Dead Wrong

by Randall Sullivan

  Judge Cooper found Sanders’s answer to the accusations against him so persuasive that she not only issued a court order that discovery in the case could resume and that the plaintiffs were welcome to submit their amended complaint, but also wrote it in a way that read like a personal apology to the attorney.

  “The Times, naturally, barely reported that,” Sanders noted, “and the rest of the L.A. media pretty much ignored it, too. So I still sorta felt like the whole thing was hangin’ over me whenever I came back to town, because a lot more people knew about the accusations that had been made against me, which were a big deal in the L.A. media when Marella made them, than knew that the judge had ruled they weren’t true.”

  Gage would say he saw the effect of Marella’s claims, and how they were reported in the media, when he accompanied Sanders to a settlement conference that Judge Cooper had ruled should be conducted by senior federal judge Dickran Tevrizian. “The judge refused to hear from Perry because of what Marella had accused him of,” Gage recalled. “So I had to do all the talking.”

  It possibly hadn’t boosted Tevrizian’s opinion of Sanders when the attorney began by demanding a billion-dollar settlement. “I wanted these people to know I wasn’t backing down, and I wasn’t backing away,” Sanders said. “I was still comin’ after them, because I knew I had done nothing wrong. You can’t show any flinch when you’re up against people like this.”

  The most stunning revelation to emerge from the May 30, 2006, hearing was that four days earlier, on May 26, one of Sergio Robleto’s operatives had finally caught up with Kendrick Knox and obtained a signed declaration from him that was everything Sanders and Frank had hoped for—and more.

  After the mistrial, Robleto assigned a retired LAPD sergeant and homicide investigator named Bruce Stoughton to locate Knox and speak to him, in part because Stoughton “lived way out in the Valley, like Knox did.” Even for Stoughton, though, Knox was a hard man to find. “The guy was never at home,” he recalled.

  Stoughton was already familiar with Knox and his investigation of Death Row Records because, he said, “basically Knox had picked up where I had left off.” It all started with a vacant medical care center in Van Nuys on Oxnard Boulevard, Stoughton said. “I heard scuttlebutt that the abandoned building had been taken over by people from South-Central L.A. who were using it as a combination of recording studio and party pad,” Stoughton explained, so he and other LAPD officers began to routinely check the building to see if it was being vandalized or broken into. “It clearly was,” Stoughton recalled. “There were people milling around in the parking lot, which had resulted in a number of confrontations and threats against people who lived in the neighborhood.” Eventually the abandoned building had become, effectively, the first Death Row Records recording studio. The LAPD brass seemed reluctant to do anything about it, Stoughton noted, fearing some sort of “racial incident,” but eventually had pushed out the congregation of “gangbangers and rappers,” forcing Death Row to relocate to Can-Am studios in Tarzana, where Ken Knox’s investigation had begun.

  One advantage Stoughton had in searching for Knox was his own status as a recipient of LAPD’s highest honor, the Medal of Valor, awarded for risking his life to save the lives of three suburban teenagers who had made an idiotic decision to surf the storm-swollen waters of the concrete-encased Los Angeles River, as well as the two firemen who’d been pulled into the seething water while attempting to rescue them. The respect Stoughton commanded for having saved those five lives had helped him convince other retired cops to assist in locating Knox. “I bird-dogged him for some time,” Stoughton recalled. “He did his best to avoid me, but I eventually ran him to ground and got him to give a statement. He said he was scared. He didn’t want reprisal on his family. He said his wife was terrified of Suge Knight, and I think Knox himself was afraid of the LAPD. He told me that when the department began to close down his investigation, and the investigation into LAPD officers working for Death Row, he had decided to accept it and keep his mouth shut. He said he wanted to protect his family and didn’t see any way the investigation could go forward, so why expose himself? He said it was hard to know how much of what had happened was the PD protecting itself, and how much was racial politics. Some of each, probably, he thought. Now, Knox had a nice home out in Sylmar and a comfortable retirement. He was reluctant to risk it, but he told me enough to know that he was going to be a great witness in court.”

