6 Convictions Are Voided in Scandal

A Superior Court judge Thursday vacated the convictions of another six people whose cases were tainted by allegations of misconduct by Los Angeles police officers implicated in the ongoing Rampart corruption scandal.

Seventy-three felony convictions have been thrown out since the scandal erupted.

Simultaneously, City Atty. James K. Hahn’s office notified defense lawyers who represent 234 defendants in misdemeanor cases that their clients’ convictions are being reviewed because they involved officers caught up in the scandal. Hahn mailed notification letters to the public defender, the alternate public defender and 50 private defense attorneys, the latest step in an extensive ongoing review of criminal cases that Hahn ordered in the wake of Rampart.

The implications of the review were clearly on the mind of Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler when he granted prosecutors’ requests for writs of habeas corpus seeking the dismissal of charges against five of the men and a writ filed by a private defense attorney representing the sixth.

“I want to get to the bottom of this,” Fidler said. “The integrity of the criminal justice system” has been called into question by the Rampart crisis.

The convictions vacated Thursday were those of:

* Alfredo Gomez, who pleaded guilty Nov. 25, 1997, to being an active gang member in possession of a gun and was sentenced to 16 months in state prison. He served that time and was released on parole but currently is in prison for violating it. On March 30, prosecutors said, he was charged with four counts of murder.

* Carlos Martinez Pena and Manuel Espinoza Ferrera, who pleaded guilty Feb. 25, 1997, to possession of cocaine base for sale. Both men were sentenced to 180 days in Los Angeles County Jail and three years of probation. Fidler terminated Pena’s probation, which had been extended to January 2001 because of an alleged parole violation; Ferrera’s probation already had expired.

The arrest report alleged that former LAPD Officer Rafael Perez, who is now acting as an informant as part of his own plea bargain on cocaine theft charges, and his then-partner, Nino Durden, saw Pena and Ferrera drop canisters of rock cocaine outside a hotel room. Perez, however, has since said the cocaine was recovered from inside the room, which he and Durden entered without a search warrant or consent, according to the prosecutors’ writ.

* Enrique Mena, who pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a gun Nov. 6, 1997. He was sentenced to three years in state prison and deported to Mexico nearly a year ago after serving his sentence.

Perez told investigators he believed that an arrest report in Mena’s case prepared by another Rampart Division officer contained fabrications. Perez based his allegation on the manner in which the division’s anti-gang unit habitually conducted its operations.

In the July 8, 1997, report, Rampart officers alleged that they saw Mena outside an apartment with a firearm sticking from his waistband.

* Edward Yumol Villanueva, who pleaded guilty Nov. 7, 1996, to possession of a firearm by a felon. He was sentenced to two years in state prison and was on parole when his conviction was thrown out. Perez alleged in a July 1996 arrest report that he witnessed Villanueva put two guns in the trunk of a car. The ex-officer has since told investigators that he falsified the report.

* Russell Newman, who was convicted of the sale of a controlled substance. He was sentenced to 12 years in state prison July 15, 1992, and served more than half his term before being paroled. Newman was convicted largely on Perez’s testimony that the defendant sold the officer a “rock” of cocaine.

“It’s just fortunate that in this case he was able to get some relief from misconduct of a dirty cop,” said Newman’s attorney, Matthew G. Kaestner.