DETECTIVE LINKED TO COVERUP

Supervisor allegedly helped hide LAPD misconduct

Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES -- The Los Angeles Police Department supervisor whom a
prosecutor told of alleged perjury by then-officer Rafael Perez in 1997 was
among the detectives who conspired to cover up crimes in the troubled
Rampart Division, according to transcripts of Perez's subsequent
questioning.

The report was made more than a year before the officer-turned-informant was
arrested for stealing six pounds of cocaine. He since has been cooperating
with authorities to obtain a lesser sentence as part of a plea bargain.

Perez told LAPD investigators in November that detective Terry Wessel, who
in 1997 was one of his supervisors, and other anti-gang detectives were
aware of misconduct but looked the other way.

``These guys see every arrest we make . . . they go interview everybody that
we arrest,'' Perez told detectives on the Rampart corruption task force.
``If you ask me do they know, or did they know -- detective Wessel did, all
of them at Rampart detectives know what was going on? I would say yes.''

Wessel, who has since retired, could not be reached for comment.

If Perez's allegations against Wessel prove true, it could explain why the
prosecutor's expression of concern did not elicit any action by the LAPD.

Perez recalled an incident in which he alleged that Wessel directed him to
fabricate elements of a police report in a weapons case the two worked on
together. During a surveillance on the case, Perez said, an officer in an
LAPD helicopter observed the suspects load guns into the trunk of a car
before the suspects were arrested.

But Perez said Wessel told him to state that he had witnessed the activity
himself, so the case would have a better chance of producing a successful
prosecution.

Wessel is identified in internal district attorney's office documents
obtained by the Los Angeles Times as the LAPD supervisor who was notified
about possible ``credibility'' problems with Perez in June 1997, while Perez
was in the midst of a then-undetected crime spree in which he framed
suspects and stole drugs.

``Wessel from Rampart CRASH tells me (it is) fine to dismiss due (to)
officer credibility and also informs me that he knows of problems with
Perez,'' according to a handwritten note by Deputy District Attorney Michael
Kraut.

Until its contents were made public in the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday,
the so-called ``Kraut memo'' was cited by police officials and others as
evidence that the district attorney's office had botched an opportunity to
detect Perez's corrupt acts sooner because they failed to warn the LAPD.

Victoria Pipkin, a spokeswoman for District Attorney Gil Garcetti, said the
memo proves otherwise.

``This clearly shows that the LAPD knew what was going on,'' Pipkin said.