Former Rampart Officer to Be Tried

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge on Wednesday ordered a former LAPD Rampart Division officer to stand trial in the alleged 1998 beating and framing of a reputed gang member.

After a three-day preliminary hearing, Judge William R. Chidsey Jr. ruled that the district attorney’s office had presented enough evidence about the case to try ex-Officer Ethan Cohan on charges of assault with a deadly weapon, perjury, filing a false police report and conspiracy.

During the hearing, former Officer Camerino Mesina testified that he saw Cohan strike Gabriel Aguirre multiple times with either his fists or a metal flashlight during the March 26, 1998, arrest.

Mesina and two other former officers testified that information in Aguirre’s arrest report, signed by Cohan, was false.

Cohan, 31, has pleaded not guilty.

His lawyer, Harland W. Braun, argued that the testimony of the three ex-officers was tainted because they had access to a statement Cohan was compelled to give about the case when he was still employed by the Los Angeles Police Department. Such statements cannot be used against the person who gave them in a criminal proceeding because officers are forced to give them under penalty of firing, and the U.S. Constitution prohibits defendants from being compelled to testify against themselves.

Prosecutors countered that their case was built on evidence that was independent of the facts contained in Cohan’s statement. The statement, they argued, contained essentially the same information that was in police reports about the incident and therefore did not contribute to the case against Cohan.

Judge Chidsey agreed, saying he didn’t see any evidence that the district attorney’s case had benefited from the officers having had access to Cohan’s statement.

The charges against Cohan, who was fired from the LAPD and is now a law school student, arose out of the Rampart corruption scandal and were among the allegations made by ex-Officer Rafael Perez.

As part of a plea deal, Perez agreed to identify police crimes and misconduct in exchange for a lighter sentence for stealing drugs from LAPD evidence lockers.

In one interview with investigators, Perez said he and Officers Cohan, Shawn Gomez, Manuel Chavez and Mesina took part in an attack on Aguirre when they arrested him in a vacant apartment on Witmer Street on charges of assault with a deadly weapon.

According to the police reports at the time, the officers said Aguirre assaulted them as he resisted arrest. They said he sustained injuries by falling down stairs as he tried to escape.

Perez, however, said the officers concocted the story about Aguirre resisting arrest to explain the injuries he sustained during the beating. Aguirre overheard the officers talking about how they were going to report the incident and started to complain, Perez said. Perez said he responded by pushing Aguirre into a wall.

Mesina, Gomez and Chavez all testified that Aguirre peacefully submitted to the arrest, and that none of them saw Aguirre assault any officer.

Mesina said he saw Perez and Cohan strike Aguirre, but the other officers testified that they left the apartment building after the arrest to get to their patrol car and did not see Cohan or anyone else beat Aguirre.

Gomez, who has pleaded no contest to a charge of filing a false report, testified as part of a plea bargain in which prosecutors agreed not to oppose reducing the charges to a misdemeanor, and to recommend that he be put on probation and perform community service.

Chavez is cooperating with prosecutors as part of a plea bargain in which he pleaded no contest to assault under color of authority. Mesina has been granted immunity in exchange for his cooperation.

Cohan is scheduled to be arraigned March 11.