  In his declaration, Knox briefly summarized his “investigation of Death Row Records and a studio being leased by Death Row Records in my service area in Tarzana, California.” Then he unspooled a series of astounding revelations. The first was that while conducting surveillance in late 1996 and early 1997, Knox said, “I observed LAPD officer Rafael Perez on approximately three occasions at the recording studio dressed in baggy shirts, pants and tennis shoes. I further observed LAPD Officer David Mack in the company of Rafael Perez at least three times at the studio.”

  Through his chain of command, Knox stated, “I reported the presence of LAPD and other law enforcement officers I believed to be working as security guards at the studio for Death Row Records.” In response? “I received complaints from and was confronted by some of these officers regarding these reports”—meaning that at least one of his superiors had leaked Knox’s investigation to its targets.

  He shared the findings of his investigation with the LAPD’s Internal Affairs and Robbery-Homicide divisions, Knox said. He also had personally given Detective Russell Poole “a three-ring binder containing some of the surveillance reports, interviews of people at the studio, photographs of people at the studio and other documents.” He was subsequently interviewed by an IA officer named Cindy Benes, Knox stated, and told her that he “believed that several if not more LAPD officers were working off-duty for Death Row Records as security guards and in other capacities.”

  Immediately afterward, Knox continued, “I was informed by a lieutenant from LAPD Robbery-Homicide Division that I was ordered to cease my investigation because of the sensitive nature of the investigation.” That Knox refused to name this lieutenant was frustrating, Stoughton said, “but he knew the guy was following orders and didn’t want to drag him into it.” And besides, what Knox added in the next sentence of his declaration was what really mattered: “I was told by this same lieutenant that this order had come ‘from the chief,’ referring to Chief of Police Bernard Parks. I was further ordered not to discuss my investigation or findings with anyone inside or outside the Los Angeles Police Department.”

  By then, he had compiled an investigative file that filled a large blue binder with four inches of intelligence and surveillance reports, Knox went on, along with photographs, mug shots, interview records, field investigation reports, and “potential homicide investigative leads.” When a back injury unrelated to the investigation forced him to take a months-long leave of absence from active duty, Knox explained, he had given some of his records to two LAPD captains. “Upon my return to active duty, I was advised that these records had been ‘lost.’ My divisional copy of these records stored within my desk in the nonpublic area of my senior lead officer office was missing. I conducted a diligent but unsuccessful search for my documents and other materials. At that time, I also observed that the digital records and other data and material regarding the investigation which had previously been contained on my senior lead officer unit computer had been deleted and/or destroyed, and could not be duplicated or re-created from other sources. I also contacted LAPD Robbery-Homicide Division to request that they return the copy of the documents and other materials regarding my investigation that I had previously given Detective Russell Poole. I was advised by an individual in Robbery-Homicide Division that Detective Poole was no longer with the division, and that they did not know where the documents and other materials were located.”

  The former senior lead officer then finished by stating, “Because of my involvement with the investigation of Death Row Records a
nd its employment of off-duty LAPD and other law enforcement agencies and security guards, I have been and am concerned for the physical safety and well-being of myself and my family.”

  As far as Sanders and Frank were concerned, the Knox declaration had put Bernard Parks in a box. Parks no doubt would claim executive privilege in an attempt to avoid answering questions about the Knox investigation, but Sanders doubted the judge would buy it. Most importantly, Knox had corroborated Poole’s claims about the investigation of LAPD officers working for Death Row Records and possibly involved in the murder of Notorious B.I.G. having been shut down on orders from Parks. “The city and the LAPD have been bent on makin’ some ‘lone nut’ attack on Russ Poole’s integrity,” Sanders said. “But he’s not alone anymore. Knox is there with him.”

