Ross Described as 'Shaking' in Prostitute's Account of Arrest

By RONALD L. SOBLE

May 24, 1989 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

A young prostitute who was in a parked car with veteran Los Angeles County sheriff’s narcotics investigator Rickey Ross when he was arrested by police Feb. 23 said in an interview that she smoked cocaine with Ross and described him as “shaking” from fright when officers confronted him.

But the prostitute, Jimmie Joann McGhee, also said that she lied to police--telling them that Ross had provided the cocaine--in order to protect herself from a prison sentence. Instead, McGhee said, Ross gave her $10 to buy the drug on the street.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block has alleged that Ross--whom Block fired April 27--was abusing drugs and alcohol on the night of his arrest by Los Angeles police officers.

Ross said the prostitute was “lying,” and his attorney denied that Ross was using cocaine that night.

“I smoked a hit. And he smoked a hit,” McGhee said in an interview at the Sybil Brand Institute for Women, where she is serving a brief sentence for prostitution. It was her first public statement about the incident.

When police suddenly approached their parked car in South-Central Los Angeles, McGhee said, “the dude (Ross) was shaking” from fright. According to Block’s account, Ross accelerated the car and sped off. He did not stop for three blocks, with police in pursuit.

“I made him stop,” McGhee said. “I said, ‘If you don’t stop, I’m going to jump out the window,’ and I started rolling the window down. He said, ‘Be quiet, I am the police.’ ”

McGhee and Ross, 40, of Rialto, an 18-year department veteran, were arrested in the early morning of Feb. 23 near 57th and Flower streets by police officers on what was described as a routine traffic check.

Ballistics Error

Two days later, Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates--accompanied by Block--accused Ross of slaying three South-Central area prostitutes with his service handgun. In a remarkable turnabout, the accusation was dropped last week when prosecutors said the original ballistics tests linking Ross to the slayings were wrong.

Separately, on April 27, Block fired Ross based on several allegations, including the use of alcohol and drugs and the mishandling of narcotics evidence. Ross then appealed Block’s decision.

According to Block’s termination letter to Ross--which has since been provided by the department to The Times--the information McGhee gave to police investigators in the hours after Ross’s arrest played an important role in Block’s decision to fire the deputy. The Los Angeles County Civil Service Commission is scheduled to decide today whether to hold a hearing on Ross’ appeal of his firing.

McGhee’s account is in sharp contrast with the reputation of Ross, an undercover investigator who had a virtually unblemished record until his arrest and who was described by friends and colleagues as a highly religious man.

“It should be more than obvious the girl is lying, because the story keeps changing,” Ross said in response to questions about McGhee’s account. He declined further comment, citing the Civil Service hearing scheduled for today.

Ross’ lawyer, Jay Jaffe, said that “there was no use of drugs (by Ross) that night, and all the chemical tests confirm that.” As Ross was released, prosecutors said no drugs had been found in his system. Jaffe declined to comment on whether Ross had been drinking.

Credibility Questioned

Jaffe also said that McGhee’s admission that she lied about where the cocaine came from clouds her credibility. Jaffe said that if McGhee were to testify in court, her credibility would be in question because “if a witness lied on one material fact, she must be distrusted as to the balance. I don’t think one can engage in selective truth-telling.”

McGhee, a lean woman who stands 5 feet, 7 inches and goes by the street name of “Jamie,” said she has been a prostitute since she dropped out of school in Denver in the eighth grade.

McGhee said she had never seen Ross before when he first approached her while driving his county-leased blue Ford Tempo on Figueroa Street on the night of Feb. 23.

“He jumped out of the car and asked, did I want to get high,” McGhee said. “As soon as I got in the car I could see he was high. He said he had a few drinks.”

At no time, she said, did she see any evidence that Ross was with the Sheriff’s Department. He did not identify himself as a police officer, she said. When Ross first approached her, McGhee said, he was wearing a Harley Davidson motorcycle T-shirt and “told me he was a biker. I didn’t know he was a cop till later.”

As they drove on side streets, McGhee said, Ross complained that “he’d mixed his alcohol and that he couldn’t do that ‘cause it made him sick.” At that point, McGhee said, Ross stopped the car, got out and “started throwing up.”

Drug Purchase Made

McGhee said that Ross then gave her $10 to buy some crack cocaine. She said she quickly found a seller at 47th and Hoover streets.

McGhee said she changed her story when questioned by police about who provided the cocaine because she feared a stiff prison sentence for purchasing drugs. “I lied,” she said in the hourlong interview. “I told (the police) Rickey already had (cocaine), but he didn’t. I went and got it.”

Allegations in Letter

According to Block’s allegations, which are contained in his letter to Ross, McGhee said she was a “strawberry”--a prostitute who exchanged sex for drugs. “She said that you provided a small piece of cocaine and at the time the officers approached your vehicle, you and she were smoking cocaine together,” Block said in his termination letter to Ross.

McGhee said that after buying the crack, Ross dropped her off at a motel on Western Avenue, where she bought a can of Pepsi from a vending machine, then emptied the can and used it as a crack pipe.

“Criminalistics laboratory tests concluded that the Pepsi can taken as evidence revealed cocaine residue and your fingerprints, as well as those of the prostitute,” said Block in his letter.

Before police approached the car, McGhee said that Ross unzipped his pants “to make it look like we were having sex. I thought he was going to say that he was a cop and he was going to arrest me for prostitution . . . to set me up.”

Sex Act Related

But McGhee later told police “she was about to perform an act of oral copulation” on Ross, according to Block’s letter.

Officers said they found Ross’ handgun in the trunk of the car. Ballistics tests were conducted on the weapon, a 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol, by the Los Angeles Police Department.

McGhee said that she was jailed overnight, and then released. No police official, she said, discussed the unsolved murders of prostitutes with her. But “all us girls” knew about them, McGhee said.

Since her arrest with Ross, McGhee said she has been arrested for a variety of crimes from jaywalking to striking a police officer.

About Ross, she said: “I feel sorry for the man. He’s gonna lose a lot.”