LAPD Did Refer 1 Case, D.A.’s Office Now Says

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said Friday that it erred this week when it told The Times that the Los Angeles Police Department had never asked prosecutors to file criminal cases against one of two officers, both of whom ultimately were fired for drug-related corruption and other misconduct.

In the case of the other officer, both the police department and the district attorney now agree that no charges were requested by the department. The police say they refrained from seeking charges on the advice of a prosecutor.

Both officers, Mark Haro and Gustavo Raya, were found guilty by the department of drug violations, and Raya faced an allegation of domestic abuse.

The initial statement by the D.A.’s office, made in response to an inquiry by Times reporters, was a key element in a story in the newspaper Thursday. The story said that the two officers’ cases “were never turned over to the district attorney for criminal prosecution.”

The story prompted an angry response from Mayor Richard Riordan and the police department. It came amid intense negotiations between the city and the federal government over handling of alleged civil rights abuses by the LAPD, with the federal government questioning whether the department can police itself.

The prosecutor’s admission of error followed the expressions of outrage by LAPD officials and Mayor Riordan after publication in The Times Thursday of an article reporting that although Haro and Raya “were forced to leave the LAPD . . . their cases were never turned over to the district attorney for criminal prosecution.”

Cmdr. David J. Kalish, LAPD’s official spokesman, said LAPD officials were frustrated because they believe they handled the cases correctly at every turn. Officers refused to honor the so-called “code of silence,” and provided information against one another. Investigators then worked with prosecutors to develop criminal cases and, when they were advised against that course, the department fired the officers for their misconduct, Kalish said.

“The department, it would seem, did everything right,” Kalish said. “The frustrating part is that we’re being taken to task for it.”

On Friday, The Times obtained access to documents and investigatory logs compiled by LAPD’s Internal Affairs Division during its extensive investigation of the numerous allegations lodged against both Haro and Raya.

The narrative log of the investigation into Raya’s case records that on Oct. 1, 1997, investigators “took case for filing to [Deputy Dist. Atty. Marlene] Sanchez and she will fax a reject” to department officials.

The LAPD was not able to find its copy of that rejection of the case for prosecution. However, in response to inquiries from The Times, Sanchez located a duplicate of the letter in her files.

In that document, the prosecutor--a domestic violence specialist--reported that despite a “thorough investigation by [LAPD’s] Internal Affairs” Division, she could not recommend Raya’s prosecution for allegedly menacing his wife with a loaded gun because the woman would not cooperate. Sanchez also wrote that “there are numerous drug allegations [against Raya], which IA [police Internal Affairs] will be handling.”

Based on the letter’s discovery, Victoria B. Pipkin, the district attorney’s spokeswoman, said Friday that “Our family violence division was in error when it previously reported having no records concerning Officer Raya.”

Although the district attorney declined to prosecute the domestic abuse charge, the office continues to insist it was not asked to pursue the drug charges.

“The bottom line is that the Los Angeles Police Department never presented to the district attorney’s office any drug misconduct case involving Officer Raya or Officer Haro,” Pipkin said.

Cmdr. James S. McMurray, who heads LAPD’s Internal Affairs unit, defended the actions of his detectives.

“Clearly, Internal Affairs did its job in these cases, as the D.A.’s rejection of prosecution in the Raya case clearly indicates,” McMurray said.

In an interview Friday, however, Sanchez partially disputed that appraisal.

“I rejected the domestic violence aspects of the case,” she said, “but there also were numerous allegations of drug abuse violations against this officer. I made it very clear to [the detective involved] that I am not responsible for handling anything but domestic violence and that other allegations of misconduct had to go to our Special Investigations Division, and I noted that in my rejection. I expected them to follow up on the drug stuff and I assumed they would with the appropriate division in the D.A.’s office.”

LAPD’s McMurray responded that he found Sanchez’s explanation unconvincing, and alluded to the ongoing conflict between his department and incumbent Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti, who is facing an uphill fight for reelection in November.

