Macario M Duran

One deputy stuffed a shaving kit with hundred-dollar bills as an "emergency fund" in his bedroom closet. Another deputy stashed tens of thousands of dollars in a cookie tin and a locked box in his home. A third deputy kept thousands in an attic safe over his stepson's bedroom. The money, deputies said, came from refurbishing cars, baby-sitting, garage sales, savings and collecting loose change. Or from gambling winnings, spousal incomes, outside businesses and gifts from relatives.

The principal witness in the money-skimming trial of seven Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies testified Thursday that narcotics officers under his command routinely beat drug suspects, falsified reports and skimmed hundreds of thousands of dollars during drug raids. Ex-Sheriff's Sgt. Robert R.

Sgt. Robert R. Sobel, who commanded eight deputies indicted with him in the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department money-skimming scandal, has reached a plea bargain with federal prosecutors and will testify against his former narcotics team, Sobel's attorney said Friday. Attorney Mark Beck said that the veteran sergeant will plead guilty next week to single counts of conspiracy and filing a false tax return and that all five theft charges against him will be dropped. "Sgt.

There was a silence in the courtroom as the videotape began to play. The murky images of two deputies could be seen, hurriedly stuffing money from a suspected drug dealer's duffel bag into a satchel. "Oh, ho-ho--is this your bag?" a third deputy could be heard saying, taunting the dealer. He insisted that it was not, and then was urged to sign a form saying so.

Immediately after he was suspended in a money-skimming scandal, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputy John Hurtado was ushered last week into an interrogation room where two federal agents were waiting to solicit his cooperation in the broadening investigation. The investigators began by appealing to Hurtado's patriotism, reminding the 10-year sheriff's veteran that he was a former Marine.

Six Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies were convicted Monday of conspiring to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from drug traffickers and money launderers in one of the biggest corruption scandals in local law enforcement history. The veteran narcotics officers, who worked together on an elite team investigating major drug cases, were convicted on 24 criminal charges involving money seized during drug raids. The jury rendered the verdicts on its seventh day of deliberations.

As seven Los Angeles County sheriff's narcotics officers began their money-skimming trial Tuesday, their chief accuser waits in a secret location, poised to testify in a corruption case that may prove to be the most important in local law enforcement history. Robert Rhea Sobel, 45, has emerged as the heart--and, defense attorneys say, the Achilles' heel--of the federal government's case against his former subordinates, who are charged with stealing more than $1.4 million from drug traffickers.