3 EX-RAMPART OFFICERS TURN THEMSELVES IN

Two Los Angeles police sergeants and an officer surrendered to authorities
Monday to face charges that they conspired to frame an innocent man on a gun
charge four years ago.

In the first criminal charges to arise out of the LAPD's ongoing corruption
probe, county prosecutors filed a four-count criminal complaint against
Sgts. Edward Ortiz and Brian Liddy and Officer Paul Harper, all of whom once
worked in the department's troubled Rampart Division. Each posted $75,000
bail and was released Monday night.

The charges against the officers include conspiracy, perjury and falsifying
a police report.

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti said the three officers arrested
Allan Lobos, an 18th Street gang member, in April 1996 on evidence that was
"completely fabricated." As a result, Lobos was sentenced to serve one year
in jail.

"The complaint alleges that Mr. Lobos was framed by corrupt LAPD officers,"
Garcetti said at a news conference in which he announced the filing. "There
can be no excuse for intentional crimes committed by police officers."

Garcetti said the charges mark a milestone in the investigation, which was
launched last September, when former LAPD anti-gang Officer Rafael Perez
began cooperating with authorities and identifying allegedly corrupt
officers in exchange for a lighter sentence on a cocaine theft conviction.

LAPD Chief Bernard C. Parks, who has publicly and repeatedly criticized
Garcetti for being too slow to prosecute allegedly corrupt officers,
declined to attend the news conference with the district attorney, citing a
scheduling conflict.

The charges against Liddy, Harper and Ortiz were filed just two days before
the statute of limitations on their alleged crimes would have expired.

"Obviously we are focusing on those cases where the statute of limitations
may run," said Garcetti, noting that he expects filings against other
officers in the near future.

Over the weekend, district attorney's investigators secretly monitored the
three officers' homes to ensure that they did not attempt to flee, a source
said. District attorney's officials wanted the LAPD to arrest the three,
rather than give them an opportunity to surrender.

LAPD officials, however, decided against that plan and after hours of
negotiations, arranged for the officers to turn themselves in at Los Angeles
County sheriff's stations near their homes.

Cmdr. David J. Kalish, the department's spokesman, said that such an
accommodation was standard procedure in cases in which the department sees
no risk that a person might flee.

"No one went out of their way to provide any special treatment for these
officers concerning their booking," Kalish said.

D.A., Police Still at Odds

When asked why Perez, the man at the center of the scandal, was arrested in
August 1998 and not given an opportunity to surrender, Kalish responded:
"Those were different circumstances." He noted that the U.S. attorney
allowed two officers to surrender themselves earlier this month, when they
were indicted on charges of framing a man in a case unrelated to the Rampart
scandal.

Those explanations did not satisfy several district attorney's officials,
including one who said she was surprised by the department's position.

"We were expecting the officers to be arrested like any other corrupt
person," said Victoria Pipkin, a district attorney's spokeswoman. "Public
confidence in the criminal justice system would certainly be restored if
they saw the officer being treated like anybody else who committed a crime."

Sources close to the probe say that LAPD and district attorney's officials
remain at odds over how best to proceed with the investigation.

In fact, hours before the filing Monday some detectives on the LAPD's task
force expressed reservations about the evidence in the case, a source said.
At the meeting, however, Dan Murphy, the top prosecutor on the probe, asked
LAPD investigators whether any of them felt that Liddy, Harper and Ortiz
were innocent of the charges, the source said. None of the detectives
responded that they did.

Internal Affairs Found Evidence

Detectives were first told during an October interview with Perez that the
Lobos arrest allegedly was fabricated.

Originally, LAPD investigators determined that the Lobos incident probably
was not something that would result in a criminal filing against officers
and referred the case to internal affairs, sources said. Internal affairs
investigators, however, uncovered sufficient evidence for a criminal filing,
sources said.

Kalish, the LAPD spokesman, said the department is pleased that charges have
been filed against the officers and hopes that other corrupt officers soon
will face prosecution.

Harper's attorney said his client looks forward to his day in court.

"He's anxious to be able to clear his name," said attorney Joel R. Isaacson.
"This has really been a shocking and crushing experience, and he feels
terrible about this."

Ortiz's attorney declined comment, and Liddy's attorney didn't return phone
calls.

The charges against Ortiz, Liddy and Harper stem from the April 26, 1996,
arrest of Lobos at a party being thrown by 18th Street gang members in the
400 block of South Hartford Avenue.

Liddy and Harper were partners that night.

Ortiz was a supervisor at the scene and approved Lobos' arrest. Liddy
claimed in his report that he saw Lobos hide a handgun in the wheel well of
a car as Lobos and other gang members fled from police.

Liddy wrote that he told Perez--the ex-officer now at the center of the
Rampart scandal--where to recover the weapon and that Perez found the gun.

Lobos was arrested and charged with being a felon in possession of a weapon.
He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to one year in jail and three years'
probation.

He now is serving a state prison sentence on an unrelated murder conviction.

Perez has since told investigators on the department's corruption task force
that Lobos was framed on the gun charge.

Perez said that it was a patrol officer who discovered the weapon and that
there was no evidence linking the gun to Lobos. Lobos, who was interviewed
by task force detectives last December, denied having a gun on the night he
was arrested.

He said he was taken to the station and questioned extensively. Lobos
claimed he said he did not know who owned the gun, and Liddy rubbed it
against his fingers and told him he was going to jail.

Garcetti declined to discuss evidence in the case Monday. But according to
sources familiar with the investigation, prosecutors have tape-recordings of
police communications the night Lobos was arrested that contradict key
elements of Liddy's report.

Perez implicated Harper, 33, Liddy, 38, and Ortiz, 43, in an array of crimes
and misconduct, according to transcripts of interviews with the former
officer obtained by The Times. Perez said all three officers were "in the
loop" of rogue cops at the Rampart Division who conspired to frame and beat
suspects and even cover up unjustified shootings.

An LAPD official once described Ortiz as "quarterbacking" the cleanup of
improper shootings by officers he supervised in Rampart's anti-gang CRASH
unit.

All three officers have been relieved of duty in the wake of the Rampart
probe.

Monday's charges were not the first faced by Liddy. He was arrested and
charged with rape in 1988 while working as a police officer in Connecticut,
according to reports in the Advocate of Stamford, Conn. Liddy, after being
suspended without pay from the Norwalk, Conn., Police Department for eight
months, was acquitted of the charge at trial, the newspaper reported.

To date, at least 30 LAPD officers, including four sergeants, have been
relieved of duty, suspended or fired or have quit in connection with the
department's ongoing probe.

In addition, at least 67 criminal convictions have been overturned as a
result of alleged officer misconduct.