Perez’s Ex-Lover Apologizes for False Murder Accusations

The tearful ex-lover of former Los Angeles police Officer Rafael Perez claimed Saturday that it was only after he got her pregnant and dumped her that she decided to seek revenge by falsely accusing him of murder.

In her first public appearance, 23-year-old Sonia Flores read from a prepared statement at her lawyer’s Encino office and apologized for lying.

Her story that Perez and another disgraced officer killed three people and buried their bodies in Tijuana triggered an unsuccessful search in Mexico for bodies and weakened Los Angeles prosecutors’ case in the current trial of four LAPD officers accused of Rampart Division corruption offenses.

Flores asserted that no one put her up to making the accusations--which led to Perez being dropped as a key prosecution witness in the corruption trial, now in the hands of a Los Angeles Superior Court jury.

With her bottle-blond hair tied back, and wearing a plain blue sweater and jeans, Flores barely looked up from a yellow legal pad as she denied being paid to torpedo the case against the Rampart officers.

She apologized “to the people of the United States and the Republic of Mexico” for the murder accusations that prompted authorities to dig up a garbage-strewn ravine in Tijuana.

She also offered apologies to federal prosecutors, the FBI, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office, Los Angeles police, the news media and her lawyer.

Her motive in making up the murder story was to punish her ex-lover, Flores said.

“I wanted to strike back at Rafael Perez for the way he used me --a 15-year-old girl who was deeply in love with the first man I was ever with.

“Rafael was impressive in his uniform and his power over the streets,” Flores said. And “the outlaw he became was exciting and addictive.”

Perez got her pregnant and promised to leave his wife and marry her, Flores said. But “what he did was use me and throw me away.”

After the 3 1/2-year affair led to an abortion and ended in about 1995, Flores said, she sought revenge. Perez has said he had a one-time encounter with Flores.

“My hatred for Rafael grew like a cancer inside my brain. I wanted to hurt him and create these lies so he would never leave prison. Putting Rafael away for life was all I wanted and lived for,” she said.

She is now “ashamed and sorry for all the lives I hurt,” Flores said. “Perhaps someday you can all forgive this stupid girl for what I have done.”

Flores may find out soon whether prosecutors are willing to forgive her, said her lawyer, Marshall Bitkower.

“There’s a probability of charges pending against her. She could be in a lot of trouble,” said Bitkower, who indicated that he will meet later this week with federal prosecutors to discuss her fate.

Bitkower would not allow reporters to question Flores. And there were plenty of unanswered ones--including who is paying her legal fees.

There was even confusion about Flores’ name. Authorities have spelled her first name “Sonia,” the same way she has spelled it in the past. Bitkower said Saturday it’s “Sonya.”

Flores told reporters her last name was Cabrio, but Bitkower said that could have been her middle name or the name of the man she now lives with. Bitkower said the man she now lives with is the father of her 3-year-old daughter. She also has twins, “who are 7 or 8,” by a third man, Bitkower said.

Quizzed about whether the El Salvador-born Flores, who dropped out of school in the ninth grade, actually wrote the apology herself, Bitkower would say only that “those were her words.”

Bitkower, who refused to let Flores answer a reporter’s question as to whether she was now telling the truth, shrugged when asked the same thing.

“Do I believe her now? I don’t disbelieve her now,” he said.