2 Officers Accused of Corruption Were Not Prosecuted

Two Los Angeles police officers accused of drug-related corruption similar to that uncovered in the ongoing Rampart scandal were forced to leave the LAPD, but their cases were never turned over to the district attorney for criminal prosecution, a Times investigation has found.

In one case, Mark Haro, a training officer from the department’s Central Division, resigned after an LAPD disciplinary panel found him guilty of possessing illegal drugs, paying a street informant with crack cocaine and pressuring one of his rookie trainees to falsify an arrest report.

In the other case, an officer who worked undercover narcotics assignments in the San Fernando Valley was fired after an LAPD trial board found him guilty of more than two dozen offenses, including illegal drug possession and threatening his wife with a loaded gun. The board, in its written finding, found Officer Gustavo Raya guilty of “major violations of law.”

Despite the findings against the two officers, the LAPD did not refer either case to prosecutors for possible criminal charges, according to officials with both the city attorney’s and district attorney’s offices.

Cmdr. David J. Kalish, an LAPD spokesman, said a preliminary review of department records “failed to determine whether either of the cases had been presented for criminal prosecution.”

“It would certainly be of interest to us if they were not presented,” Kalish said. “It’s possible that they fell through the cracks.”

In addition to raising questions about the department’s resolve in bringing allegedly corrupt officers to justice, both cases suggested more widespread problems within the LAPD, problems unrelated to whistle-blowing ex-Officer Rafael Perez, the convicted drug thief-turned-informer at the center of the Rampart scandal.

The officers’ alleged crimes and misconduct occurred in 1995 and 1996, the same time frame in which Perez has alleged that many of the abuses occurred in the Rampart Division, where he was an anti-gang officer. But internal investigations of the officers languished. Haro resigned in 1998; Raya was fired last year.

If the charges against Haro and Raya are true, as the LAPD has determined, the implications are staggering.

Haro allegedly chastised a trainee because she did not know how to work “in the gray area,” and therefore would never make a good narcotics officer. Although this trainee complained to her superiors, it is unclear how many others embraced the lesson and took what they learned to other divisions of the LAPD.

“He’s certainly not what we’re looking for in a training officer,” said Capt. Jim Tatreau, who oversaw Haro’s so-called Board of Rights hearing, the equivalent of a trial in the LAPD.

Raya, who was found guilty of using marijuana and cocaine while off duty, allegedly admitted to stealing the drugs from people he arrested while on duty. Disclosure of that information could result in the reexamination of hundreds of Raya’s cases, sources said.

Public Defender Michael P. Judge said that any conviction based on the testimony of Haro or Raya should be reviewed.

“This situation illustrates why the criminal justice system cannot rely upon the Los Angeles Police Department to provide important information [about officer misconduct] in a timely manner,” Judge said. “There was a delay of several years before this information was brought to light, and even then it was only as a result of an investigation by the media.”

Kalish said the LAPD’s policy requires that all cases involving “potential criminality are presented to the proper prosecutorial agency.”

Haro, 37, denied any wrongdoing in a recent interview with The Times. He said he resigned from the LAPD because it was clear that his career was over, even if the charges against him were false. Raya, 40, declined to comment, citing the advice of an attorney.

According to LAPD documents, Haro was a training officer who had little regard for department rules or state laws. At a Jan. 21, 1998, disciplinary hearing, he was found guilty of 10 counts of misconduct, including failing to book drugs as evidence, possessing illegal drugs, paying an informant with crack cocaine, lying to investigators and coercing a probationary officer to falsify an arrest report.

“It is the opinion of the board that the actions by Officer Haro . . . at least on their face, are criminal acts,” Tatreau, the board’s chairman, said in a ruling.

Before Tatreau could finish reading the board’s verdict that day, Haro got up from his chair and left the room. He resigned before the department could fire him.

Department ‘Sting’ Failed

Most of the charges against Haro involved events that occurred in mid-August 1996 when he was partnered with Melody Ann Hainline, a young probationary officer less than a year out of the Police Academy.

On Aug. 11, 1996, the two were on patrol when they arrested a woman on suspicion of possessing crack cocaine. Hainline told LAPD investigators that Haro tried to have her fabricate her observations in the arrest report, to say that they saw the woman toss the drugs to the ground instead of finding them cupped in her hand. Why he allegedly wanted Hainline to fabricate the report in such a fashion is unclear. In any case, she refused.

