Perez’s Former Lover Will Plead Guilty to Lying to the FBI

The onetime lover of ex-Los Angeles Police Officer Rafael Perez agreed to plead guilty Wednesday to making false statements to federal authorities, after she recanted allegations that Perez and another former officer killed three people.

As part of the plea deal, Sonia Flores, 23, promised to repay the costs of the government’s lengthy investigation into her allegations, estimated at $200,000 to $300,000. And she agreed to submit to two more polygraph tests, which FBI agents want her to undergo to see if anyone helped concoct the allegations, according to interviews and documents obtained by The Times.

An emotional Flores signed the 15-page document in her lawyer’s office, as FBI agents stood nearby. Federal law enforcement sources said she could serve “a number of months” in prison, along with additional time in home detention.

“I guess you could say that she ‘fessed up to all the falsities that she had told,” said Flores’ lawyer, Marshall Bitkower. “She’s lucky, because it’s one count of lying to the FBI. There could have been a lot of other charges, but they were nice enough to have some understanding about how emotional she is, and her motivations.”

U.S. Atty. Alejandro Mayorkas had no response to the plea agreement, saying: “I can’t comment because it’s not public.”

James V. DeSarno Jr., assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles office, said: “It certainly is frustrating when you expend that kind of resources and end up finding that an individual has lied to us about very serious allegations. When we get lied to, prosecuting that individual is appropriate.”

The young woman said she made up the stories because she felt jilted by Perez and wanted to see him spend the rest of his life behind bars.

Before they were discounted, Flores’ allegations sharply escalated the Rampart Division police scandal and ultimately contributed to prosecutors’ inability to call Perez to testify in a criminal case against four other LAPD officers accused of corruption-related offenses earlier this month.

And the allegations kept the FBI busy for months, particularly her claims that she was with Perez and then-Officer David Mack one night when they killed two people in a drug deal that went awry. She said they buried the bodies in a Tijuana ravine.

She even identified the victims as a man named “Chino” and a woman who appeared to be his mother. She said another woman, whom she called Mack’s girlfriend, was killed by Mack and also buried in Tijuana.

In addition, Flores said she helped Perez and Mack distribute cocaine at nightclubs.

Federal authorities were skeptical of Flores’ allegations from the start, yet continued to investigate them because they contained kernels of provable facts.

FBI agents traveled back and forth to Tijuana and arranged to have Mexican authorities excavate the ravine.

Ultimately, FBI agents located the two people whom Flores says she saw shot to death and confronted her. And she failed a polygraph test.