DRUG CASE REOPENED DUE TO LAPD PROBE

Police: A Man Spent Five Years In Prison Based On The Testimony Of A Now
Tainted Officer.

LOS ANGELES - A federal magistrate agreed to reopen the case of a man who
says he was wrongfully convicted of selling cocaine after a former officer
at the center of the Los Angeles police scandal testified against him.

Esaw Booker was convicted in 1992 of drug possession for sale after the
testimony of Rafael Perez and two other police officers.

Perez, a former narcotics officer with the Los Angeles Police Department's
Rampart Division, has been convicted of stealing $1 million worth of
cocaine. In an effort to obtain a lighter sentence, he is cooperating with
authorities investigating alleged misconduct among Rampart officers.

Last month, Javier Francisco Ovando was released from prison after Perez
told investigators that he helped frame Ovando on an assault charge after a
fellow officer shot him in the head, paralyzing him from the waist down.

Booker has alleged for years that Perez falsely accused him of being
involved in a $20 crack cocaine transaction.

"No one would listen to me," said Booker, 54, after U.S. Magistrate Brian Q.
Robbins ordered a hearing to allow Booker's attorney to question Perez.

"I shouldn't even be on parole now," said Booker, who spent five years in
prison. "I'm happy to get an opportunity to get this all behind me. Five
years I spent in prison for something I didn't do."

Meanwhile, the Las Angeles Times, quoting unidentified sources, said Perez's
crimes and misconduct with the Police Department date back at least five
years and include the theft of several pounds of cocaine for which he was
never charged.

Perez stole about eight pounds of cocaine logged as evidence by fellow
officers, the Times said in today's editions.

The alleged thefts and subsequent sales may have gone on for years,
predating the thefts that occurred in the three months of 1998 to which
Perez has pleaded guilty, the newspaper said.

Attorney Winston Kevin McKesson, who represents Perez, said his client
denies engaging in crimes or misconduct before he began working at the
Rampart Division's anti-gang unit in 1994.