Later that day, Haro again tried to pressure Hainline into committing misconduct, this time to pay one of his informants with cocaine that had been seized earlier, according to LAPD documents. Again, Hainline refused.

The next day, Haro and Hainline detained another suspect who allegedly had rocks of crack cocaine in his mouth. Additional rocks were found in a container on the ground near the man. Though the suspect was questioned, he was released, documents show. At that point, Haro still had the drugs in his possession, Hainline alleged.

Shortly after the suspect’s release, Hainline said, Haro started to tell her that she would “never be a good dope cop because she won’t live in the gray area,” according to LAPD documents. “You have to give a little to get a little,” Haro was quoted as saying.

Then, Hainline said, Haro threw the crack cocaine he had seized out the patrol car window.

Hainline reported Haro’s actions to a supervisor. Department officials initially tried to catch Haro in misconduct by setting up a “sting.” That attempt failed, however, when Haro and another partner found a radio transmitter on an undercover officer who was posing as a drug dealer.

When Haro was confronted with Hainline’s allegations about misconduct, he denied that those incidents ever occurred.

A year later, however, facing disciplinary charges, Haro changed his story and told investigators that he was conducting an “integrity test” on Hainline to see if she would succumb to misconduct. As her training officer, Haro said, he wanted to “humble her and make her teachable,” according to a written account of the disciplinary panel’s findings.

The panel members said Haro’s explanation “strains credibility.” If his story were true, the members reasoned, Haro should have “supported [Hainline] for redeeming her integrity.” Instead, his initial denial “allowed her to become a pariah with her peers.”

The board, in a divided opinion, also found Haro guilty of paying an informant with crack cocaine about a week after Hainline made her initial complaint. That charge was supported by the taped testimony of the informant.

The informant, however, recanted his allegations when he was tracked down by Haro and taken for a ride across town to see the officer’s defense representative, according to LAPD documents. The informant never did testify in person.

Board members were suspicious about Haro’s contact with the informant and said the informant had expressed fear to department investigators that implicating an officer would put him in danger.

“What was going through [the informant’s] mind regarding his predicament?” the board’s report rhetorically asked.

Witnesses Found Credible

In an interview with The Times, Haro--a muscular former member of the LAPD boxing team--again insisted that he was testing Hainline’s integrity and that it was she who was lying about the circumstances involving the incidents. In fact, Haro said, he had been granted approval to conduct the sting by a sergeant.

That sergeant, he said, denied ever having done so when questioned by Internal Affairs.

The charges against Raya, LAPD officials found, “paint the picture of a person in a serious downward spiral . . . someone who long ago abandoned the law enforcement code of ethics,” according to a three-page document supporting the department’s decision to fire the officer.

Raya was found guilty of 25 of the 27 counts against him, including drug possession and use, threatening his wife with a loaded gun and improperly accessing the department’s computer to obtain information on a male acquaintance of his girlfriend.

Raya also was found guilty of several administrative offenses, such as failing to return narcotics to a department evidence facility on the same day they were checked out--a requirement designed to guard against drugs being lost or stolen.

“It was clear to the board that you took shortcuts at work and may have influenced other officers with whom you trained to do the same,” the June 30, 1999, document stated.

The board said that Raya admitted to sometimes storing narcotics in his desk drawer--a violation of department policy--and that several officers in the Valley Bureau’s narcotics unit were disciplined for the same offense.

Raya’s then-girlfriend testified that she routinely smoked marijuana with him and once used cocaine with him in Las Vegas. She told the board that Raya had admitted to her that he obtained the drugs by stealing them from suspects.

The bulk of the evidence against Raya came from his wife and then-girlfriend, whom he had been seeing simultaneously, without either woman knowing about the other, department documents said.

According to the written finding, board members found both women credible. Raya’s wife’s allegations that he had threatened her at gunpoint were corroborated by a family pastor who testified that she had told him about two of the alleged incidents.

Raya’s alleged conduct took place between 1994 and 1996, according to department documents. He was relieved of duty in October 1997 and fired last June.

“Considering the counts that had been sustained against you, it would be exceedingly difficult to find any command officer who would be willing to have you within their command,” the board found. “Additionally, it would be equally difficult to find an officer who would be willing to work with you. Finally, it is doubtful that any city attorney or district attorney would file a criminal case against a suspect involving you as the arresting officer.”

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CONSENT DECREE

The mayor and the police chief are opposed to a consent decree dictating LAPD reforms. B5