Former Los Angeles police officer gets prison for role in robbery ring

In a somewhat rambling, emotional address made moments before he was sentenced, Ruben Palomares told U.S. District Court Judge Gary A. Feess that he failed to face up to undisclosed "problems" he encountered as a young police officer and "I took a short cut."

"Instead of facing my problems, I ran from them," Palomares, 38, told the judge. "I became that that I hated. I became a criminal, something I never wanted to be."

Palomares, a former Golden Gloves boxer with tattoos of skulls peeking out from under the sleeves of his green jailhouse jumpsuit, broke into tears as he mentioned his five children and pleaded for leniency. He told Feess he wanted his freedom so he could "be the man that God created me to be . . . and not this person in a cage."

Before imposing sentence, Feess recounted Palomares' path from the boxing ring to a once promising career with the LAPD and said he found it difficult to reconcile with the defendant who stood before him.

"I still find it inexplicable," he said.

He then sentenced Palomares to 13 years in federal prison. Coupled with time that Palomares is serving on a related drug case, he probably will spend 20 years behind bars before he is released, prosecutors said. The disgraced officer, who also admitted to planting drugs on suspects and committing other crimes while working in the LAPD's Rampart Division in the 1990s, had earned a reputation as one of the department's most notoriously corrupt officers in recent memory.

Also sentenced Monday was Gabriel Loaiza, Palomares' cousin, who received a nine-year term for his role in the robbery ring. The courtroom was packed with the two defendants' friends and family, including many young children.

Feess, who praised Loaiza for his forthright testimony in the case, also asked for an explanation for his decision to become involved in the ring, which committed about 40 robberies, attempted robberies or burglaries between 1999 and 2001, netting more than $1 million in drugs and cash.

"Plain stupidity," the bespectacled defendant said. "I have no excuse. Just plain stupidity."