Lawyer of Accused Rampart Officer Calls Perez a Liar

Rafael Perez, the former police officer whose accounts of LAPD corruption stand at the center of the department’s ongoing scandal, was accused of lying Monday at a police disciplinary hearing in which his testimony could play an important role.

The accusation came from the lawyer for an officer charged with misconduct in that case. Perez’s own lawyer admitted that his client erred in his testimony, but said it was an innocent mistake about an incident several years ago, not a lie.

Perez was testifying against former Rampart Division colleague Lawrence Martinez, whom he claimed is one of several officers who conspired to frame two men on gun charges in April 1996.

Perez, who was one of the arresting officers in the case, testified that he met with an informant on that April 2 who provided a tip that led officers to search for a gun at a building in the 1100 block of North Westmoreland Avenue.

But defense attorney Darryl Mounger said the informant Perez claims he talked to on the day of the arrest was in custody, and had been for the past three days.

That is an important distinction because Perez’s account was offered to bolster the contention that officers lacked evidence to charge the two men in the gun case. The police report about the incident indicated that officers saw the gun and then arrested the suspects; Perez has since said that account was false and that the other officers knew it was at the time.

After Monday’s hearing, Mounger said he had proven that Perez was not truthful.

“He claims that this informant gave him information that there was a gun at that location,” Mounger said. “But that’s not possible. I caught him with his pants down.”

Mounger seized on the false testimony as evidence that Perez cannot be trusted.

“The problem with Perez is that he’s told so many lies that he’s confused. He doesn’t know what the truth is anymore,” said Mounger, who is defending Martinez against departmental charges stemming from the arrest.

Perez’s attorney, Winston Kevin McKesson, acknowledged that Perez erred in his testimony, but denied that his client had lied. McKesson said Perez has reviewed about 1,500 cases since he began cooperating with investigators in exchange for a reduced sentence on drug theft charges, and that he cannot remember every detail.

“He believes [the informant] is who he said it was. That’s still who he pictures in his mind,” McKesson said. “But the identity of the informant is not what he considered important about this case.”

Perez alleges that he, along with Officers Humberto Tovar, Brian Hewitt and Martinez, concocted a plan to frame Oswaldo Candelero and Nestor Zetino on gun possession charges.

According to the April 2, 1996, police report, written by Perez, he and Tovar were hidden in an observation post as they watched four men standing in front of a building at 1148 N. Westmoreland Ave. According to the report, one of the men, later identified as Zetino, pulled a handgun from his waistband and handed it to Candelero. As Perez and Tovar approached, the weapon was dropped to the ground, the report states.

Perez now claims that officers forced their way into the building and found the gun stashed in a heating duct. He said there was no evidence that it had been in the possession of either Candelero or Zetino.

“We all got together and came up with this story as to how everything happened,” Perez said in an Oct. 15, 1999, interview with investigators. “It became a little bit of a joke, because in this report two people were arrested for one gun.”

McKesson said task force investigators have since corroborated Perez’s allegations with Zetino and Candelero.

Defense attorneys, McKesson said, may think “they’ve got him, but they haven’t explained how the victims could tell a consistent story with Perez.”

Mounger denied that investigators had corroborated Perez’s account with the two victims.

Perez’s credibility is a key issue in LAPD disciplinary hearings and criminal prosecutions.

Last month, an LAPD lieutenant on the corruption task force said investigators have corroborated 70% to 80% of the ex-officer’s allegations of police abuse.

Lt. Emmanuel Hernandez, who made the statement while testifying at an accused officer’s disciplinary hearing, said detectives do not believe that Perez has lied about any case. Although authorities say they have found Perez to be wrong about some important details, they attribute those statements to failed memory, not deliberate deception.