LAPD Probe Implicates Ex-Official

A recently retired deputy chief from the Los Angeles Police Department was, for at least seven years, an active player in his son’s cross-country cocaine ring, helping to launder hundreds of thousands of dollars in illicit profits, a confidential LAPD report alleges.

Deputy Chief Maurice Moore, who retired earlier this year as one of the LAPD’s highest-ranking officials, allegedly retrieved, delivered, stored and then laundered drug money through real estate transactions for his son, who orchestrated the operation from federal prison, according to the LAPD’s internal investigation, a copy of which was obtained by The Times.

“His misconduct represents the worst in public corruption,” the report states.

Moore, 67, denied any wrongdoing through his attorney.

LAPD investigators based their findings on real estate and escrow documents, court bond papers, city financial disclosure forms, statements from FBI informants and interviews with people convicted in connection with the drug ring, according to the LAPD report.

Interim Police Chief Martin Pomeroy has reviewed the report and has requested further analysis before deciding whether to sustain six allegations against Moore, according to a department spokesman. Those allegations include money laundering and a violation of LAPD rules known as maintaining improper relationships with people involved in “an ongoing criminal enterprise.”

Although some of the allegations in the report, if true, would constitute crimes, the statute of limitations for many of them has passed. As a result, the only practical effect of the LAPD recommendations, if upheld by Pomeroy, would be to retroactively reprimand the retired deputy chief.

To sustain an administrative sanction, department officials must believe a preponderance of evidence supports a guilty finding. That burden of proof is lower than is required in criminal court cases, which require proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

Moore’s alleged criminal conduct first came to the attention of federal agents who were investigating his son, Kevin Moore, in the mid-1990s. At the time, Kevin Moore was in federal prison serving a 13-year sentence for cocaine trafficking. Despite his incarceration, Kevin Moore continued running a major drug network, for which he was later convicted.

Federal agents’ suspicions about the elder Moore were aroused when they searched the house of Kevin Moore’s wife and found a photograph of a smiling Maurice Moore seated behind the wheel of his son’s antique Mercedes-Benz Gullwing, a car that can sell for more than $200,000.

As the federal investigation into Kevin Moore’s prison activities continued, agents interviewed an informant who implicated Maurice Moore in the picking up and dropping off of drug money.

Federal agents later suspected that Kevin Moore’s drug money had helped underwrite five real estate transactions, three of which directly related to Maurice Moore. Then, the LAPD findings state, when it became clear that he was facing a significant prison term, Kevin Moore thought about making a deal.

“According to the FBI, Kevin admitted the involvement of Deputy Chief Maurice Moore and at one point was willing to testify against family members in return for some type of deal,” the LAPD report states. Ultimately, however, Kevin Moore refused to cooperate.

“It appears that he has been as loyal to his father as his father has been to him,” the report states.

The federal investigation lost steam when Kevin Moore refused to cooperate. It further stalled when the informant, who was Kevin Moore’s ex-wife, failed a polygraph test.

Still, on Dec. 3, 1999, the FBI sent a letter to then-Chief Bernard C. Parks alerting him to agents’ suspicions that Maurice Moore was involved in a major drug ring.

The FBI’s information on Moore was delivered to Chief Parks in the midst of the then-ballooning Rampart corruption scandal, with its allegations of unjustified shootings, beatings, evidence planting and drug dealing by a gang of rogue cops. Despite the allegations against Maurice Moore, Parks allowed the deputy, whom Parks had promoted into that job, to help direct the department’s official inquiry into the Rampart revelations.

Meanwhile, the LAPD’s investigation into Maurice Moore’s alleged drug activities languished, in part because the FBI was slow to turn over some of its confidential reports on the investigation, according to LAPD documents. Nonetheless, the LAPD should have pursued the case more vigorously on its own, the report states. Former LAPD Cmdr. Thomas Lorenzen, who wrote the report on the department’s internal investigation of Maurice Moore, said the deputy chief should have been immediately relieved of duty based on the information provided by the FBI in December 1999.

