JUDGE OVERTURNS 7 MORE TAINTED CONVICTIONS

*Police: Action increases the number of cases thrown out in scandal to 67.
Officers testify before grand jury.

As yet more Los Angeles police officers testified before a criminal grand
jury probing corruption in the LAPD, a judge on Thursday overturned the
convictions of seven more people whose cases had been tainted by alleged
police misconduct.

The action by Superior Court Judge Larry P. Fidler brings the number of
cases thrown out in the worst police corruption scandal in city history to 67.

The number of witnesses being called before the grand jury has increased in
recent weeks, as prosecutors race against statutory deadlines on some of
the crimes allegedly committed by LAPD officers.

Officers on Thursday were questioned about their knowledge of an April 1996
arrest by Officers Brian Liddy and Paul Harper, who sources say will soon
be charged with perjury and falsifying police reports. Allan Lobos, the man
they arrested and who was later convicted, was allegedly framed on a gun
possession charge.

The cases dismissed by Fidler on Thursday all involved former LAPD Officer
Rafael Perez, the central figure in the expanding corruption investigation.

Like many of those previously overturned, six of the seven involved alleged
drug plants. The seventh involved an allegedly trumped up weapons charge,
authorities said.

"We are committed to getting to the bottom of the Rampart scandal, and our
priorities remain the same: to free anyone who is wrongfully imprisoned and
to put together cases that will lead to the successful prosecution of
corrupt police officers," Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti said in a prepared
statement.

"State prison sentences for police officers who were involved in the
Rampart scandal is the real deterrent to misconduct," the county's top
prosecutor added.

The corruption scandal became public in September when Perez entered into a
plea deal with prosecutors in which he agreed to help ferret out fellow
dirty cops in exchange for a lighter sentence on charges that he had stolen
six pounds of cocaine from the LAPD.

Perez first told investigators that he and his then-partner shot an unarmed
19-year-old man, then planted a gun on the man to cover their tracks. Perez
said he and his partner then testified in court that the man had attacked
them, helping to send him to prison for 23 years.

Perez, a former anti-gang CRASH officer in the Rampart Division, has since
implicated dozens of officers in crimes ranging from beatings and frame-ups
to unjustified shootings.

To date, at least 30 Los Angeles police officers, including three
sergeants, have been relieved of duty, have quit or have been fired in
connection with the ongoing probe. About 70 are under investigation on
suspicion that they were guilty of crimes or misconduct or knew about such
activities and helped to cover them up.

The defendants whose convictions were overturned Thursday are:

* Gregorio Vasquez and Monique Therese Cottalorda, convicted of heroin
possession in October 1997.

* Rene Mationg, convicted in June 1998 on a weapons possession charge.

* Samuel Nolasco and Maria Virula, convicted in June 1997 of possessing
crack cocaine.

* Carlos Romero, convicted in January 1996 of possessing crack cocaine.

* Rene Vriones, convicted in 1996 of possessing crack cocaine.