Tip on Perez Went to Allegedly Corrupt Officer

The Los Angeles Police Department supervisor who was told by a prosecutor of alleged perjury by then-Officer Rafael Perez in 1997 was among the detectives who conspired to cover up crimes and misconduct in the troubled Rampart Division, according to transcripts of Perez’s subsequent interrogation by investigators.

The report was made more than a year before the officer-turned-informant was arrested for stealing six pounds of cocaine. He since has been cooperating with authorities to obtain a lesser sentence as part of a plea bargain.

Perez told LAPD investigators in an interview last November that Det. Terry Wessel, who in 1997 was one of his supervisors, and other CRASH anti-gang detectives were aware of misconduct but looked the other way.

“These guys see every arrest we make . . . they go interview everybody that we arrest,” Perez told detectives on the Rampart corruption task force. “If you ask me do they know, or did they know--Det. Wessel, did all of them at Rampart detectives know--what was going on? I would say yes.”

If Perez’s allegations against Wessel are borne out, it could explain why the prosecutor’s expression of concern did not elicit any action by the LAPD.

Perez, in fact, recalled an incident in which he alleged that Wessel directed him to fabricate elements of a police report in a weapons case the two worked on together. During a surveillance on the case, Perez said, an officer in an LAPD helicopter saw the suspects load guns into the trunk of a car before the suspects were arrested. But Perez said Wessel told him to state that he had witnessed the activity himself, so the case would have a better chance of producing a successful prosecution.

“When I was writing the report, I was told by Det. Wessel that this is the way to write it. Otherwise, we’re not going to get a filing,” Perez said.

Wessel, who has since retired from the department, could not be reached for comment.

He is identified in internal district attorney documents obtained by The Times as the LAPD supervisor who was notified about possible “credibility” problems with Perez in June 1997, while Perez was engaged in then-undetected crimes in which he framed suspects and stole drugs.

A handwritten note by Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Kraut says, “[Det.] Wessel from Rampart CRASH tells me [it is] fine to dismiss due [to] officer credibility and also informs me that he knows of problems with Perez.” In the note, Kraut was explaining to his supervisor that he moved to dismiss a drug case he was prosecuting because he thought Perez was lying about aspects of the case. Perez has since confessed that he framed the suspect in the case, but subsequent investigation has failed to prove that the officer perjured himself in the manner Kraut suspected.

Until its contents were made public for the first time in The Times on Wednesday, the Kraut memo was cited by police officials and others as evidence that the district attorney’s office had botched an opportunity to detect Perez’s corrupt acts sooner because prosecutors failed to warn the LAPD.

Victoria Pipkin, a spokeswoman for Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti, said the memo proves otherwise.

“This clearly shows that the LAPD knew what was going on,” Pipkin said.

Councilman Joel Wachs called the revelations in the Kraut memo devastating.

“The LAPD has been relying on the excuse that they didn’t have that memo, and yet they did know,” said Wachs, who has been leading the call for an independent investigation into the Rampart scandal. “These things have a tendency not to come out when you look at yourself.

“No one wants to go where the finger points to them, and as a result you are getting this endless back-and-forth,” he said. “The end result is nobody looks credible. Everyone looks like they are making excuses so the blame goes somewhere else. Every day that happens, it only further underscores the need for what people think is objective and believable.”

LAPD Cmdr. David Kalish acknowledged that the new revelations are troubling. He had been among the LAPD officials who questioned the failure of the district attorney’s office to alert the department about Kraut’s concerns.

Kalish said that arrangements are being made for detectives to talk to Kraut and that they should also interview Wessel.

“Until we talk to both of them, there are still many unanswered questions,” Kalish said.

He remained concerned about the district attorney’s handling of the case, saying that even if Wessel was informed, the matter should have been brought to the attention of the LAPD’s Internal Affairs unit.

With tension between the district attorney’s office and Police Department still running high, fallout from the scandal was expected to mount today, when prosecutors go to court to have six convictions overturned as a result of alleged police misconduct.

The cases, involving three adults and three juveniles, stem from arrests made by Perez and other Rampart officers in 1996 and 1997, according to prosecutors. The alleged misconduct includes falsified police reports and perjury. One man, serving time for a probation violation related to an allegedly false arrest, is expected to be freed from jail, the district attorney’s office said.

If the convictions are overturned by Superior Court Judge Larry Fidler, it will bring to 46 the number of cases that have been thrown out as a result of the ongoing scandal, according to prosecutors.

The scandal broke in September, when Perez entered into the plea bargain in which he was promised a five-year sentence on drug theft charges in exchange for information on corruption in the LAPD. He has since described to investigators a criminal subculture in the Rampart Division in which officers allegedly conspired to frame innocent people, beat suspects and cover up unjustified shootings.

To date, more than two dozen LAPD officers have been relieved of duty, suspended without pay or fired or have quit in connection with the probe. More than 70 officers are under investigation for either being involved in crimes or misconduct or helping to cover up such activity.