Tensions Surface at Rampart Trial

Long simmering tensions between prosecutors and the Los Angeles Police Department erupted Thursday at the Rampart police corruption trial as a police witness, confronted by a deputy district attorney, admitted that he was testifying reluctantly against other officers.

“Let’s be honest here,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Laura Laesecke said, challenging her own witness, former Rampart Officer Mark Richardson. “You don’t want to be testifying in this courtroom with these defendants here, do you?”

Richardson shot back: “You’re right. I don’t think this is right.”

The prosecutor had called Richardson to tell whether defendant Michael Buchanan had been his partner on a day Buchanan was reported in LAPD records as being on vacation. Richardson, an 11-year veteran now assigned to the LAPD’s elite Metro Division, testified that he couldn’t recall.

He also testified that he never saw any misconduct by Rampart officers. In all three incidents at the heart of the corruption charges, he said he either was too far away or arrived on the scene too late.

Like previous police witnesses, Richardson seemed hesitant when questioned by the prosecutor, but readily answered questions posed by defense attorneys for the four suspended officers on trial.

Sgts. Edward Ortiz and Brian Liddy and Officers Buchanan and Paul Harper are accused of conspiring to obstruct or pervert justice by framing gang members, planting evidence and lying on police reports and in court.

The first criminal trial to arise from the Rampart scandal has widened the rift between top police and prosecutors, prompting the district attorney’s office to complain recently in court papers that the LAPD is intentionally hindering the case.

Prodded by defense attorney Barry Levin, Richardson testified that he believed Buchanan was mistaken during testimony at an earlier trial that they had been partners on Sept. 18, 1996--a day prosecutors allege that Rampart officers falsified police reports to frame a gang member on a gun charge.

Levin also asked Richardson to elaborate on why he didn’t want to be in court, and why he felt it was wrong, triggering an emotional response from the witness:

“Because I know these officers. I know these guys,” Richardson said. “I know their integrity. I know their work ethic. This is wrong. If my family needed a police officer, those are the people I would want to come to my house.”

Prosecutors have struggled all week with reluctant police witnesses who experience memory lapses on the witness stand. At one point, Laesecke, clearly losing her patience, asked Richardson: “Do you find your memory is better when you testify against gang members than when you testify against your fellow officers?”

Defense attorneys objected before the witness could answer.

Jurors also seemed to be struggling with the officer’s credibility, sending several notes to the judge seeking guidance in assessing him.

“How do we judge a witness who refuses to answer questions, i.e. I don’t recall and I don’t remember?” said one note. Another asked, “Is there any training with regard to helping officers remember details?”

Superior Court Judge Jacqueline A. Connor, who permits jurors to submit written questions during testimony, instructed them on the law, saying they must decide whether a witness is being “willfully” false or innocently doesn’t recall events that occurred four years ago. “Use your common sense,” she said.

Under Levin’s questioning, Richardson also indicated that he believed prosecutors thought he was lying because he wouldn’t testify in the way they desired.

“I was called by the prosecution, but I don’t consider myself to be a witness for the prosecution or the defense,” Richardson said. He added that he wouldn’t lie to protect his fellow officers.

“I’m not going to compromise my principles for anyone,” he said.

Under defense questioning, Richardson was transformed from a reluctant prosecution witness into a defense expert on gang activity. Posing a series of hypothetical questions, Levin used the officer in an attempt to discredit a prosecution witness from the previous day--a gang member allegedly framed by Rampart officers.

The witness, Raul Rafael Munoz, 27, portrayed himself as a benign wannabe of the Temple Street gang who played basketball and baseball and acted as a disc jockey for his childhood friends. He said he socialized with them but didn’t participate in gang crimes.

But under Levin’s questions, a different picture of Munoz emerged--that of a gang leader who had earned respect by going to prison for a brazen shooting outside a high school, and had been given a gun to hold during a police gang sweep.

Meanwhile, at a Rampart-related hearing, Superior Court Judge Larry P. Fidler ruled irrelevant the testimony of a former girlfriend who has implicated informant Rafael Perez, a disgraced former Rampart officer, in a double homicide being investigated by federal authorities. Attorneys for two men seeking to overturn convictions stemming from a Perez arrest had sought to use the allegations by 23-year-old Sonia Flores to discredit him .

“I think that Judge Fidler’s wisdom, focus and intellect is a breath of fresh air into this whirlwind of hysteria caused by Sonia Flores,” said Perez’s lawyer, Winston K. McKesson. “I trust and pray Judge Connor will reach the same conclusion.”

Meanwhile, prosecutors continued their battle Thursday to call five witnesses they say can shed light on one of the alleged gun-planting incidents. In court papers, prosecutors have blamed LAPD foot-dragging for the late discovery of the witnesses--five women who were at the scene.

Connor has ruled that the women, bystanders with no gang or police ties, cannot testify because prosecutors surprised the defense on the eve of trial, violating court discovery rules.

Prosecutors have appealed to the state Supreme Court.

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Times staff writer Scott Glover contributed to this story.