Prosecutor Offers Strong Signal That Perez Won’t Testify

A prosecutor sent another strong signal in court Wednesday that she is unlikely to call disgraced cop Rafael Perez to testify in the first criminal trial to arise from the police corruption scandal launched a year ago with his confessions to evidence planting and frame-ups of innocent people.

Without Perez, legal analysts say, prosecutors can’t prove the most serious charge: that the four defendants, suspended members of Rampart’s CRASH anti-gang unit, conspired to obstruct or pervert justice.

At the end of Wednesday’s court session, Deputy Dist. Atty. Anne Ingalls told Superior Court Judge Jacqueline A. Connor that neither Perez nor gang member and convicted killer Allan Lobos was available to testify about an alleged gun-planting incident during a police raid on a gang memorial party in April 1996.

Ingalls was again asking Connor to allow testimony by four women who were near a car where a semiautomatic pistol was found. She said the women, who had no gang or police ties, would offer objective eyewitness testimony. Connor, as she had done earlier, turned down the request--a decision upheld by the state Supreme Court--because prosecutors hadn’t told the defense about the witnesses until the eve of trial, a violation of court discovery rules.

Arguing against Ingalls’ renewed request to allow the witnesses, defense attorneys pointed out that prosecutors could call Lobos, the victim of the alleged gun-planting, and Perez, the disgraced officer who first told investigators about it. Both men are listed on the prosecution’s witness list.

But they both, Ingalls responded, would probably invoke their 5th Amendment rights against self-incrimination if defense attorneys asked them about unsolved murders. Legal experts say prosecutors cannot call a witness who they know will refuse to answer questions on cross-examination.

“Allan Lobos--they know he’s going to take the 5th,” Ingalls said, adding that Perez “might take the 5th” as well.

Perez’s lawyer, Winston K. McKesson, has indicated that such a scenario is more than a maybe. He said he will advise his client to invoke his right against self-incrimination and to refuse to answer questions about a murder investigation by federal authorities.

A former girlfriend, Sonia Flores, has alleged that Perez and another former officer, convicted bank robber David Mack, buried three bodies in Mexico. A search for the bodies proved fruitless.

Four suspended Rampart policemen--Sgts. Edward Ortiz, 43, and Brian Liddy, 38, and Officers Paul Harper, 33, and Michael Buchanan, 30--are on trial in Los Angeles Superior Court. They are accused of framing gang members by planting evidence and lying on police reports and in court.