A federal appeals court upheld a $15-million jury verdict for three Los Angeles police officers who alleged they were falsely arrested and prosecuted as part of the Rampart corruption scandal.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said there was evidence to support the jury's verdict that the city and the Los Angeles Police Department violated the officers' constitutional rights by arresting and charging the men without an adequate investigation.
The jury had awarded $5 million each to LAPD Officer Paul Harper, Sgt. Edward Ortiz and former Sgt. Brian Liddy. With interest and attorney fees, the city is now liable for about $18 million, lawyers for the officers said.
In upholding the verdict, the three-judge panel cited statements by detectives who admitted that they rushed their criminal investigation, and testimony from former Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti, who said he and his deputies were "hounded" by the LAPD to prosecute officers implicated in the Rampart scandal before the cases were ready.
The judges also noted that Rafael Perez, the ex-LAPD-officer-turned-informant, had given shifting accounts of one of the underlying incidents in which the three officers were charged.
Perez, as part of a plea agreement on cocaine charges, cooperated with authorities, telling them during dozens of interviews that he and his colleagues routinely framed, beat and otherwise mistreated suspects. As a result, more than 100 criminal convictions were overturned.
Based in part on Perez's allegations, Harper, Liddy and Ortiz were arrested in April 2000 on corruption-related charges. After a monthlong criminal trial, Harper was acquitted of all charges. Liddy and Ortiz were acquitted on some counts but convicted along with another officer of obstruction of justice. Their convictions were thrown out, however, after the trial judge concluded that she had committed an error that tainted the verdict. The district attorney ultimately decided not to retry the officers.
The three officers filed a civil lawsuit in 2001, alleging that police and prosecutors conspired to deprive them of their civil rights by falsely arresting them, searching their homes at gunpoint, fingerprinting them and bringing them to trial based on evidence elicited from convicted felons and liars.
Their civil suit centered on the one case in which all the officers were acquitted: The April 26, 1996, arrest of alleged 18th Street gang member Allan Lobos, who Perez contended was framed by the officers on a gun charge.
