FBI Agent Defends Actions of Mexican Police on Rampart

The FBI’s top agent in Los Angeles on Wednesday defended the Mexican authorities’ actions in an ongoing murder investigation involving two former Los Angeles police officers.

James V. DeSarno, an assistant director of the FBI, said Mexican federal agents have been swift and professional in responding to requests for assistance by U.S. authorities investigating the statements of 23-year-old Sonia Flores.

Flores, the onetime lover of ex-Officer Rafael Perez, said the bodies of three people allegedly killed by Perez and a former partner were buried in the hills above Tijuana. Her lawyer charged earlier this week that Mexican authorities failed to find any human remains when they excavated the site because they were digging in the wrong place.

DeSarno said he was confident that was not the case.

“We certainly trust that the Mexican police did what they were asked to do,” DeSarno said. “We were dealing with a skilled team of investigators.”

With doubts about Flores’ credibility mounting, she appeared on CNN Wednesday, detailing charges she made to the FBI last month and during an interview with The Times two weeks ago.

Flores, her face shaded from view, reasserted her allegation that she had witnessed Perez and then-LAPD Officer David Mack kill two people during a botched drug deal in the mid-1990s.

She alleges that the bodies of those victims and that of another woman allegedly killed by Mack were buried in Mexico in hopes that if they were discovered they would be presumed to be victims of the region’s drug wars.

According to investigative documents obtained by The Times, Flores’ accusations against Perez go far beyond the double homicide. She has implicated Perez in yet another shooting. In that case, Flores said, Perez, with the help of another LAPD officer, did a drive-by shooting of a gang member who had threatened to expose his corrupt acts.

She also contends that Perez and Mack were involved in a bank robbery together. Mack was convicted of a 1997 bank robbery and is serving time in federal prison. His two accomplices in that crime remain at large and most of the $722,000 stolen has not been recovered.

Flores said the bank robbery was planned by Mack and Perez in her presence at a “crash pad” apartment that LAPD officers rented near the Rampart police station, according to FBI documents. Flores also said that two women, whom she did not identify, were involved in the holdup.

“She said that Perez wanted to teach her to shoot a gun so she could be involved. However, she declined,” the FBI document states.

As with the murder allegations, law enforcement sources have expressed doubts about Flores’ charges. Nonetheless, investigators have sought to corroborate her allegations. They have tested the apartment near downtown Los Angeles, where she said the double homicide occurred, seized a BMW she says was used to dispose of the bodies and negotiated with Mexican authorities to excavate the alleged burial site in Tijuana.

To date, however, no concrete evidence linking Perez to the slayings or the bank robbery have been publicly produced, said Winston Kevin McKesson, Perez’s attorney.

“Ms. Flores has absolutely no credibility,” McKesson said. “Why her allegations remain a pertinent issue is a mystery to me.”

Attorney Donald M. Re, who represents Mack, has also said Flores’ charges are baseless.

The U.S. attorney and the FBI, however, continue to investigate Flores’ allegations, sources close to the probe said.

Perez pleaded guilty last year to stealing eight pounds of cocaine from LAPD evidence facilities. In exchange for a lighter prison sentence for the drug thefts, he agreed to identify other allegedly corrupt officers. His admissions about his own conduct and allegations against fellow officers are the basis for what has become known as the Rampart scandal.

True or not, Flores’ charges against Perez have undermined his usefulness as a witness against his former colleagues in the Rampart Division, four of whom are on trial, largely on the basis of his claims that they were corrupt.