LAPD DID REFER 1 CASE, D.A.'S OFFICE NOW SAYS

[]Probe: Officials concede that criminal charges were sought by the police
department against one of two officers in corruption investigation. Initial
information, from prosecutors in response to Times inquiry, was in error.

The Los Angeles County district attorney's office said Friday that it erred
this week when it told The Times that the Los Angeles Police Department had
never asked prosecutors to file criminal cases against one of two officers,
both of whom ultimately were fired for drug-related corruption and other
misconduct.

In the case of the other officer, both the police department and the
district attorney now agree that no charges were requested by the
department. The police say they refrained from seeking charges on the advice
of a prosecutor.

Both officers, Mark Haro and Gustavo Raya, were found guilty by the
department of drug violations, and Raya faced an allegation of domestic
abuse.

The initial statement by the D.A.'s office, made in response to an inquiry
by Times reporters, was a key element in a story in the newspaper Thursday.
The story said that the two officers' cases "were never turned over to the
district attorney for criminal prosecution."

The story prompted an angry response from Mayor Richard Riordan and the
police department. It came amid intense negotiations between the city and
the federal government over handling of alleged civil rights abuses by the
LAPD, with the federal government questioning whether the department can
police itself.

The prosecutor's admission of error followed the expressions of outrage by
LAPD officials and Mayor Riordan after publication in The Times Thursday of
an article reporting that although Haro and Raya "were forced to leave the
LAPD . . . their cases were never turned over to the district attorney for
criminal prosecution."

Cmdr. David J. Kalish, LAPD's official spokesman, said LAPD officials were
frustrated because they believe they handled the cases correctly at every
turn. Officers refused to honor the so-called "code of silence," and
provided information against one another. Investigators then worked with
prosecutors to develop criminal cases and, when they were advised against
that course, the department fired the officers for their misconduct, Kalish
said. "The department, it would seem, did everything right," Kalish said.
"The frustrating part is that we're being taken to task for it."

On Friday, The Times obtained access to documents and investigatory logs
compiled by LAPD's Internal Affairs Division during its extensive
investigation of the numerous allegations lodged against both Haro and Raya.
The narrative log of the investigation into Raya's case records that on Oct.
1, 1997, investigators "took case for filing to [Deputy Dist. Atty. Marlene]
Sanchez and she will fax a reject" to department officials.

The LAPD was not able to find its copy of that rejection of the case for
prosecution. However, in response to inquiries from The Times, Sanchez
located a duplicate of the letter in her files.

In that document, the prosecutor--a domestic violence specialist--reported
that despite a "thorough investigation by [LAPD's] Internal Affairs"
Division, she could not recommend Raya's prosecution for allegedly menacing
his wife with a loaded gun because the woman would not cooperate. Sanchez
also wrote that "there are numerous drug allegations [against Raya], which
IA [police Internal Affairs] will be handling."

Based on the letter's discovery, Victoria B. Pipkin, the district attorney's
spokeswoman, said Friday that "Our family violence division was in error
when it previously reported having no records concerning Officer Raya."
Although the district attorney declined to prosecute the domestic abuse
charge, the office continues to insist it was not asked to pursue the drug
charges.

"The bottom line is that the Los Angeles Police Department never presented
to the district attorney's office any drug misconduct case involving Officer
Raya or Officer Haro," Pipkin said.

Cmdr. James S. McMurray, who heads LAPD's Internal Affairs unit, defended
the actions of his detectives. "Clearly, Internal Affairs did its job in
these cases, as the D.A.'s rejection of prosecution in the Raya case clearly
indicates," McMurray said.

In an interview Friday, however, Sanchez partially disputed that appraisal.

"I rejected the domestic violence aspects of the case," she said, "but there
also were numerous allegations of drug abuse violations against this
officer. I made it very clear to [the detective involved] that I am not
responsible for handling anything but domestic violence and that other
allegations of misconduct had to go to our Special Investigations Division,
and I noted that in my rejection. I expected them to follow up on the drug
stuff and I assumed they would with the appropriate division in the D.A.'s
office."

LAPD's McMurray responded that he found Sanchez's explanation unconvincing,
and alluded to the ongoing conflict between his department and incumbent
Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti, who is facing an uphill fight for reelection in
November.

