5 to Be Freed After Witness Is Discredited

In a Rampart-related case, five men convicted of manslaughter five years ago were ordered freed Monday after the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office announced it did not have adequate witnesses for a retrial.

The men had served up to five years of their 12-year prison sentences for a gang-related shooting at a Rampart-area McDonald’s restaurant.

Superior Court Judge Larry Fidler dismissed the cases without comment and ordered the men freed after Deputy Dist. Atty. William W. Hodgman said he could not find enough new evidence to take the place of a witness who has since been discredited.

The five men ordered freed were Anthony Adams, 32; Luis Davalos, 22; Jesse Alvarez, 25; Jorge Alvarez (no relation to Jesse), 29; and Ceaser Menendez, 29, all of Los Angeles.

All pleaded no contest to manslaughter charges in the killing of rival gang member Miguel Malfavon in February 1996.

Several defendants, including Adams, were allegedly identified by Sonia Flores, 24, a former lover of disgraced LAPD Officer Rafael Perez. Perez, a convicted drug thief whose revelations about police corruption in the LAPD’s Rampart Division sparked the scandal two years ago, was only tangentially involved in the case, prosecutors said.

But at the time the five defendants entered no-contest pleas to the shooting, they were not aware that Flores was personally involved with Perez.

The five defendants, facing possible murder convictions and sentences of 25 years to life in prison, accepted a plea bargain, Gigi Gordon, defense lawyer for Jorge Alvarez, said Monday.

“It was a package deal,” she said. “They were all required to accept it.”

Defense lawyers began raising questions about the convictions after it later became clear that Flores had had a relationship with Perez.

The lawyers said police had withheld that information, which could have been used to discredit her identifications of the defendants. Adams said Perez framed him by persuading Flores to falsely identify him.

“The prosecution . . . spent tax money to prosecute someone without any evidence of credible value,” said Greg Yates, Adams’ attorney.

The defendants got a major break last year, when Flores was convicted in federal court of lying to authorities when she said she saw Perez and another officer kill three people and bury their bodies in Tijuana.

Authorities searched in vain for the bodies, and Flores later admitted she had lied.

Last month, Fidler granted the defendants’ request for a new trial, partially because they had not been told of Flores’ relationship with Perez. Jane Robison, a spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office, said prosecutor Hodgman ordered an exhaustive investigation in an effort to find new evidence to retry the five men.

But some witnesses have died and others could not be located, she said.