Fingerprint Evidence Bogus, Witness Says

An 18th Street gang member testified Tuesday at the Rampart police corruption trial that he watched officers press a fellow gangster’s fingertips against a gun that police allegedly planted during a 1996 parking lot gang sweep.

Donaciano “Chano” Diaz, 27, wore waist chains and brown jailhouse pajamas to the witness stand. With his left hand chained to his side, Diaz placed his right hand on the Bible, then described how he and fellow gang members known as Termite, Pelon, Tiny and Clever were rounded up April 26, 1996, and taken to the Rampart anti-gang CRASH unit’s substation for questioning.

According to testimony, police raided a gang memorial to a slain member named Frosty. Two other gang members--called Rascal and Diablo--ran and hurdled a fence, Diaz said. They are now dead, as is Termite, according to testimony.

Diaz said that once they reached the police station, officers showed him a gun, which they said they found, and at first threatened to “put it on me.” But after he agreed to cooperate and help police search for Rascal, Diaz said, officers planted the gun on Clever, whose real name is Allan Lobos.

Lobos was taken aside and led to a bench where an officer rubbed his fingertips against the gun, Diaz testified. “Clever was cuffed up, and someone brought a gun,” he said. “It was put over his hands.”

Lobos was convicted of possessing the weapon, but his conviction was one of more than 100 overturned in the wake of the Rampart scandal unleashed by the confessions of Rafael Perez, a disgraced Rampart anti-gang officer caught stealing cocaine.

In his testimony, Diaz was able to place only one of the four defendants at the memorial scene.

He identified Sgt. Brian Liddy in court, saying he held him at gunpoint and ordered him to “freeze.” Diaz also said Liddy, who is burly, questioned him about the gun at the police station.

“The fat dude told me that if I didn’t snitch, he was going to put a gun on me,” Diaz testified.

Four suspended Rampart officers are on trial in Los Angeles Superior Court, accused of conspiring to obstruct or pervert justice. Liddy, Sgt. Edward Ortiz and Officers Paul Harper and Michael Buchanan also are accused of framing gang members and planting evidence.

Buchanan, 30, also is charged with four counts of perjury; Liddy, 38, with two counts of filing a false police report and a single count of perjury by declaration; Ortiz, 43, with two counts of filing false police reports; and Harper, 33, with a single count of perjury by declaration.

On Tuesday, testimony focused on the memorial gathering raid.

The key witness was Diaz, who attorneys agreed in a rare stipulation was a daily user of PCP at the time. Now in federal prison in Leavenworth, Kan., Diaz said he is sure that Lobos was framed.

Another gang member, Mervin Sanchez, also known as Chivito, or Little Goat, said he witnessed the alleged frame-up. Sanchez testified that gang members gathered in the parking lot that night to memorialize Frosty.

Neither Diaz nor Sanchez could identify which officer rubbed the gun against Lobos’ hands, however. The gun, according to testimony, was used in a gang murder several days earlier.

Lobos has identified Liddy as the officer who tried to plant his fingerprints on the gun. But although Lobos is listed as a prosecution witness, it is uncertain whether he will be called.

His lawyer, Gregory Yates, said Lobos is willing to testify but indicated that his client will invoke his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination if defense attorneys attempt to question him about gang murders.

“I’d love to see my client get up there, but I’m not going to let them turn him into cannon fodder,” Yates said.

Meanwhile, prosecutors lost another legal round as the state Supreme Court denied their request to delay the trial until the status of five witnesses can be reviewed. Superior Court Judge Jacqueline A. Connor had excluded the witnesses--women who occupied the car where the gun allegedly was planted--because the defense wasn’t told about them until the eve of trial, in violation of court discovery rules.