"That is not what the reject letter says," he said. "I sympathize with her
because she has a boss who is floundering for his political life. She's
caught between a rock and a very hard spot. But, as investigators, we take a
case to the division of the D.A.'s office where the case is the strongest.
In this particular case, domestic violence was the strongest issue. We don't
go from one D.A. to another."

To McMurray, the choice of words in Sanchez's letter also was significant.
"'Allegations' is an LAPD internal word for misconduct, not a D.A. word for
violation of the law," he said. "That sentence signified to us that the
prosecutor acknowledged that internal discipline, not criminal prosecution,
was the only course open to us in this case."

In the other case, Haro--a Central Division training officer--resigned after
an LAPD disciplinary panel found him guilty of possessing illegal drugs,
paying a street informant with crack cocaine and pressuring one of his
rookie trainees to falsify an arrest report.

According to a brief notation in the log documenting Internal Affairs'
investigation of that case, detectives at one point placed a telephone call
to Deputy Dist. Atty. Curt Hazel, a specialist in narcotics prosecutions.
One of the investigators involved--whose identity the LAPD asked The Times
to withhold for security reasons--said in an interview Friday that Hazel
advised the department that a sting operation would be required to ensure a
successful criminal prosecution of Haro. The sting failed, however, when
Haro discovered an informant was wearing an electronic listening device.

As a consequence of that failure and Hazel's advice, the investigator told
The Times, LAPD did not seek a criminal prosecution.

Friday, Hazel said he did not remember the call, saying he receives numerous
such requests for quick advice from LAPD investigators.

"I wear a beeper 24 hours a day," he said. "But in the context of those
calls I wouldn't have been given names or dates and certainly never a
presentation for filing or rejection of criminal charges."

Prosecutor, LAPD Commander Disagree

Asked whether the advice he offers in such instances might lead
investigators to believe a criminal prosecution was out of the question,
Hazel said, "Of course not. If a person is involved in an ongoing pattern of
narcotics violations . . . there always will be other opportunities to make
a case against them. Anybody who has worked these cases knows that. It was a
decision made by LAPD. They never reported or presented a criminal case to
me."

LAPD's McMurray took issue with Hazel's characterization.

"We did not refer a case to Curt Hazel," the commander said. "We sought his
advice and when the sting we discussed with him failed, our understanding
based on that advice was that no referral for successful criminal
prosecution was possible, so we proceeded with internal discipline.

"Since November of 1998," McMurray added, "We have had a policy developed at
the district attorney's request that we exercise this kind of discretion."

Riordan was incensed by the controversy and its potential implications for
negotiations between the city and federal government over alleged civil
rights abuses by the LAPD. In a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice's
acting Civil Rights Division chief, Bill Lann Lee, the mayor dismissed the
contention that LAPD in any way mishandled the cases against the two
officers--and denounced The Times' account of those cases as misleading.
Riordan called the article "grossly inaccurate and irresponsible."

The paper, Riordan wrote, "erroneously reported that two police officers
accused of corruption were not prosecuted because, according to The Times,
the LAPD did not inform the district attorney of the misconduct."

In fact, the story charged that no formal presentation of the drug charges
against the officers ever was made to the district attorney, an allegation
that the district attorney's office continued to make on Friday. The story
also said that officials in the district attorney's office insisted that the
LAPD "did not refer either case to prosecutors for possible criminal
charges."

That statement, as the district attorney's spokeswoman acknowledged Friday,
was in error.

Riordan also took the paper to task for what he considered its hasty
publication of the article. In his letter, Riordan stated that despite
requests that the reporters hold off, "The Times decided to publish their
story the next day."

In fact, LAPD officials were first notified about the story on Tuesday and
it was not published until Thursday. Still, city officials in the mayor's
office and the LAPD argued that that was not enough time to fully research
the issue, because it involved cases that were concluded and several years
old.

Throughout his letter, Riordan urged Lee not to conclude that the city or
its police department lacked the determination to crack down on abusive
officers.

"It is imperative that there be no question in your mind or your associates
about the department's resolve to bringing corrupt officers to justice,"
Riordan wrote.