D.A. Seeks to Void 10 More Rampart Cases

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office today will seek to overturn 10 more criminal convictions tainted by police misconduct in the Police Department’s Rampart Division, a move that will nearly double the number of cases thrown out as a result of the ongoing corruption scandal.

The prosecutors’ action is the most extensive of its kind ever undertaken in Los Angeles County.

Two prison inmates are expected to be released after today’s court action, authorities said Monday. The other convicts have served their time in jail or prison and are on parole or probation, district attorney officials said.

Like previously overturned cases, most of the convictions at issue today involved former officer-turned-informant Rafael Perez and his onetime partner Nino Durden. At least one of the pending cases involves Perez and a female partner who has since been relieved of duty.

Perez, 32, is cooperating with authorities as a part of a deal that will cut time off his conviction for cocaine theft. Perez has implicated himself and Durden in numerous cases of police misconduct and crimes, including the shooting and subsequent framing of an unarmed gang member.

Since September, the Los Angeles Police Department’s criminal investigation into the Rampart Division has uncovered alleged unjustified shootings, beatings, drug dealing, planting of evidence, false arrests, witness intimidation and perjury. Eleven criminal convictions already have been overturned as a consequence of the investigation.

To date, 20 officers have resigned or been relieved of duty, suspended without pay or fired in connection with the scandal. Police officials have asked the district attorney to file criminal charges against three officers who currently or previously worked at Rampart.

The 10 defendants who prosecutors now believe were wrongly convicted were involved in eight separate criminal cases. Most of them faced allegedly trumped-up drug charges. Several were apparently falsely charged with weapons offenses.

One of the men who is expected to be released is Paul Anise Thompson, 34, who was sentenced in 1997 to six years in prison, based largely on the testimony of Perez.

Deputy Public Defender Kenneth S. Star, Thompson’s lawyer at trial, said he had strong suspicions about the evidence presented in the weapons case. Although Star did not recall many details late Monday, he said that, during the trial, he took the extraordinary step of calling a deputy district attorney to the witness stand to testify about what Star believed were serious irregularities with the LAPD’s handling of the evidence.

Star said he also called an LAPD detective to the stand who “was bending over backward not to impeach what [Perez] testified to” in trial. One Rampart sergeant associated with the case is among those relieved of duty in connection with the probe.

Prosecutors said they will join a petition by one of Thompson’s current attorneys to overturn the conviction. The other nine convictions are expected to be overturned as a result of petitions by the district attorney’s office. A hearing on all the cases is scheduled this afternoon in front of Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Larry Fidler, who has dismissed many of the previous convictions.

The expected court action brings further embarrassment to the LAPD, and is likely to increase significantly the city’s civil liability, which many legal experts predict could exceed tens of millions of dollars.

Officials from the district attorney’s office released few details Monday on their court plans. In the past, however, Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti has vowed to fully investigate the corruption scandal and to overturn any conviction that was won with tainted evidence.

Garcetti has assigned seven prosecutors to a special task force that is investigating the matter.

LAPD Chief Bernard C. Parks has said he, too, is committed to rooting out corruption in his department and has about 30 detectives and officers investigating the alleged wrongdoing.

Most, if not all, of the criminal convictions overturned so far have been as a result of information from Perez. Detectives have dumped hundreds of files in front of the former officer, who has reviewed them and identified ones he claims were unjust.

When Perez characterizes an arrest and conviction as “bad,” detectives and prosecutors seek to interview the defendant to corroborate Perez’s information. Often, those interviews have occurred at the prisons where the defendants are serving their sentences.

The convictions that the district attorney will ask to have set aside today involve:

* Hugo Madrid, 26, who in 1997 pleaded guilty to a firearms charge and was sentenced to prison. He was paroled, but is in custody for violating that parole.

* Manuel Guardado, 26, who in 1997 pleaded guilty to a drug charge. He remains on probation.

* Blanca Sahagun, 31, and Carlos Antonio Carranza, 27, who in 1997 pleaded no contest to drug charges. They are on probation.

* Juan Carlos Suares, 24, who in 1997 pleaded guilty in a drug case. He was sentenced to prison and scheduled to be deported upon his release.

* Margo Leticia Lopez, 56, and Luis Manuel Flores, 26. In 1997, Lopez pleaded guilty to a drug charge and Flores to a weapons charge. She is on probation and he on parole after serving part of a two-year prison term.

* Octavio Gonzalez Davalos, 41, who in 1997 pleaded guilty in a drug case. He remains on probation.

* Jose Armando Lara, 24, who in 1997 pleaded guilty to a firearm charge. He remains on probation.