In a wave of police "lawlessness," Los Angeles County sheriff's narcotics deputies savagely beat suspects, stole money and planted cocaine from their own evidence supply on suspects, a former sheriff's sergeant testified Friday.

But Robert R. Sobel, the prosecution's chief witness in the money-skimming trial of seven narcotics deputies, told jurors that he did nothing to stop the practice even as victims were wrongfully terrorized or jailed.

"I didn't care about drug dealers," said Sobel, who testified that narcotics officers he supervised in the Lennox sheriff's station and on a joint-agency task force had committed dozens of criminal acts while pursuing suspected drug dealers in South Los Angeles.

On four or five occasions, Sobel said, deputies at the Lennox station stole cocaine that had been stored as evidence and replaced it with a substance resembling the drug. The deputies would then take the cocaine and plant it at homes or in vehicles of suspects who were arrested on drug possession charges.

"I never liked to do it myself," Sobel said. But he condoned the practice and approved the falsified police reports, he said.

The testimony came on the first full day of cross-examination by defense attorneys representing the seven narcotics officers on trial for allegedly skimming $1.4 million during drug raids.

The veteran deputies--all former members of the Sheriff's Department's elite narcotics investigation teams--had worked with Sobel, who now is their chief accuser. The defendants include deputies Ronald E. Daub, James R. Bauder, Daniel M. Garner, John C. Dickenson, Terrell H. Amers, Eufrasio G. Cortez and Macario M. Duran.

All but Duran were members of the same team headed by Sobel, who has since pleaded guilty to conspiracy and tax evasion charges.

But in his cross-examination, defense attorney James Riddet sought to show that Sobel, 45, was implicating his former colleagues merely to avoid a lengthy prison term. Riddet also had Sobel acknowledge a history of thefts, perjury and other misconduct long before he joined the major investigative team.

Riddet, who represents Cortez, questioned Sobel about his activities between 1985 and 1987, when he led the Lennox narcotics team and an anti-drug task force--dubbed the Southwest Crew--made up of sheriff's deputies and Los Angeles Police Department officers. Sobel testified that those teams were involved in beatings, filing false police reports, lying in search warrant affidavits, planting evidence and stealing money.