Drug Case : Police Officer Charged With Frame-Up

A Los Angeles police officer was charged Wednesday with attempting to frame a man caught drag-racing in Van Nuys by reporting that cocaine was found in his car.

Van Nuys Division Officer Timothy Cabezas, 28, was suspended after the May 13 incident, officials said. He was expected to surrender within a week for arraignment in Los Angeles Municipal Court on one count each of false imprisonment and preparing false documentary evidence.

Al Albergate, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office, said the incident began after Cabezas, a 6-year veteran of the department, and his partner, a trainee whose name was not released, arrested two men for possession of rock cocaine.

Second Stop

While driving the two suspects to the Van Nuys station, the officers also stopped a man on suspicion of drag-racing, Albergate said. At that point, Cabezas allowed the two drug suspects to go free and “told his partner to pretend that he had found the rock cocaine in the car that was stopped for racing,” Albergate said. The officers then took the man who was accused of drag-racing, whose name was not released, to the police station.

“Once there, he ordered his partner to write up a report alleging that they found a rock of cocaine in the man’s car,” Albergate said. “When the trainee refused, Cabezas wrote up the report himself. Almost immediately, the trainee reported the incident to his supervisor.”

The man accused of racing was released from custody that night, and the incident was turned over to Police Department internal affairs investigators, authorities said. Albergate said that Cabezas did not previously know the man stopped for drag-racing, and that it was unclear why he attempted to have him falsely arrested for the drug charge.

Both charges against Cabezas are felonies that carry possible state prison terms upon conviction.