Deputy Not Guilty of Falsifying Reports

A Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy hugged his attorneys and wiped away tears Tuesday after a Los Angeles Superior Court jury acquitted him on six counts of falsifying police reports and public records.

“Thank you. Thank you,” an emotional David Auner told the jurors as the not guilty verdicts were read.

Auner, 32, who was arrested last year after a deputy he was training complained that he was fabricating reports, faced up to five years in prison if convicted.

“I just want to go hug my kids and tell them the news,” said Auner, referring to his 10- and 12-year-old sons.

Auner, who had been suspended with pay pending the outcome of the case, said he will ask to be reinstated to his job. The Los Angeles County Deputy Sheriffs Assn., which paid for Auner’s defense, will support his efforts to return to work, said Roy Burns, the group’s president.

The jury deliberated for five days before exonerating Auner. Juror Glenn Webb said the panel would have reached a decision much sooner, except that two jurors felt the deputy was guilty on a couple of the charges. Webb, who did not identify which charges had remained up in the air, said one of the two changed her mind Tuesday morning. The other changed her mind in the afternoon.

“We told her we’d sit there as long as necessary while she thought it through,” Webb said.

Webb said he and several other jurors don’t believe the charges should have been filed.

“Even if we believed everything the prosecutors said, we wouldn’t have found him guilty,” Webb said. “The charge didn’t rise to the level of a crime.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Valerie Aenlle-Rocha could not be reached for comment.

Auner’s attorney, Richard G. Hirsch, said he was thrilled with the decision. Hirsch said he blames Auner’s ordeal on the Los Angeles Police Department’s Rampart Division scandal.

He said he believes the only reason the charges were filed was because prosecutors and sheriff’s investigators wanted to prove they were being tough on police officers.

“I hope it sends a message to the Sheriff’s Department and the district attorney’s office to be very careful in selecting their cases,” he said. “I think this case is an example of what happens when you rush to judgment.”

The charges were filed after Deputy James Best, whom Auner was training, complained to Auner’s supervisor that Auner had been fabricating reports.

Hirsch said in his closing argument that Best was a liar who reported Auner’s alleged misconduct only after Auner gave him several bad performance evaluations.

The charges involved three separate cases.

In one case, Auner was accused of having Best falsify a report that indicated he and Best saw a man spray-painting graffiti on a wall. Best said he did not see the man paint the wall and that the man was not read his Miranda rights when arrested, although the report said he was.

Another incident involved a report that said Auner and Best had fully advised witnesses of their rights when the witnesses went to identify suspects in a drive-by shooting. Auner might not have fully advised those witnesses, Best said.

The third incident involved a man arrested on a cocaine possession charge. Best and Auner disagreed about the sequence of events that led to the arrest.