In Blow to Rampart Case, Perez Unlikely to Testify

The first Rampart police corruption trial got underway Friday with prosecutors telling the court they would not give Rafael Perez immunity in an ongoing murder investigation and saying they might not even call as a witness the rogue-cop-turned-informant whose confessions triggered the scandal.

Legal authorities said the development was a blow to the prosecution of this and possibly other cases against police officers implicated by Perez.

“A bombshell,” said USC law professor Erwin Chemerinsky, who conducted an assessment of the Rampart situation for the Police Protective League. “It’s hard for me to imagine the prosecution succeeding without Perez’s testimony.”

“It blows them out of the water,” said Barry Tarlow, a veteran defense lawyer and former federal prosecutor. “It’s probably the end of the Rampart cases and it’s a sad day for the criminal justice system.”

Four suspended anti-gang officers from the LAPD’s Rampart Division are accused of scheming to pervert or obstruct justice. They are Sgts. Edward Ortiz, 43, and Brian Liddy, 39, and Officers Paul Harper, 33, and Michael Buchanan, 30.

They are accused, based on Perez’s story, of scheming to frame gang members by planting evidence and lying on police reports and in court.

Perez’s value as a witness came into question when a former girlfriend told authorities in recent weeks that he was involved in multiple murders and had dumped the bodies in Mexico.

Federal investigators began digging in a search for those bodies at a trash dump in Tijuana on Friday, even as lawyers at the corruption trial addressed jurors with opening statements.

“While we speak, the FBI is looking for three dead bodies that Rafael Perez brutally murdered here in Los Angeles and buried in a dump site in Mexico,” defense attorney Barry Levin told the jurors.

Prosecutors “actually made a deal with the devil,” defense attorney Harland Braun said, referring to informant Perez. Gesturing toward the three deputy district attorneys on the other side of the courtroom, Braun added, “He has demanded that these prosecutors give him immunity for murders, and I pray that they don’t.”

A year ago Perez struck a deal with prosecutors granting him immunity for corruption-related crimes and a shooting that left a man paralyzed. His original immunity agreement covers only crimes Perez has disclosed to investigators. It does not cover “material omissions” or “any criminal use-of-force activity which has resulted in the death of any person.”

Without immunity, Perez won’t answer questions about the murder investigation, said his lawyer, Winston Kevin McKesson. Perez denies playing any role in murder, McKesson said. But, he added, “I think a lawyer would have to be brain dead to allow his client to be questioned about any investigation in which he is the target.”

Instead, he said, Perez “will exercise his 5th Amendment right with respect to any questions regarding crimes the district attorney’s office states are not covered by the immunity agreement.”

Pressed by the defense, Deputy Dist. Atty. Anne Ingalls informed Superior Court Judge Jacqueline A. Connor early Friday that she was uncertain whether she would call Perez to testify. Asked by the judge if her office was considering immunity for Perez, Ingalls softly responded, “No.”

“He’s not being given immunity. They don’t know whether he’ll be called,” Connor said from the bench, summing up what legal analysts called yet another botched prosecution.

“This development could have been anticipated from the beginning and should have been,” said attorney Gigi Gordon, the court-appointed coordinator for appeals by defendants who claim they were framed by Perez and other Rampart officers.

“Perez never had federal immunity,” she said, which means he always faced the possibility of being prosecuted by the U.S. attorney for crimes not covered by his state deal.

“This has been the unspoken secret for months,” Gordon said. “It is the other Rampart scandal.”

During his opening statement, Braun blasted prosecutors as dangerously naive and inept, calling the case “a textbook on prosecutorial incompetence.” He added that prosecutors failed when they didn’t insist on a proffer--a preview of what Perez would tell them--and failed to verify his story.

Levin told jurors that Perez already has “taken the 5th.” That occurred when Perez was asked about murders during an LAPD administrative hearing earlier this month.

Gerald Uelmen, Santa Clara University law professor and an expert on California criminal law, said that if Perez invokes the 5th Amendment on the witness stand, it would prevent the defense from fully cross-examining him, thereby violating the defendants’ constitutional right to confront their accuser.

The judge either would be required to strike his testimony or declare a mistrial, Uelmen said.

Defense attorneys Joel Isaacson and Paul DePasquale, who represent Harper and Liddy, said that without Perez, prosecutors will be unable to prove many of the overt acts supporting the most serious charge: conspiracy to pervert or obstruct justice.

Isaacson predicted that if the prosecution rests without calling Perez, the case against his client, Harper, probably would be dismissed.

With the status of her star witness uncertain, co-prosecutor Laura Laesecke referred to Perez just once in her opening statement.

“This is not a trial about Rafael Perez,” Laesecke said. “No matter what you have heard, he is not on trial here.”

Laesecke said, “The case you are about to hear is about four men who took the law into their own hands.”

The defense, however, hammered away at Perez, repeatedly comparing him to Satan.

Braun also assured jurors they would hear from Sonia Flores, the woman who led investigators to the Tijuana site where, she says, Perez and another disgraced LAPD officer, convicted bank robber David Mack, dumped three bodies.

Whether he testifies or not, Perez remains a central figure.

“Without his lies there is no case against any of these officers,” Levin said. “He is in this trial and his credibility must be dealt with by you.”

Levin, himself a former LAPD officer, told jurors that Perez was in deep trouble--caught stealing cocaine from police evidence lockers, when he struck his deal and began implicating other officers in exchange for leniency.

Prosecutors “bought his story hook, line and sinker,” said Levin, who represents Ortiz.

In custody, Levin said, Perez is “being treated like a rock star” by investigators who bring him cellular phones and pizzas. In exchange, he gave prosecutors what they wanted, the lawyer said, a tale of LAPD corruption.

Perez’s story about evidence planting, perjury and frame-ups triggered the Rampart scandal, which brought 70 Los Angeles police officers under suspicion and led to more than 100 tainted criminal convictions being overturned.

*

TIJUANA DUMP SEARCHED

Digging began in Tijuana for remains of people allegedly killed by LAPD officers. B1