Deputy’s Past Is a Present Problem

A 6-year-old evidence-planting and brutality case that led the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department to discipline four deputies has resurfaced in federal court, raising the question: If a sworn officer lies once, should authorities ever trust him again?

Federal prosecutors this summer freed a man accused of illegal gun possession after deciding that they could not use Deputy Patrick Golden as a witness in the case because of his past misconduct. As a result, the district attorney’s office told the Sheriff’s Department that Golden should always work with another deputy as a witness, officials said.

Sheriff’s officials have since transferred Golden to a desk job while bosses decide his future assignment, Assistant Sheriff Larry Waldie said.

The dismissal of the federal gun charges because of Golden’s disciplinary record has prompted an examination by the Office of Independent Review, an agency created at Sheriff Lee Baca’s request to investigate discipline in the department.

“It is an essential requirement for a law enforcement officer to be a witness,” said Michael Gennaco, a former federal prosecutor who now heads the review office. “When a law enforcement official has significant credibility problems, it makes that impossible.”

Questions about Golden’s credibility stem from a 1996 arrest. He and two other deputies were recommended for termination because of their conduct, according to court records. A fourth deputy who was at the scene alleged that one colleague planted rock cocaine on a handcuffed suspect who was then driven to a mall garage and beaten unconscious by Golden and fellow Deputy Terry Burgin.

Sheriff’s officials later allowed the three deputies to stay with the department, suspending them for 15 days and ordering them off patrol for two years, internal records and interviews show. One quit. Golden and Burgin were found to have used excessive force and eventually returned to regular duties.

This year, a federal public defender representing a man whom Golden arrested on gun charges discovered Golden’s past. That led the U.S. attorney’s office to drop charges in August, even though authorities did not think Golden acted inappropriately in the gun case.

The district attorney’s office said it will decide whether to use Golden as a witness on a case-by-case basis.

According to a district attorney’s database, Golden has been subpoenaed as a witness against 462 defendants since about 1995. Attorneys say it is unclear from the records whether any cases previous to the August case were dismissed because of the deputy’s disciplinary history.

Veracity Pivotal

Criminal cases usually pivot on the veracity of officers who can testify about illegal activity they have seen. Defense attorneys question why the district attorney’s office and Sheriff’s Department would continue to use the testimony of deputies they had previously found to lack credibility.

“The D.A.’s policy here assists in keeping people employed who really should not be in law enforcement,” said Assistant Public Defender Randall Reich. “It gives the Sheriff’s Department no incentive to weed these people out.”

Assistant Sheriff Waldie said the department can settle complaints against its employees for several reasons. “We fire people, and the Civil Service Commission reinstates them,” he said. “We follow the evidence; we do what we can. We are constrained by the law.”

Golden said he has been directed by sheriff’s officials not to comment. Efforts to reach the other deputies were unsuccessful. Attorney Richard Shinee, who represented the three deputies in the 1996 case, said none of them was ever disciplined for planting evidence.

“Deputy Golden has done an excellent job since his return to work and has never been the subject of any other complaints,” Shinee said.

Case Resurfaces

The 1996 case resurfaced in August, when federal prosecutors dropped charges against Mark Stephen Bellows, 20.

According to court papers, Golden and his partner were patrolling a Compton apartment complex troubled by gangs May 6 this year when they saw Bellows flee.

The deputies chased him and reported recovering a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver they said Bellows tossed onto the roof of a neighboring building. As a convicted felon, Bellows faced federal prosecution for carrying a firearm.

Bellows pleaded not guilty. His deputy federal public defender, Ronald O. Kaye, checked into the background of the arresting deputies.

What he found was enough to persuade federal prosecutors to dismiss charges against Bellows on Aug. 15, even though they had “no suspicion,” according to a federal source, that Golden had acted inappropriately in the gun case.

“After reviewing the information [in Golden’s personnel file],” wrote Assistant U.S. Atty. Thomas P. O’Brien, “it is my belief that the indictment should be dismissed in the interests of justice.”

The concerns stemmed from Golden’s confidential disciplinary records in the drug case of Kendrick Loot, who is now on death row for unrelated murders, according to attorneys.

In 1996, deputies spotted Loot and another man apparently conducting a drug deal at 149th Street and Hawthorne Boulevard in Lawndale, according to the Sheriff’s Department account.

Loot fled and was chased by deputies. One caught up with him in an alley, and in the ensuing tussle, Loot grabbed the deputy’s flashlight and beat the officer, according to department reports.

Deputy James Ramey and his trainee Charles Hulsey were in one of the patrol cars that arrived at the scene. Golden and Burgin were in another patrol car. All four were working out of the Lennox sheriff’s station.