“There should have been a joint FBI-LAPD investigation team put in place and this matter should have been thoroughly and immediately investigated,” said Lorenzen, who retired from the LAPD in July and is now chief of police in Taos, N.M.

“I don’t understand why this was managed the way it was,” said Lorenzen, who assumed control of the investigation in the spring of 2001. “If it would have been your average police officer, it would have been utterly different.”

Police Commission President Rick Caruso declined to discuss the contents of the report in detail, saying only that he was “really disturbed” not only by the allegations against Moore but also by the FBI and LAPD’s handling of the case.

Caruso added that he plans to introduce a motion at next week’s commission meeting in which he will seek to turn the case over to the department’s inspector general.

Parks, who was denied a second term as chief and is now a City Council candidate, did not return calls seeking comment.

Many of the most serious charges against Moore, such as conspiracy to launder money, are beyond the statute of limitations. Some lesser allegations, such as perjury, could still be prosecuted, law enforcement officials said.

Although the allegations of misconduct can no longer affect Maurice Moore’s career, they do threaten the reputation of a much-admired senior officer who spent 40 years with the LAPD. They also shed new light on the association between Moore and his son, whose drug-dealing conviction was unknown even to many senior LAPD colleagues of Maurice Moore.

“As a blood relation, Deputy Chief Moore’s continued association with Kevin should not be viewed as consensual, as a son is always a son,” the LAPD report states. “However, even such a relationship can become improper for a police officer when he or she becomes aware that the son is engaged in ongoing criminal activity.”

Maurice Moore should have notified the department of his son’s legal problems when he was first sent to prison on drug charges in 1989, the reports states. The reason he did not, according to the report, “becomes more apparent as one looks deeper into Deputy Chief Moore’s involvement with Kevin and some of his associates.”

Anna Moore, one of Kevin Moore’s ex-wives, gave the FBI specific details related to dates, real estate purchases and money drops of her ex-husband’s drug ring, as well as details of Maurice Moore’s involvement. But when she was given a polygraph test, she failed one aspect of it.

“Deception was detected over the amount of money [she said was] delivered to and from Deputy Chief Moore,” the LAPD report states. “With this exception, [her] statements were consistent with documents, timetables, arrests and statements of other subjects related to this investigation.”

Anna Moore and another onetime wife of Kevin Moore’s, Teresa Moore, “each separately cited numerous instances of Deputy Chief Moore delivering and retrieving large sums of money for Kevin,” according to the LAPD report. “Indeed, until 1997, much of the money was delivered to and stored at the house of Deputy Chief Moore’s ex-wife Donna Moore.”

Donna Moore could not be reached for comment Thursday.

According to a letter from the FBI to the LAPD, Anna Moore told federal agents that Maurice Moore collected a total of about $1.9 million in illegal drug proceeds from cocaine customers who owed Kevin Moore. In addition to collecting drug money, the LAPD report alleges that Maurice Moore helped launder it, investing it in legitimate enterprises.

According to Anna Moore, Maurice Moore provided $200,000 of alleged drug money for a down payment on a four-bedroom house with a swimming pool she purchased in Cheviot Hills. The property was later deeded to Maurice Moore in 1992. Years later, when Kevin Moore entered a plea deal in connection with his drug-trafficking case, he listed the property--still under his father’s name--as his personal asset.

Another property under Maurice Moore’s name, but listed by Kevin Moore as his own, was an apartment complex in Los Angeles. According to the LAPD, Maurice Moore received $90,000 from Anna Moore for the down payment. Maurice Moore later put up the property as collateral for a bond to get Anna Moore and her sister out of jail when they were indicted on money wire fraud charges, according to documents.

At the end of LAPD report, then Cmdr. Lorenzen noted his concern that action was not taken against Maurice Moore several years ago, thus allowing him to continue serving as a deputy chief for several years before his retirement.

“Unfortunately for the department, we may never know if Deputy Chief Moore’s association with his son tainted his on-duty activities,” Lorenzen stated. “We certainly know now that the case was managed poorly from the beginning. Better decisions could have been made regarding this case.”