Judge Overturns 7 More Tainted Convictions

As yet more Los Angeles police officers testified before a criminal grand jury probing corruption in the LAPD, a judge on Thursday overturned the convictions of seven more people whose cases had been tainted by alleged police misconduct.

The action by Superior Court Judge Larry P. Fidler brings the number of cases thrown out in the worst police corruption scandal in city history to 67.

The number of witnesses being called before the grand jury has increased in recent weeks, as prosecutors race against statutory deadlines on some of the crimes allegedly committed by LAPD officers.

Officers on Thursday were questioned about their knowledge of an April 1996 arrest by Officers Brian Liddy and Paul Harper, who sources say will soon be charged with perjury and falsifying police reports. Allan Lobos, the man they arrested and who was later convicted, was allegedly framed on a gun possession charge.

The cases dismissed by Fidler on Thursday all involved former LAPD Officer Rafael Perez, the central figure in the expanding corruption investigation.

Like many of those previously overturned, six of the seven involved alleged drug plants. The seventh involved an allegedly trumped up weapons charge, authorities said.

“We are committed to getting to the bottom of the Rampart scandal, and our priorities remain the same: to free anyone who is wrongfully imprisoned and to put together cases that will lead to the successful prosecution of corrupt police officers,� Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti said in a prepared statement.

“State prison sentences for police officers who were involved in the Rampart scandal is the real deterrent to misconduct,� the county’s top prosecutor added.

The corruption scandal became public in September when Perez entered into a plea deal with prosecutors in which he agreed to help ferret out fellow dirty cops in exchange for a lighter sentence on charges that he had stolen six pounds of cocaine from the LAPD.

Perez first told investigators that he and his then-partner shot an unarmed 19-year-old man, then planted a gun on the man to cover their tracks. Perez said he and his partner then testified in court that the man had attacked them, helping to send him to prison for 23 years.

Perez, a former anti-gang CRASH officer in the Rampart Division, has since implicated dozens of officers in crimes ranging from beatings and frame-ups to unjustified shootings.

To date, at least 30 Los Angeles police officers, including three sergeants, have been relieved of duty, have quit or have been fired in connection with the ongoing probe. About 70 are under investigation on suspicion that they were guilty of crimes or misconduct or knew about such activities and helped to cover them up.

The defendants whose convictions were overturned Thursday are:

* Gregorio Vasquez and Monique Therese Cottalorda, convicted of heroin possession in October 1997.

* Rene Mationg, convicted in June 1998 on a weapons possession charge.

* Samuel Nolasco and Maria Virula, convicted in June 1997 of possessing crack cocaine.

* Carlos Romero, convicted in January 1996 of possessing crack cocaine.

* Rene Vriones, convicted in 1996 of possessing crack cocaine.