Narcotics Deputies’ Trial Draws the Curious and the Concerned

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.

Watching from the back row of a courtroom in downtown Los Angeles was Ed Jamison, a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy who was stripped of his badge and uniform as part of an ongoing investigation into alleged money-skimming by narcotics investigators. Nearby sat Annie Ross, the mother of an alleged drug dealer who claims he was beaten and set up by sheriff’s deputies.

Both Jamison and Ross had come to the U.S. District Courthouse last week looking to see justice done--although they disagreed over just what would constitute justice in the case of seven sheriff’s narcotics officers accused of stealing seized drug money, extortion and other crimes.

“I hope the jury is able to see through this,” Jamison said during a break from the trial. “The government is trying to railroad these people to jail.”

“They say they got a reason for taking it,” said Ross, responding to the tape that authorities say shows defendant Deputy James R. Bauder stealing thousand-dollar bundles of sting money. “I don’t believe them. . . . See, it was my son they beat up, that they were trying to trap. The tables are turned now.”

An undercurrent of conflicting emotions--fear, anger, wariness, resolve--could be felt in U.S. District Judge Edward Rafeedie’s courtroom last week as the high-profile trial began in earnest. Each day, the curious and personally concerned gathered to watch the worst scandal in the recent history of the Sheriff’s Department unfold before them.

It was a savvy audience that came to witness the first full week of the proceedings, which resume today after a one-day recess on Monday.

In addition to the usual assortment of court-watchers and media representatives who always flock to major cases, the trial of seven Sheriff’s Department narcotic officers, has attracted deputies under suspicion but not indicted, the defendants’ families and relatives and attorneys of drug suspects who hope the trial will provide evidence to help their own cases.

Almost as though they had been given scripts, the spectators seemed to know in advance when to grab their seats and when to drift away. While the courtroom was filled in the mornings and afternoons when parts of the videotape were shown and the prosecution’s key witness testified, it was half-empty when federal agents and sheriff’s officials took the stand to talk of seized financial records and department procedures.

Many people, it seemed, came with their minds made up. “They got paid twice,” a veteran court-watcher named Louis said gruffly during the second morning of the proceedings. “They got paid as deputies and (again) when they stole the money.”

Others didn’t seem to know what to make of it all: Whether to feel pity for the officers, accused of stealing more than $1.4 million from suspected drug dealers and money-launderers, or sadness for the public they serve.

“I’m not here to wave a flag and say, ‘Ha ha, the cops have been caught’--I want them to be dealt with fairly under the law,” said Joe Fernandez, a 58-year-old Korean War veteran who said he has had his own scrapes with the law. “I feel sorry for them because I want my (Sheriff’s) Department to be the best. We need them. But we need them to be good.”

So far in the trial, which is expected to last several weeks, federal agents have testified about a litany of expensive items owned by the defendants--speedboats and cars, vacation homes and stocks. The videotape was shown and the star witness, a sheriff’s sergeant who already has pleaded guilty to related charges, took the stand.

Sgt. Robert R. Sobel, former supervisor of six of the seven defendants, testified that he and his men had been involved in money thefts, the planting of evidence and back-room conspiracy.

The testimony angered Jamison.

Jamison is one of 26 deputies suspended during the investigation and one of at least three who has tried to make it to court each day. Jamison said he believes that if another group of officers are indicted for the alleged thefts, he may be among them. In the meantime, he said, he was there to offer support to his fellow deputies already on trial.

“He’s lying,” he said of Sobel, his former superior. “He’s got every reason in the world to lie. If he can put all these guys’ heads in the noose, he walks.”

Among the defendants, the air of loyalty and camaraderie that presumably bonded them together on the street seems to have made its way into the courtroom.

Six of the defendants--Bauder, Terrell H. Amers, Eufrasio G. Cortez, Ronald E. Daub, John C. Dickenson and Daniel M. Garner--worked together on the elite narcotics investigation team known as “Major Violators Crew Two,” while the seventh, Macario M. Duran, was part of another major narcotics unit.

They have sat in three rows on a platform specially created to accommodate the large number of defendants. They come dressed conservatively in suits and ties, furiously scribbling notes when their names are mentioned by a witness, whispering to their attorneys.

During breaks, they gathered outside in the hallway, kidding one another about such banalities as bag lunches and exchanging hellos and laughter with friends and relatives under a haze of cigarette smoke.

Sobel, who when the trial broke Friday was still under cross-examination, rarely has looked at the defendants during his testimony, but most of the deputies stare intently at him. A couple of defendants, who had sat expressionless during much the proceedings, displayed anger for the first time as he testified.

Among other things, Sobel, a veteran narcotics investigator, has testified that deputies routinely beat suspects, falsified reports and perjured themselves.

Thomas E. Beck, an attorney who represents many clients who claimed to have been abused by law enforcement officers, took careful notes during Sobel’s testimony. He believes it might help him reopen a particular case.

“I can’t tell you,” Beck said, “how many of my clients have been brutalized and convicted because the deputies perjured themselves.”

Absent from the courtroom was Sheriff Sherman Block. That disturbed substitute high school teacher Val Rodriguez, who sits in on days when he is not needed in a classroom.

“He should be here listening to this,” the teacher said.