Rampart Memo Touted as Wild Card in D.A. Race

Less than a week before the election for Los Angeles County district attorney, one wild card remains: a mysterious memo written by a deputy district attorney in 1997 that appears to have sounded an alarm on the Rampart police scandal more than a year before it was uncovered.

The memo, by Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Kraut, has never been made public. But what is known about the events surrounding the memo suggest that it might have raised serious questions within the district attorney’s office about Officer Rafael Perez long before his arrest on cocaine charges.

The memo was written after Kraut took the extraordinary step of dismissing a cocaine case against an alleged gang member moments before he was to begin his closing argument in the trial. He told the court that he had doubts about the credibility of the police testimony in the case, including that of Perez.

If anyone in the office ever acted on the memo, that action has never been disclosed. Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti has refused to release the memo, insisting it is part of an active investigation. He has acknowledged that Perez lied in the case, but said it was not in the way that Kraut believed.

Garcetti’s challengers in the March 7 election have made the “Kraut memo” a significant part of their campaigns, saying it suggests, at best, a passive attitude on the part of the prosecutor’s office that might have allowed the abuses in Rampart to continue longer than necessary.

One of the challengers, Deputy Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley, brought up the memo again at a news conference Tuesday. “We must be proactive in our role as independent prosecutors, and apparently it didn’t happen in that case,” he said.

Former prosecutor Barry Groveman has also hammered at Garcetti over the memo, saying it shows the district attorney’s office was either “complacent or complicit” in the police scandal, and questioning why Garcetti never prosecuted Perez for perjury.

The central issue in Groveman’s campaign has been a proposal to create an office of professional responsibility within the district attorney’s office that would monitor ethical lapses and, he argues, would have made certain that the Kraut memo led to action.

Groveman, however, is among the many people who must concede that they haven’t read the memo, which apparently has been seen by relatively few people within the district attorney’s office.

The memo grew out of the case against Ubaldo Mio Gutierrez, who was arrested Nov. 22, 1996, after he allegedly dropped a package containing 1.75 grams of cocaine. He alleged that he hadn’t dropped the package and had nothing to do with the cocaine.

The prosecution’s case at trial relied on the testimony of Perez and a fellow officer in the Rampart anti-gang CRASH unit, Mark Richardson. They testified that they had been working with other partners that night, but that they were thrown together on the Gutierrez case because their partners were busy on other matters.

Perez said he knew Gutierrez to be a member of the Temple Street Gang. Gutierrez denied this, according to his lawyer in the case, Deputy Public Defender Mearl Lottman.

The case recessed on Friday, June 13, 1997, after testimony was completed. Jurors returned the next Monday to hear the attorneys deliver their closing arguments. Before the arguments could begin, Kraut addressed the court. He said that his case was built, in part, on the idea that the two officers hadn’t been partners, and therefore were less likely to join in a lie.

But, he continued, “last night, thinking about something the defendant had said while on the stand, I rounded up the log sheets. And the log sheets I’m turning over to the defense at this point show that Officer Perez and Officer Richardson were paired up for the entire night.”

“Based up on that and officer credibility, I believe it would be unfair [to continue]. And I have an ethical question in my mind at this point. I have spoken to my head deputy. . . . And the people are making a motion to dismiss this case.”

Defense attorney Lottman said such a dismissal at the very end of a trial “is nearly unprecedented.” He said he didn’t understand why the matter didn’t go any further.

“They should have pursued something, absolutely,” he said. “If they determine that an officer’s a liar, that should be pursued.”

Kraut apparently did pursue it, writing a memo to his superiors. What happened after that point is unclear.

Garcetti, in a recent interview, said the accusations Kraut made “were incorrect.” But, referring to Perez, he added, “The bottom line is, yes, he was lying.”

Beyond that, Garcetti refused to comment. Kraut has been similarly reticent, and his behavior suggests the extreme sensitivity of the issue.

Asked on Monday to discuss the case, he agreed, inviting a reporter to his office at an agreed-upon time in the late afternoon. When the reporter showed up at the appointed time, Kraut slipped out the front door of the office, saying he’d be right back. He never returned. Later that evening, he had an office spokeswoman call to say that she would handle any questions about the matter.

The Gutierrez case could fall into a pattern of cases in which Perez has admitted planting cocaine on suspects. By Perez’s own admission, his string of crimes began before Gutierrez was arrested and continued well after, until his arrest on Aug. 25, 1998, on charges of stealing six pounds of cocaine from a police property room.

It does appear as though the Gutierrez case came to the attention of district attorney’s investigators at some point. According to court records, Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard Rosenthal of the Special Investigations Division asked for a copy of the Gutierrez case file Aug. 13, 1998, 12 days before Perez was arrested.

Attorney Greg Yates, who represents Gutierrez in a civil lawsuit he has filed against the city, said Gutierrez says he was arrested eight or nine times by Perez, but never convicted in any of those cases. Gutierrez, 27, is now working as a plumber, he said.

Among those who support Garcetti in his handling of the case is Perez’s lawyer, Winston Kevin McKesson, who said it is irrelevant if Kraut turns out to be “right for the wrong reason.”

The Rampart scandal, involving allegations of widespread police corruption, including the planting of evidence and the shooting of unarmed suspects, has emerged as the central issue in the campaign for district attorney, in which Garcetti is seeking a third term.

Groveman and Cooley have accused him of failing to respond aggressively to the scandal. Garcetti has said he is acting as quickly as he can without jeopardizing the quality of his investigation.