, Liddy said, he asked Parvizi’s permission to search a rented storage locker, when Parvizi responded: “Nothing in there will match the ballistics anyway.” Later, Liddy wrote in his report, Parvizi began crying as he was being booked into jail and said, “that mother- . . . broke into my car and that is why I went out there.”

Neither of the incriminating statements was written or taped.

But since Liddy was relieved of duty earlier this year, the prosecution’s case has begun to unravel.

Cost, according to defense sources, has since alleged that Liddy coerced him into implicating Parvizi during a July 17, 1999, interrogation. He said that Liddy kept him chained to a bench for hours and threatened to arrest him for parole violation if he did not cooperate. An LAPD log confirms that Cost was held in the Devonshire station for about 10 hours, sources said.

Canley, the man who was with Escobar the night he was shot, could not provide a positive identification of the shooter, saying only that Parvizi “looks like” the gunman.

Even that tentative identification is suspect, defense sources allege, noting that the taped interview in which Canley makes the ID begins with the witness asking: “Are you going to show me that picture now?”

*

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