VETERAN NARC WHO STOLE DRUGS FROM LAPD BROUGHT SCANDAL TO LIGHT

LOS ANGELES - The scandal that rocked the Los Angeles Police
Department this week with tales of drug thefts, shootings of innocent
victims and the framing of suspects was broken open when a
cop-turned-drug thief decided to turn snitch as well.

Former Officer Rafael Perez, who pleaded guilty Sept. 8 to stealing $1
million worth of cocaine, has been cooperating with investigators
under terms of a plea bargain. He is in jail pending an Oct. 22 sentencing.

So far, investigators say, the former undercover narcotics officer has
told of handcuffing and shooting a man, planting evidence, lying in
court, and witnessing still other police abuses during a raid in which
one person was shot to death and another wounded.

His information has resulted in one gang member who was serving a
23-year sentence for assault on a police officer being freed from
prison Thursday and placed under police protection. Authorities say
Javier Francisco Ovando, who was paralyzed after being shot during the
October 1996 confrontation with Perez and his partner, is also
cooperating with their investigation.

Another case, in which one man was shot to death and one wounded
during a police raid, is being investigated, and 10 officers and a
supervisor who worked at the department's Rampart station have been
suspended with pay.

Officers at the station, just west of downtown, police an
8-square-mile neighborhood containing one of the city's largest
immigrant communities.

Asked if the scandal could broaden, officials said it's too early to
tell.

"At this point, I don't think any of us know," Police Commission
President Gerald Chaleff said Friday.

But Police Chief Bernard Parks said more than 200 letters have been
sent to defense attorneys, telling them evidence in cases Perez was
involved in may have been tainted.

The letters went out a year ago, when Perez was initially arrested,
district attorney's spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said. No one responded,
but she expects to hear from several attorneys now that Perez has been
convicted.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Attorney's Office announced this week that it
would conduct its own investigation. And attorneys for Ovando's
girlfriend said Friday they would sue the Police Department on behalf
of the couple's 2-year-old daughter, Destiny, who was born after
Ovando was sent to prison.

"Someone from the LAPD attempted to execute him, he's in a
wheelchair," attorney Gregory Smith said of Ovando. "Obviously his
daughter will never have a father who can play with her and pick her
up and dance with her when she gets older."

He didn't specify the amount of damages he would seek, but called it a
"large money case."

"It's a bad situation for the city and the department," Parks said of
what his investigators have called the worst scandal since the 1930s,
a time when the department was notorious for corruption and renegade
officers were known to sometimes bomb the homes of people who stood up
to them.

It began to come to light last year, when Perez, 32, was charged with
stealing eight pounds of cocaine from an evidence room.

He subsequently told investigators he and a former partner handcuffed
and shot Ovando, planted a gun on him and framed him with their
testimony in court.

Although a gang member, Ovando had no criminal convictions.

Investigators say Perez also told them a July 1996 raid he took part
in was "dirty."

Officers who arrived at a building planning to arrest two armed gang
members wound up firing 10 rounds, killing one man and wounding
another. The wounded man and another person who was not hurt were
charged with assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer.

As the allegations burst forth this week, police officials maintained
that the department has been relatively free of corruption for
decades, and attorneys for Ovando's family agreed that was true.

"There are many fine officers in the LAPD, I think we're looking at a
small minority here," said attorney Dennis Chang at a news conference
where the planned lawsuit was announced.

"But it is the LAPD that investigates the LAPD and it's the LAPD,
through its review board, that prosecutes the LAPD," he said.