Ex-Lover Recants Claim That Perez Killed 3 People

The onetime lover of ex-Los Angeles Police Officer Rafael Perez on Thursday recanted her allegations that Perez and another former LAPD officer killed three people and buried their bodies in Tijuana, according to her attorney and law enforcement sources.

After taking a polygraph examination, 23-year-old Sonia Flores broke down in tears and admitted to federal authorities that she fabricated her claims, law enforcement sources said. Her attorney, Marshall Bitkower, said Flores made up the stories because she still feels jilted by Perez and wanted to see him spend the rest of his life behind bars.

“She’s a woman scorned,” he said. “She had everybody fooled.”

Federal authorities have been investigating Flores’ allegations for months. Her information seemed sufficiently credible that the U.S. attorney’s office and the FBI arranged to have Mexican authorities excavate a garbage-strewn ravine in Tijuana, where she said Perez and Officer David Mack buried the three bodies. The FBI also served a search warrant on another officer’s car, which Flores claimed was used to transport at least one body. In addition, authorities took carpet samples from an apartment where she said a double homicide occurred.

Over the course of the investigation, Flores’ information--which also included allegations of drug dealing by Perez and Mack--could neither be corroborated nor disproved, federal sources said.

The U.S. attorney’s office, which had given Flores limited immunity from prosecution in exchange for information about the alleged homicides, now may seek to charge her for perjury or another offense, sources said.

“It’s certainly an option,” said one federal source.

For county prosecutors, Flores’ allegations could not have come at a worse time. Her claims amounted to a broadside assault on Perez’s credibility and further undermined his usefulness as a witness in the trial of four LAPD officers accused of corruption-related offenses.

When Flores’ allegations became public, prosecutors said the murder allegations were not covered under Perez’s plea bargain to resolve cocaine theft charges.

As a result, Perez’s attorney said his client would invoke his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination if he were asked to testify. In the end, prosecutors in the police corruption trial did not call Perez--a key figure in the case--to the witness stand.

The jurors in that case finished their first day of deliberations Thursday and are expected to resume discussions Monday. On trial are Sgt. Edward Ortiz, Sgt. Brian Liddy, Officer Paul Harper and Officer Michael Buchanan.

Several legal observers expressed suspicion about the timing of Flores’ allegations, with some wondering whether she had been encouraged to make the claims just as the trial against the four officers was about to begin.

“I have felt all along that there had to be a puppeteer beckoning Flores to act,” said Gigi Gordon, a criminal defense lawyer who was appointed by the Superior Court to protect the rights of potential victims of the ongoing LAPD corruption scandal. “I find the timing to be malodorous.”

Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor and now professor at Loyola Law School, said prosecutors have a right to be upset.

“It’s another bizarre twist in this case,” she said. “The timing is remarkable. If the prosecution loses, it strikes me that they would say they were denied the opportunity to put on their strongest witness because of allegations that turned out to be totally false.”

Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office, declined to comment.

Bitkower, Flores’ attorney, said his client did not come forward with her story to benefit anybody but herself. She did it, he said, because she felt that Perez, who once promised to marry her, had used her.

Although Flores says she had a lengthy relationship with Perez, the officer-turned-informant has maintained that it was only a one-time encounter. But the information that Flores was able to provide federal authorities made them believe Perez was lying about his involvement with her.

For example, Flores directed investigators unassisted to a “crash pad” apartment that Perez and other Rampart Division officers used to entertain their girlfriends. She also told investigators where Perez lived with his family. She was able to identify other Rampart Division officers and describe a couple of vehicles owned by officers.

Claims of Involvement in Drug Dealing

Flores claimed to be a confidant of Perez. She said she helped him and Mack distribute cocaine at local nightclubs and was with them one night when they killed two people in a drug deal that went awry. She even identified the victims as a man named “Chino” and a woman who appeared to be his mother. She said another woman, who apparently was a girlfriend of Mack, was killed by Mack and also buried in Tijuana.

After telling investigators her story, Flores went public, giving interviews to The Times and later to CNN.

Through their attorneys, both Perez and Mack, a convicted bank robber, have repeatedly denied Flores’ allegations.

On Thursday, federal authorities confronted Flores with pictures of Chino and the woman, who allegedly had been killed, and told her they were still very much alive, sources said. Flores initially claimed the pictures were not of the two people she allegedly saw murdered.

Flores’ story, however, apparently did not stand up during the polygraph examination Thursday. At some point in the process, she broke down and confessed that she had been lying.

Attorney Winston Kevin McKesson, who represents Perez, said he was “very pleased that Ms. Flores has decided to come clean with respect to the outrageous murder allegations. It’s further evidence to support our contention that Perez has been completely forthright.”