  Another explosive declaration was revealed at that same May 30 hearing before Judge Cooper. This one was signed by an active-duty LAPD officer. She was Ya-May Christle, a former Internal Affairs Division supervisor who began her declaration with a paragraph reading: “I have spent almost 17½ years in the Los Angeles Police Department. I was a Sergeant II until I complained about the inappropriate conduct of Chief [Michael] Berkow, including my computer being taken after I input discovery information related to the lawsuit of Wallace v. City of Los Angeles. The information was input following the mistrial.”

  Christle’s dispute with Berkow had just recently gone public, when she filed a lawsuit against the LAPD in which her main claim was that Berkow was promoting women for consenting to sexual relationships with him and that she had been demoted when she complained about him. According to Christle, the married Berkow had openly carried on a three-year affair with a female LAPD sergeant under his supervision. During that same period, Christle added, Berkow also had engaged in affairs with several other female subordinates out of “the apartment” (it was actually a curtained alcove off his office that contained only a bed and a nightstand) he kept in the Bradbury Building, where most LAPD Board of Rights hearings were held. (Berkow denied that latter allegation.) More relevant to the Wallace v. Los Angeles lawsuit, though, was Christle’s claim that her demotion was in part due to her complaint that Berkow had conspired to cover up evidence that linked LAPD officers to the murder of Notorious B.I.G.

  In August 2005, the month after the mistrial in the B.I.G. case had been declared, Christle explained, she received a department-wide notice from Gerald Chaleff directing LAPD officers to provide “all materials pertaining to the Christopher Wallace (AKA Biggie Smalls and Notorious B.I.G.) homicide investigation.” Chaleff’s memorandum had resulted in “more than one foot worth of discovery information” being delivered to the office where she and an LAPD lieutenant were to prepare a “discovery matrix” of the information on her work computer. The materials she and the lieutenant were collating included “information about the alleged involvement by LAPD officers” in the Biggie Smalls murder, Christle went on. Immediately after she prepared her summary of the evidence she had received, Christle stated, “my computer was taken from me. I complained to the Inspector General of misconduct. The subject matter of my complaint included suspicion that information regarding the Wallace murder was purged from my computer.”

  The city was so concerned about the sexual harassment claims against Berkow, recalled Bradley Gage, who was representing Christle in her civil suit, that “they basically conceded the retaliation aspect of the case.” According to Gage, the LAPD “more or less agreed” that it had taken her computer to hide the evidence in the Biggie case.

  A little more than one year after her declaration in the B.I.G. case, Christle was awarded $1.07 million by a Los Angeles jury that agreed her accusations against the LAPD (which included a claim that she was discriminated against as an Asian woman) were true. “She was gonna be a great witness for us and the city knew it,” said Sanders, who believed that the revelations of the Knox and Christle declarations were “what started the LAPD and the city looking for a backdoor way to shut us down.”*

  * Berkow’s defense of himself in the Christle case and the response to it by those on the other side are considered in Appendix A.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Adding Rafael Perez to the case, Sanders and Frank knew, meant they needed to play a fast game of catch-up with the so-called Rampart Scandal. Considering that it had mostly been ginned up based on lies told by a sociopathic criminal, the attorneys found, the Rampart Scandal had cut through an astonishingly large swath of Los Angeles. The leaked “confessions” of Rafael Perez had spawned more than 150 civil lawsuits filed by those who claimed to have been falsely charged or convicted in criminal court on the basis of perjured testimony by Perez and other officers from the Rampart Division. The settlement of those cases had already cost the city nearly $125 million. Of the seventy officers implicated by Perez, fifty-eight had been referred to Boards of Rights. More than two-thirds of those officers were found not guilty. Yet despite overwhelming evidence that Perez had made up most of what he told Rampart Task Force investigators, in 1999 Bernard Parks and his right-hand man Emmanuel Hernandez told the Los Angeles Times that “70 to 80 percent” of what Perez said was accurate. By 2006 it was obvious that the true figure was more like 7 or 8 percent.

