FORMER NARCOTICS AGENT CONVICTED IN DRUG CASE

Crime: Jury deliberates less than two hours in retrial. Earlier, defendant
was nearly acquitted of the cocaine charges.

In a striking reversal, a Los Angeles federal jury Thursday swiftly
convicted former state narcotics agent Richard Wayne Parker of conspiracy
and selling cocaine--crimes of which he was nearly acquitted in June.

Both charges were related to Parker's alleged theft of 650 pounds of cocaine
from a Riverside evidence locker in July 1997. He was never charged with
that theft or caught with any cocaine.

The verdict Thursday was stunning for its speed: It took jurors less than
two hours to find Parker guilty.

In June, federal jurors deadlocked on the same drug trafficking and
conspiracy charges against Parker, 44. That jury voted 10 to 1 in favor of
acquittal.

Jurors in the second trial got the case Wednesday about 4 p.m., met for less
than an hour, then went home. On Thursday morning, they returned,
deliberated for less than an hour again, then told the judge they had a verdict.

This apparently left little time for jurors to review the hours of
testimony, reams of documents and hundreds of exhibits presented in the
eight-day retrial.

But jury foreman Roderick Blair said afterward that the strongest evidence
against Parker was the nearly $600,000 in cash that was found in his home
and garage.

Some of the money was bound in Hawaiian bank wrappers, which a low-level
drug dealer linked to Parker said he used to wrap cash payments for cocaine.

Jurors found the money wrappers especially convincing evidence, Blair said.

Parker's defense attorney, Richard A. Hamar, said he was "shocked and
disappointed" at the verdicts, "especially over how quickly they came back."

"If 12 people were going to find someone guilty beyond a reasonable doubt,
they should have had more to talk about," Hamar said.

"This jury was in a track meet to get out of there," he added.

But Assistant U.S. Atty. Beverly Reid O'Connell, the lead prosecutor in the
case, said she believed "justice was served."

Handed a setback in June, federal prosecutors regrouped and presented a
drastically pared-down case this time, O'Connell said.

As in the first trial, most of the prosecution's evidence was
circumstantial. Only the testimony of Parker's former girlfriend, Monica L.
Pitto, directly linked Parker to cocaine sales. Pitto, an admitted drug
dealer, named Parker as her cocaine source.

Defense lawyers argued that Pitto's testimony was not credible, and that she
had cut a deal with prosecutors and falsely accused Parker to reduce her own
sentence.

Jury foreman Blair said jurors knew Pitto's testimony was flawed but did not
entirely discount it.

"I think Pitto was trying to save her life, trying to reduce her sentence,"
Blair said. "I didn't believe her story was complete, but that didn't lead
to the fact that we weren't going to convict him."

Blair also said the fact that Parker was never caught with cocaine initially
bothered two of the jurors, who nevertheless ultimately voted to convict.

Parker, a 21-year law enforcement officer with no prior convictions, now
faces a sentence of 10 years to life. He is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 19.