Criminal
Aug. 3, 2002
Lawyer Probing Rampart Requests Transcripts
LOS ANGELES - Frustrated by her inability to penetrate the Los Angeles Police Department, a lawyer investigating the Rampart scandal has asked a Superior Court judge to force the release of transcripts from a civil grand jury whose investigation of the massive police corruption case remains secret.
Lawyer Gigi Gordon, who runs the Post Conviction Assistance Center in Culver City, was asked by the court in February 2000 to investigate convictions that may need to be set aside because of acts of misconduct by Rampart-tainted officers.
The work has been frustrated by the "endless" discovery proceedings because the LAPD is unwilling or unable to turn over evidence related to Rampart, said Gordon, in turning to the grand jury transcripts for information.
"Despite all the sensationalism over the 'Rampart scandal,' the public and individuals harmed by misconduct know very little about what happened or why," Gordon wrote in a brief to Judge David S. Wesley.
Wesley has scheduled a hearing on the matter for next Thursday.
Gordon's request is the latest chapter in a tragicomic investigation that included a prolonged fight with District Attorney Steve Cooley, the theft of the official transcripts from the grand jury chambers and a stalking accusation against one of the panel members.
For three weeks in February, the Los Angeles civil county grand jury, at the behest of Cooley, looked at issues regarding the LAPD's Rampart police scandal.
The so-called civil "watchdog" grand jury heard testimony from some of LAPD's highest-ranking officials. Yet the panel never issued a report; nor did it mention the investigation in its final summation.
Before its term ended at the end of June, the jury also rebuffed several requests from Cooley to release a report that the district attorney's office had prepared on the hearings.
To complicate matters, the transcripts disappeared from the grand jury chambers; the Sheriff's Department is investigating. The district attorney's office, which had the only other known copy of the transcripts, returned it to the grand jury, without making a copy.
And grand jury member James B. Avery was accused of stalking another jury member. The district attorney has asked that the state attorney general's office take over Avery's prosecution.
Sandi Gibbons, spokeswoman for the district attorney's office, declined to comment on Gordon's request, citing grand jury secrecy rules.
Gordon W. Trask, a lawyer with the county counsel's office, said, "I don't really want to talk about this at all."
Since September 1999, when the public first learned that Rafael Perez, a former police officer in the Rampart substation anti-gang unit, admitted framing and abusing suspects, 140 convictions have been set aside because of corruption allegations against various officers.
In March 2000, the LAPD issued its own report faulting department failures in allowing misconduct at Rampart to flourish. But the LAPD deleted references to officers or specific incidents. The LAPD promised a second report that has yet to be issued.
Cooley's request that a civil grand jury look into Rampart fulfilled a campaign promise to get to the bottom of the scandal. Former Los Angeles police Chiefs Willie Williams and Daryl Gates and eight former Rampart division captains reportedly testified before the grand jury.
Besides asking Wesley to order the release of the grand jury transcripts, Gordon also wants the judge to rule on whether the jury's failure to issue a report on the investigation was lawful.
"Absent that report, no public official or public agency has ever reported back to the public and to persons who were effected by the misconduct, on precisely what it was that happened at Rampart," Gordon wrote in her brief.
David Houston
david_houston@dailyjournal.com
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