“That is not what the reject letter says,” he said. “I sympathize with her because she has a boss who is floundering for his political life. She’s caught between a rock and a very hard spot. But, as investigators, we take a case to the division of the D.A.’s office where the case is the strongest. In this particular case, domestic violence was the strongest issue. We don’t go from one D.A. to another.”

To McMurray, the choice of words in Sanchez’s letter also was significant. “‘Allegations’ is an LAPD internal word for misconduct, not a D.A. word for violation of the law,” he said. “That sentence signified to us that the prosecutor acknowledged that internal discipline, not criminal prosecution, was the only course open to us in this case.”

In the other case, Haro--a Central Division training officer--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.

According to a brief notation in the log documenting Internal Affairs’ investigation of that case, detectives at one point placed a telephone call to Deputy Dist. Atty. Curt Hazel, a specialist in narcotics prosecutions. One of the investigators involved--whose identity the LAPD asked The Times to withhold for security reasons--said in an interview Friday that Hazel advised the department that a sting operation would be required to ensure a successful criminal prosecution of Haro. The sting failed, however, when Haro discovered an informant was wearing an electronic listening device.

As a consequence of that failure and Hazel’s advice, the investigator told The Times, LAPD did not seek a criminal prosecution.

Friday, Hazel said he did not remember the call, saying he receives numerous such requests for quick advice from LAPD investigators.

“I wear a beeper 24 hours a day,” he said. “But in the context of those calls I wouldn’t have been given names or dates and certainly never a presentation for filing or rejection of criminal charges.”

Prosecutor, LAPD Commander Disagree

Asked whether the advice he offers in such instances might lead investigators to believe a criminal prosecution was out of the question, Hazel said, “Of course not. If a person is involved in an ongoing pattern of narcotics violations . . . there always will be other opportunities to make a case against them. Anybody who has worked these cases knows that. It was a decision made by LAPD. They never reported or presented a criminal case to me.”

LAPD’s McMurray took issue with Hazel’s characterization.

“We did not refer a case to Curt Hazel,” the commander said. “We sought his advice and when the sting we discussed with him failed, our understanding based on that advice was that no referral for successful criminal prosecution was possible, so we proceeded with internal discipline.

“Since November of 1998,” McMurray added, “We have had a policy developed at the district attorney’s request that we exercise this kind of discretion.”

Riordan was incensed by the controversy and its potential implications for negotiations between the city and federal government over alleged civil rights abuses by the LAPD. In a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice’s acting Civil Rights Division chief, Bill Lann Lee, the mayor dismissed the contention that LAPD in any way mishandled the cases against the two officers--and denounced The Times’ account of those cases as misleading.

Riordan called the article “grossly inaccurate and irresponsible.”

The paper, Riordan wrote, “erroneously reported that two police officers accused of corruption were not prosecuted because, according to The Times, the LAPD did not inform the district attorney of the misconduct.”

In fact, the story charged that no formal presentation of the drug charges against the officers ever was made to the district attorney, an allegation that the district attorney’s office continued to make on Friday. The story also said that officials in the district attorney’s office insisted that the LAPD “did not refer either case to prosecutors for possible criminal charges.”

That statement, as the district attorney’s spokeswoman acknowledged Friday, was in error.

Riordan also took the paper to task for what he considered its hasty publication of the article. In his letter, Riordan stated that despite requests that the reporters hold off, “The Times decided to publish their story the next day.”

In fact, LAPD officials were first notified about the story on Tuesday and it was not published until Thursday. Still, city officials in the mayor’s office and the LAPD argued that that was not enough time to fully research the issue, because it involved cases that were concluded and several years old.

Throughout his letter, Riordan urged Lee not to conclude that the city or its police department lacked the determination to crack down on abusive officers.

“It is imperative that there be no question in your mind or your associates about the department’s resolve to bringing corrupt officers to justice,” Riordan wrote.