DEPUTY IS FOUND NOT GUILTY OF FAKING DRUG CASE

The 14-year veteran had been charged with filing a false report, perjury
and false imprisonment.

A Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy was acquitted Tuesday of charges that
he fabricated a drug case against a Compton man, who was later wrongly
imprisoned.

Sean Patrick O'Donoghue, 36, was found not guilty of seven charges of
filing a false police report, perjury and false imprisonment. Both a fellow
deputy and an informant in the drug case testified against O'Donoghue, who
did not take the witness stand.

"The facts presented in the case were that there was no evidence to support
the D.A. at all," O'Donoghue said, surrounded by family and friends after
the verdict.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Dan Baker declined to comment.

"We're disappointed in the verdict," said Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for
Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley. "We felt that we presented the
best case that we could. We felt the evidence was sufficient. The jury didn't."

The jury deliberated for four days after hearing four days of testimony.

"There was a lot of interesting evidence being introduced, but the district
attorney didn't prove any of the actual charges against him," said juror
Erik Fleming.

Vicki Podberesky, O'Donoghue's attorney, described her client as "a real
hard-working deputy."

"It's been tremendously stressful for him and financially ruinous for his
family," she said. "He just wants to get back to work."

O'Donoghue, a 14-year veteran with 10 commendations, was suspended without
pay in April.

He was accused of covering up for a female informant who had tossed a bag
of drugs onto a rooftop while he and several deputies conducted a drug
raid. The crimes were punishable by three years and eight months in prison.

Led by O'Donoghue, deputies on June 26, 2001, raided two residences in the
12800 block of Harris Avenue.

Leticia Villa, an informant for O'Donoghue, testified that she tossed a
plastic bag containing rock cocaine, heroin and powder cocaine onto the
roof of one of the homes in a panic.

Villa testified in May before a grand jury that O'Donoghue asked her to
ensure that drugs would be present during the raid, which was aimed at
arresting a drug dealer who lived there.

O'Donoghue's police report indicated that Reyes Cardenas, a resident of the
house, had thrown the bag of drugs. Prosecutors argued that O'Donoghue
falsified the report and knew that it was Villa, not Cardenas, who
discarded the drugs.

Podberesky argued that Villa and Cardenas both tossed drugs during the
raid, but that O'Donoghue did not see Villa and therefore did not arrest
her or put the incident into his report.

Podberesky said jurors didn't believe that O'Donoghue understood during the
confusion of that raid what Deputy April Carter testified: that she told
O'Donoghue she had witnessed Villa's actions.

Cardenas was arrested and pleaded no contest to possession of heroin. He
was sentenced to four years in prison but was released last May after
prosecutors dismissed his case following a sheriff's investigation.

The Sheriff's Department began an inquiry after a woman living in one of
the raided homes asked about $3,000 she said was in a backpack that had
been confiscated during the raid.