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Judge favors rule requiring police to disclose finances

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Times Staff Writer

Police union leaders opposed to a new rule that would require some police officers to disclose details of their personal finances were dealt a setback in a federal courtroom Tuesday.

But although U.S. District Court Judge Gary A. Feess said he leaned toward allowing the Los Angeles Police Department to require disclosure of officers’ investments and debts, he postponed a final decision, denying the city full victory.

The new requirement is aimed chiefly at anti-gang and narcotics officers and is designed to prevent corruption.

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But it has proved to be one of the most controversial police reforms of recent years. Leaders of the Protective League, the police union, have denounced the rule as undue meddling. Some officers have shifted into new assignments to avoid complying.

Opponents won a temporary court injunction to stop the rule a month ago, arguing it threatened officers’ privacy rights. But on Tuesday, Feess said he did not view a further injunction favorably. He said the rule did not unfairly intrude on privacy when weighed against the public interest in rooting out corruption.

Feess told the lawyers that if he denied the union’s request for a preliminary injunction against implementing the policy, he would grant a temporary stay to let the parties appeal his decision to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Feess said Rampart corruption scandal cases he presided over had demonstrated to him a relationship between money and corruption. The judge called the request for financial disclosure “not something one can describe as a serious invasion.”

The disclosure policy is required by a federal consent decree -- a slate of mandated reforms that the Police Department has been rolling out over many years. Feess oversees that decree.

The rule would apply to at least 600 officers, most of whom work in anti-gang and narcotics units. These officers would be required every two years to give department officials documents on outside income, real estate holdings, stocks and other assets and debts. They also would have to reveal the size of their bank accounts.

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Officers already assigned to the units would get a two-year grace period before having to fulfill the requirements.

Feess seemed to agree with the city’s argument that requiring disclosure of officials with badges and guns is reasonable -- especially since the rule included a grace period and applied only to officers who had volunteered for their assignments. The department already gathers financial information from new recruits. Feess dismissed arguments that the disclosures would make officers vulnerable to identity theft as “totally uncompelling.”

Richard Levine, a police union attorney, asked Feess to reconsider. He also asked how the city would protect the records from court discovery or misuse by managers.

Deputy City Atty. Beth Orellana said financial records would be scanned, saved on a computer disk and stored in a safe in LAPD Chief William J. Bratton’s office.

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richard.winton@latimes.com

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