LAPD SCANDAL SENTENCING EXPECTED

LOS ANGELES - The disgraced officer who blew the whistle on one
of the worst police scandals in the city' s history faced a five-year
prison sentence for stealing cocaine.

Rafael Perez was scheduled to be sentenced today in Los Angeles County
Superior Court under a plea bargain that grants him immunity for other
crimes he has admitted to investigators, said District Attorney
spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons.

Perez was arrested in August 1998 for investigation of stealing eight
pounds of cocaine from an evidence room. Seeking leniency, he began
telling investigators about alleged misconduct among fellow officers,
contending they beat, framed, stole from and shot innocent people in
the city' s crime-ridden Rampart area, near downtown.

Twenty officers have been relieved of duty and 40 tainted convictions
have been overturned since Perez began talking. Several hundred more
cases are under review. The FBI and U.S. Attorney' s office have
recently joined the Los Angeles Police Department in investigating the
scandal.

Perez' s first trial in December 1998 ended in a hung jury. Last
September, he pleaded guilty to eight counts of theft and drug
possession. He could have faced up to 14 years in prison.

" I believe firmly that we had a good chance of acquittal, " said his
attorney, Winston Kevin McKesson. " He made some mistakes. He' s
accepting responsibility for those mistakes."

The arrangement was necessary to reveal the scandal, Gibbons
said.

" He was the one, " she said. " Nobody knew about this other stuff
until Perez started talking."