In his interview with sheriff’s internal investigators, Hulsey said deputies crowded around Loot, whacking him with their flashlights, and then discussed what charges he would face.

Ramey planted the drugs on Loot, Hulsey told investigators, then Golden and Burgin put him in their patrol car to take him to jail. After driving 28 blocks, they pulled into the garage at the Hawthorne Mall.

Golden and Burgin told investigators they stopped because they realized they had not fully frisked Loot. Ramey and Hulsey followed them into the garage.

Hulsey said Loot, who was handcuffed, was ordered out of the car.

“Every time that person would make an attempt to stand up and get out of the car, Deputy Golden would hit him as hard as he could,” Hulsey told investigators.

After Loot got out of the car, Golden and Burgin beat him until he was unconscious, Hulsey said in his interview with investigators and in a lawsuit he later filed. Loot also complained to internal investigators that he had been beaten.

After Loot was arrested, he was charged separately with triple homicide for his role driving the getaway car in a series of armored-car holdups. He was eventually found guilty and sentenced to death in 2000.

After an internal administrative investigation, sheriff’s officials concluded that Golden and Burgin had used excessive force on Loot and that Ramey had planted evidence, according to department records.

“As a result of the subject’s misconduct, the credibility of the station was severely damaged,” investigators wrote in a letter to one of the deputies, “thus causing a direct and negative impact on the prosecution of criminal cases within our jurisdiction.”

Then-Undersheriff Jerry Harper recommended in late 1998 that the three deputies be terminated.

County procedure allows accused deputies to argue their case and appeal disciplinary recommendations before they are made final. The deputies did so, and in January 1999, officials agreed to let them remain with the department. Baca, who had been in office one month, signed letters to the deputies informing them that they would be suspended for 25 days--10 days of which were held in abeyance--and transferred to non-patrol assignments for two years, according to internal records.

Golden and Burgin were found to have used excessive force and failed to report it, according to internal records. The department rescinded its finding that Ramey had tampered with evidence, and instead found him to have failed to report excessive force by others.

Ramey resigned from the department in February 2000. Attorney Shinee would not say where his client went. Burgin works as a detective assigned to the department’s Compton office and has not been the subject of further complaints, officials said.

Hulsey, the deputy who told investigators about the incident, was also found to have failed to report the excessive force in a timely manner and received a 30-day suspension, according to internal documents. He later left the department and filed a $17-million whistle-blower lawsuit, which was settled this year for $100,000. The department admitted no wrongdoing in the settlement.

The investigation into Golden’s behavior in the Loot case had repercussions for another drug case handled by the Lennox sheriff’s station, according to court records.

More Doubts Arise

It sparked a review that led prosecutors in 1998 to doubt the credibility of two other deputies and drop criminal charges against two alleged drug dealers.

On the night of June 12, 1997, Golden was chasing a drug suspect, Gary O’Bannon, down a South Bay street, according to court documents.

Meanwhile, in a nearby alleyway known for drug dealing, Deputies Laughn Barth and Alfred Alvarez reported seeing two men engaged in a drug transaction, court records show. The deputies arrested the two men, who said O’Bannon had dropped the drugs and they simply found them.

Months later, as prosecutors were preparing for trial, they were told that Golden was under internal investigation, according to court papers. As a result, the suspects--who accused deputies of falsifying their arrest report--were given polygraph exams, which they passed. O’Bannon told prosecutors the drugs were his.

Charges were dropped against the two suspects “because of doubts about the credibility” of Barth and Alvarez, according to a court declaration signed by the then-head deputy of the Torrance branch of the district attorney’s office, Sandra Buttitta. Golden was not accused of any wrongdoing.

Prosecutors said they declined to file perjury charges against the deputies because of conflicting stories, the “long criminal histories” of the suspects and the fact that polygraphs are not admissible in criminal cases.

Sources said investigators were also hampered by their inability to find a sheriff’s deputy who would corroborate the suspects’ allegations.

“Even with the irregularities in the arrest,” prosecutors wrote in their rejection report, there was insufficient evidence to file perjury or false-report charges. According to court records, the U.S. attorney’s office also investigated the case and declined to press charges.

A sheriff’s administrative probe found that the deputies had committed infractions in evidence- handling procedures, and they were each given three-day suspensions.

The two suspects sued the county for $17 million in 1998. In court filings, attorneys for Alvarez and Barth maintained that they did witness the drug transaction. The lawsuit was settled for $78,000 in late 2000 with no admission of wrongdoing.

Barth has since left the department for another police agency, sheriff’s officials say. Alvarez works at the West Hollywood station and has apparently had no complaints filed against him recently, sheriff’s officials said.

Golden’s attorney, Shinee, whose firm represented Barth and Alvarez, said prosecutors declined to file perjury charges because “it was impossible to determine what happened that night.”