D.A. Seeking to Boost Unit on Terrorism

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley wants county supervisors to give him $2.77 million to fight threats of organized crime and terrorism.

The money would pay for a team of 31 prosecutors and investigators in an organized crime division and would fund the use of wiretaps and other investigative tools in conspiracy cases.

Supervisors were set to make final adjustments Tuesday to the county’s estimated $16-billion budget but are expected to delay those discussions until mid-October to allow time for the county to prepare an action plan after last week’s terrorist attacks on the East Coast.

In a motion at Tuesday’s meeting, Supervisors Yvonne Brathwaite Burke and Mike Antonovich said the county needs to ensure that sufficient resources are available for possible emergencies. They said funding should be allotted to help departments that have military reservists called to duty and to pay sheriff’s deputies and firefighters who have worked overtime since the disaster.

Cooley’s was the first request for more money in connection with the terrorist attacks, said county spokeswoman Judy Hammond. Other local agencies will likely ask for extra funds, she said.

The district attorney sent a letter to supervisors Tuesday outlining plans for the organized crime division. While 25 employees would work on cases involving hate crimes, prison gangs and organized corruption, six investigators would focus solely on combating terrorism, Cooley said in an interview Thursday.

Those investigators would work with federal and local agencies and communicate regularly with their counterparts across the country. They would be equipped to use wiretaps, execute search warrants, develop informants and gather intelligence information.

“Last Tuesday, the rules changed for everybody,” Cooley said. “They certainly changed for anybody responsible for protecting the public from this threat. We’ve got to lend what we can to this fight.”

Cooley said combating organized crime has been a priority of his that intensified in recent days. In April, he asked for about $2.1 million for the organized crime division but this week increased his request by more than $600,000.

The district attorney’s office does not have enough resources to target organized criminal groups that present a threat to individuals and government agencies, he said.

“Our systems are vulnerable to clever, sophisticated, resourceful people who are willing to lie and cheat,” Cooley said.

An organized crime division existed within the district attorney’s office until the early 1990s, when it was combined with the major crimes division. In January, Cooley brought back the division and directed it to concentrate only on organized crime. There are four prosecutors and fewer than a dozen investigators in the unit.

Supervisor Don Knabe said he thinks the board needs to reevaluate spending on safety throughout the county.

“The district attorney’s proposal definitely has merits, but it is still too early to pull this separately from the entire budget equation,” Knabe said. “We need to wait for the broader picture of county security measures before we make a decision.”

Burke said she will consider Cooley’s request but wants to know more about what the investigators would be doing.

“If there is a legitimate concern and need, we are going to have to respond to that,” she said. “Terrorism is definitely a legitimate concern.”