JUDGE REDUCES SENTENCE FOR DRUG DEALER BECAUSE OFFICER LIED

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A judge cut three years from a drug dealer's prison
sentence Thursday because a corrupt policeman lied in the case.

Carlos Romero, 25, had his sentence reduced from nine years to six by
Superior Court Judge Michael Tynan.

Romero may have to serve only half of that sentence because his felony was
not violent, and with time served he could be freed in 18 months, said
Sandi Gibbons, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney's
office.

Romero was convicted of cocaine possession in 1998. Three years were added
to the sentence because he pleaded guilty a year earlier to possession of
cocaine base for sale.

The October 1997 conviction was dismissed last year when former Los Angeles
police Officer Rafael Perez told investigators he provided a false police
report and lied in court.

"Well, he was happy in the sense that he is going to be doing three years
less than he was originally sentenced to," Romero's attorney, Vincent
Oliver, said outside court. "But he still contends that there were problems
with his first case and that he was, in fact, innocent."

Perez told police corruption investigators that in the 1997 case, he and
his former partner seized drugs from Romero's home without a search warrant
while Romero was away.

"He tells me he had no knowledge of those narcotics. They weren't his,"
Oliver said of his client.

Perez pleaded guilty to stealing cocaine from an police evidence locker and
agreed to help in a corruption probe in return for leniency.

Perez has alleged that current and former officers from the Rampart station
framed and shot suspects, stole drugs and covered up a wide range of
misconduct.

The probe has led to the release of four people from prison, the
overturning of several other convictions and the removal of a dozen
officers from active duty.