PEREZ ERRORS RAISE QUESTIONS ON CREDIBILITY

The credibility of ex-officer Rafael Perez, the main informant in the Los
Angeles Police Department's corruption scandal, has been further undermined
by his testimony in several internal affairs investigations in which three
officers accused of crimes or misconduct were found not guilty or the
charges were dropped.

"Perez has not shown himself to be a credible witness," said Capt. Roger K.
Coombs, who presided over a disciplinary hearing this week in which Perez
alleged that two former partners helped him frame a suspect on drug and gun
charges.

"No corroboration was given by any of the witnesses to support Perez's
version of the events," added Coombs in a ruling exonerating Officers Doyle
Stepp and Omar Veloz, two men who remain under scrutiny in connection with
other alleged crimes and misconduct.

In another LAPD discipline case, Perez accused former anti-gang Officer
Kulin Patel of attending an on-duty party at which officers drank alcohol.
That case fell apart, Patel's lawyer said, when he produced documents and
photographs directly refuting Perez's claim.

The recent cases raise questions about whether Perez--who is being asked to
recall the details of literally hundreds of arrests, many of them years
old--is making innocent mistakes or intentionally lying. The issue of his
credibility is particularly critical in those cases of alleged police
criminality in which investigators have not found other witnesses to
corroborate Perez's allegations.

Lawyers for officers caught up in the ongoing corruption scandal are seizing
on Perez's recent testimony as evidence that he is not a reliable witness.

But prosecutors say they believe Perez is truthful about widespread
corruption in the LAPD. They say his mistakes on details are inevitable, a
position echoed by his own attorney.

"All this proves is that he is human," said Perez's lawyer, Winston Kevin
McKesson.

Within the LAPD, opinion about the onetime anti-gang officer is divided.
Some investigators referred to Perez as a liar, even as they served search
warrants on officers last week in an effort to build criminal cases based on
Perez claims, sources said. Chief Bernard C. Parks has accused Perez of not
being completely truthful about his association with another corrupt LAPD
officer, David A. Mack, who is serving a 14-year prison sentence for robbing
a bank.

Perez, a convicted drug thief who is cooperating with authorities, has
implicated dozens of LAPD officers in a host of alleged crimes and cases of
misconduct. As a result of his information, more than 70 criminal
convictions already have been overturned.

Whether intentional or not, Perez's unreliable testimony in LAPD
disciplinary matters could undermine his usefulness as a witness in far more
serious criminal proceedings against officers.

"Certainly, any time Perez's testimony is impeached, that's a problem," said
one source close to the investigation.

Perez's statements about himself further tarnish his credibility. At a
recent LAPD disciplinary board, Perez testified that he has perjured himself
at least 100 times in court, has written more than 100 false reports and
stolen up to $80,000 from people he arrested.

Attorneys for suspended LAPD officers note that Perez has failed a polygraph
test on allegations he made about corrupt officers.

Prosecutors and corruption task force detectives, however, have not given
much weight to those test results, saying that they have independent
corroboration supporting many of Perez's allegations. A nationally known
polygraph examiner hired by Perez's attorney also dismissed the test, saying
it was so poorly administered that the results were irrelevant.

In one of the recent cases, Veloz and Stepp were sent to appear before a
so-called Board of Rights because Perez said they helped him frame a man on
gun and drug charges on April 5, 1997. During the hearing, however, three
civilian witnesses disputed Perez's testimony, and said Veloz and Stepp were
not involved. The board unanimously found the officers not guilty of the
offense.

"I feel relieved," Veloz said Friday about the ruling. "This guy [Perez] is
a liar and a crook and he tried to put stuff on us for his plea bargain."

Lawrence J. Hanna, Veloz's attorney, said he plans to write a letter to the
district attorney and grand jury, requesting that Perez be prosecuted for
perjury.

McKesson, Perez's attorney, said he was not surprised that LAPD captains
sitting in judgment on a Board of Rights would find Perez's testimony
unbelievable:

"The fact that police officers who may not like the fact that corruption is
being exposed chose to find their brother officers not guilty is irrelevant
to me."

Like Stepp and Veloz, Officer Patel says he is a victim of Perez's erroneous
recollections.

According to Perez, Patel was among at least seven on-duty uniformed
officers who attended a so-called "cup party" in 1998 at the Los Angeles
Police Academy.

In a Nov. 22, 1999, interview with investigators, Perez said numerous
officers drank from a mug containing a mixture of Jack Daniel's whiskey and
beer as they toasted an officer who was transferring out of the anti-gang
squad--a Rampart CRASH unit tradition.

Perez told investigators he remembered Patel's being at the party, but that
he was not drinking.

Based on Perez's account, the department filed internal charges against
Patel on March 8, alleging that he had failed to report misconduct that
occurred at the party.

Mark MacCarley, Patel's attorney, said the officer was ordered before a
Board of Rights, the equivalent of a trial within the LAPD. But when he
produced ticket stubs and photographs showing that he and his family were at
Disneyland on March 11, 1998--the day in question--the proceeding was
promptly canceled.

MacCarley said LAPD investigators should have been skeptical of Perez's
claim long before they saw the Disneyland tickets. He said the department's
own documents clearly show that Patel was on vacation.

"How likely is it that this officer, on his day off, would have put on his
uniform to go attend a party," MacCarley said. "It infuriates me that they
filed this thing in the first place."

MacCarley said he is confident that a far more serious allegation by
Perez--that Patel shot an unarmed man and that he and other officers helped
cover it up--will be similarly disproved.

"Perez has already made misrepresentations that could have cost Officer
Patel his job," he said. "These other allegations, which have resulted in
intense scrutiny by the district attorney, are also false."

McKesson said that even if Perez was mistaken about Patel's attending the
party, his testimony about the event was substantially correct.

"There was a party. There was drinking by officers who were on duty. He
wasn't making this up," McKesson said.

In fact, sources said, numerous officers were found guilty of attending the
party and drinking on duty, with some receiving 22-day unpaid suspensions as
a result.

Some district attorney sources attribute the botched disciplinary
proceedings more to shoddy detective work than to Perez's testimony.

Most LAPD officers, however, were more focused on what was wrong with
Perez's testimony concerning misconduct than what was right with it.

"This just proves what we've maintained from the very beginning," said Ted
Hunt, president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League. "It's
ridiculous to grant this guy the credibility he's been granted when we know
what he is: a liar-thief-dope dealer."