  The Rampart Scandal narrative had been challenged repeatedly—by two Rolling Stone articles as well as stories produced by the New Yorker, PBS’s Frontline, and Front Page magazine. The Los Angeles Times, though, had yet to inform its readers of how Perez had failed five lie detector tests. And the rest of the city’s media was even less probative. This meant, Sanders and Frank knew, that they were likely to be arguing their case before jurors who had swallowed the Rampart Scandal narrative whole. The two attorneys only had to look at the first criminal case spawned by Perez’s claims to see what that might mean.

  The charges brought in what was known as the “Alley Incident” case had resulted in the prosecution of four LAPD officers accused by Perez. The case was based on what had occurred, according to Perez, during two 1996 “gang sweeps” by Rampart CRASH officers. According to Perez, the accused officers had conspired to obstruct justice by framing 18th Street gang members with fabricated police reports, planted evidence, and perjured testimony.

  The Alley Incident took place on June 19, 1996, when a CRASH team that included Perez confronted a group of 18th Street gangbangers from the Temple Street set in the alley where they had gathered. Among them was a murder suspect named Anthony “Stymie” Adams.* According to the police, the gang members had tried to flee before they could be apprehended. One of the Temple Street set jumped behind the wheel of the car that the CRASH team sergeant had driven to the scene and tried to speed down the alley, striking one LAPD officer while a gang member in the passenger seat swung his door at a second officer. Both officers were knocked to the ground, according to the report they filed.

  Only that wasn’t what had happened, according to Perez. What actually took place, he said, was that the CRASH team had staged the scene to support their story, even going so far as to break the windshield of the car that they were falsely claiming had struck two of them.

  At trial, the officers had taken the stand to passionately deny the accusations against them. Their attorneys had hoped earlier for the opportunity to cross-examine Perez, but the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office decided not to put him on the stand. Because of that, jurors never got the opportunity to learn that the LAPD sergeant who had been accused by Perez of ordering another officer to break his windshield on the night of June 19, 1996, had been ticketed two weeks before that date in the San Fernando Valley for driving that same car with a cracked windshield. Thus it could be proved beyond any doubt that the most damning of the claims Perez had made against his fellow officers was a lie. “So was just about everything else Perez said in that case,” according to Cliff Armas.

  Nevertheless, the jurors, who had read or heard Perez’s leaked claims in the Los Angeles media for months on end, ultimately voted to convict three of th
e four accused officers of perjury, filing a false report, and obstructing justice. That conviction hadn’t lasted long. The presiding judge, Jacqueline Connor, swiftly overturned the jury, declaring that the evidence presented at trial had not supported a guilty verdict. What Connor received for bravely doing the right thing was a heaping of abuse from the local media and in various online forums. Los Angeles County D.A. Steve Cooley promptly announced his office would appeal the judge’s decision. The three officers remained under the gun for another four years, until finally, in 2004, the district attorney’s office announced they would not be retried.

  The three falsely accused officers filed a wrongful prosecution lawsuit that went to trial at the federal courthouse in Orange County. There, the jury awarded the three $15 million in damages—$5 million apiece. The Orange County jurors had needed just thirty minutes to return their verdict, and the judge who heard the case affirmed them by stating in open court that the “LAPD ruined the lives of three dedicated and highly skilled police officers.” Nevertheless, L.A. mayor Antonio Villaraigosa directed the city to appeal the verdict. It would not be until 2008 that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Orange County jury’s verdict and ordered Los Angeles to pay the $15 million.

  In the aftermath of the 2006 case, the attorney who had represented the three officers in the Orange County trial, Joseph Avrahamy, would write the first article published in Los Angeles that directly challenged the false narrative of the Rampart Scandal. Avrahamy was responding to what was known as the “Blue Ribbon Rampart Review Panel Report,” a document that had just been delivered by a team assembled by Chief Bratton and headed by the best-known civil rights attorney in Los Angeles, Constance Rice. That report was astoundingly false, even if its lies were more those of omission than commission. What the “Blue Ribbon” panel had done, Avrahamy wrote in the Los Angeles Daily News, was merely “perpetuate the 7-year-old myth that Rafael Perez exposed wide-scale corruption in the Rampart CRASH unit.”