RACKETEER SUITS IN RAMPART OKD

Courts: Judge Rules That RICO Act May Be Used Against Police Department,
Which Could Add To The City's Financial Liability.

In a ruling that could markedly increase the city's financial exposure in
the Rampart police scandal, the federal judge presiding over all
Rampart-related civil suits has ruled that the Los Angeles Police
Department can be sued as a racketeering enterprise.

The ruling, for cases in which individuals say their rights were violated
by Rampart Division officers, marks the second time in seven months that a
federal judge has rebuffed efforts by the city attorney's office to dismiss
Rampart-related claims filed under the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and
Corrupt Organizations) Act.

U.S. District Judge Gary A. Feess' ruling is more significant than the one
issued by his colleague William J. Rea last August because Feess is
presiding over about 100 Rampart cases. He is also the judge overseeing the
consent decree between the city and the federal government, stemming from
the U.S. Justice Department's plans to sue the LAPD for a pattern or
practice of civil rights violations.

Legal experts said Feess' ruling takes the city into uncharted territory
because no police department or major police official has ever been held
liable under the RICO law.

Originally enacted to help ensnare mobsters, the law has been used over the
last three decades in a wide range of cases ranging from stock manipulation
to major health care fraud.

Feess' ruling, in a suit filed by Los Angeles resident D'Novel Hunter, was
hailed by his attorney Stephen Yagman, who has filed 23 cases seeking
damages as a result of allegedly illegal conduct by Rampart Division officers.

Hunter spent four years in prison on a drug conviction and charges in his
suit that he was framed by Rafael A. Perez, the former LAPD officer whose
allegations of rampant illegal action by officers is at the center of the
Rampart scandal. So far, abut 100 convictions have been overturned as a
result of the scandal, but Hunter's is not among them.

Feess' ruling "makes clear that there will be racketeering liability for
City Atty. Jimmy Hahn and his racketeer cohorts," Yagman said.

Thomas Hokinson, who heads the civil liability section of the city
attorney's office, took issue with Yagman's conclusion. He said that Feess'
ruling came only on a limited issue--whether Hunter's RICO claim should be
barred because of a 1994 U.S. Supreme Court decision that precludes federal
civil rights actions against law enforcement by a defendant whose
conviction had not been tossed out by a court.

Feess dismissed some of the counts in Hunter's suit--including a separate
claim under a federal civil rights law--but not the RICO claim. Feess said
that the 1994 ruling, Heck vs. Humphrey, was not a valid defense for the city.

The Heck case only addresses actions filed under the federal civil rights
law and "focuses on the interplay of that statute and the federal law on
overturning criminal convictions on constitutional grounds," Feess wrote in
his decision.

"Nowhere in the [Supreme Court] majority's opinion" in Heck "did the court
suggest that the rule applies more generally to . . . all civil actions
that might be filed by individuals with outstanding criminal convictions,"
Feess added.

In his ruling, Feess acknowledged that two other federal district judges,
including one in Northern California, had issued contrary rulings. But
Feess said that those judges had improperly extrapolated the breadth of the
Heck ruling.

Loyola law professor Laurie Levenson, a RICO expert, said Feess' action was
noteworthy. "If this were a judge who just wanted to kick the RICO
allegations in the Rampart cases, there was an avenue for him to do so,"
Levenson said. "These RICO allegations are not just a vehicle for a
defendant to collaterally attack his conviction but to deal with a broader
pattern of conduct by the LAPD."

USC law professor Erwin Chemerinsky, who did a special report on the
Rampart situation for the Police Protective League, called the ruling
important.

"The significance of this decision is [that] the court is saying the RICO
claim is not barred even when a civil rights action on the same facts would
be barred," Chemerinsky said. Nonetheless, he acknowledged that "there is
still a long road with many obstacles before the Rampart plaintiffs can
recover under RICO."

Hokinson said the city attorney's office would soon file another motion to
have the RICO claim dismissed on the grounds that the case does not involve
allegations properly brought under the RICO law.

Columbia University law professor John C. Coffee noted that to win monetary
awards under RICO, the plaintiffs will have to show that they have been
injured in their "business or property," unlike cases involving traditional
charges of excessive force in which damages can be awarded for brutality or
mental distress.

"That's not a problem," Yagman said. "Our claim is that our clients are
entitled to damages for lost wages while they were improperly imprisoned"
after being convicted on false charges.

For example, in the Hunter case, Yagman asserts, his client, 47, lost an
average of $43,000 a year in wages as a truck driver for the four years he
was improperly imprisoned. Those damages could be tripled under the RICO law.

Hunter, a Vietnam veteran with a drug record, was sentenced to five years
in prison in August 1992 after pleading guilty to one felony charge of
possessing cocaine for sale.

Hunter faced a longer stretch in prison if he risked going to trial.

Legal experts have estimated that the city ultimately could be liable for
more than $100 million in total damages as a result of the Rampart scandal.

The city attorney's office says 135 Rampart-related cases have been filed
against the city. The city has paid out $30.1 million in settlements,
according to figures provided by the office.

About 100 convictions have been overturned, mostly as a result of requests
to Superior Court judges by the district attorney's office. So far though,
Hunter's conviction is not among them.

About 70 LAPD officers have come under investigation for committing crimes
and misconduct in the Rampart scandal or failing to report them.

Eight LAPD officers have been criminally charged with corruption-related
offenses.

Most recently, Perez's onetime patrol partner, Nino Durden, pleaded guilty
in state and federal courts to a host of crimes, including the shooting of
an unarmed man who was then framed for assaulting police.

Last month, an officer pleaded no contest to assault in a 1998 beating,
while another pleaded no contest to filing a false police report. A third
officer has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.