Probers Want to Test Officers on Lie Detector : Crime: Task Force investigating slayings of prostitutes says it wants to clear police. Lawyer advises against it.

The Metropolitan Homicide Task Force has asked several San Diego police officers to take polygraph tests in an effort to clear them in the deaths of two women who were prostitutes and police informants, The Times has learned.

The law enforcement branch of the task force investigating possible police corruption is wrapping up its seven-month examination into official misconduct.

In so doing, investigators say they are attempting to clear officers of allegations involving the deaths of women, sources told The Times Friday. The victims are Donna Gentile, whose nude and battered body was found in 1985 beside a rural East County highway, and Cynthia Maine, who disappeared in 1986 and who police believe is dead.

Allegations of wrongdoing against some of the officers already have been forwarded to the department’s internal affairs division. No criminal charges are expected to be filed as a result of those findings, Police Chief Bob Burgreen said.

When Gentile’s body was found, speculation has centered on whether a police officer was involved in her death. Gentile, a prostitute who worked El Cajon Boulevard, was recruited as a police informant but later testified against two police officers, one of whom was demoted and the other fired.

Task force members are interested in having the pair, Lt. Carl Black, and former Officer Larry Avrech, take lie detector tests to help clear up rumors circulating for years that they had something to do with Gentile’s death, a law enforcement source said.

The source asked not to be identified because the task force investigation is confidential.

Gentile testified before the city’s Civil Service Commission in 1984 that Avrech provided her confidential police information in exchange for sex, an allegation that led to his dismissal. Avrech has denied the charge and said Friday that he would be unwilling to take a polygraph test because he is innocent.

She also testified that Black had given her $1,000 to help pay legal expenses, contacted a probation officer on her behalf and took her on a trip to the Colorado River. Black was demoted to sergeant but reinstated a year later. He now works in a gang and drug-enforcement unit. He did not return a telephone call Friday.

A law enforcement source said the task force does not believe that either Avrech or Black was involved in the Gentile’s death.

Two other officers have been asked to to take lie detector tests in connection with the Maine disappearance, according to Everett Bobbitt, the Police Officers Assn. attorney who represents them both.

Bobbitt said he advised his clients against taking the tests because they aren’t always accurate and because the officers he represents are not charged with murder.

“At this point, nobody had been identified as a suspect, so what’s to clear?” Bobbitt asked. “Besides, I don’t trust them. I’ve seen people pass them who were lying, and I’ve seen people fail them who were telling the truth.”

Bobbitt also said he is not at all convinced that task force members would be using the lie detector test to clear a suspect.

In general, lie detector tests are used as a last resort in criminal investigations, most often when there is no other physical evidence available. Polygraph readings are admissible in court only if prosecutors and defense attorneys agree to it.

Because those who know they have committed a crime are unlikely to submit to such testing or to allow it be used against them, polygraph tests are most often used to clear suspects in criminal cases, experts say.

A polygraph machine is a recording instrument that charts a person’s bodily changes such as blood pressure, pulse rate and breathing when that person is being asked a question.

The task force has used polygraph testing to determine the truthfulness of confidential informants, but has not used it in its criminal investigation against any police officer, a law enforcement source said.

Created in 1988, the task force, composed of members from the San Diego Police Department, the San Diego Sheriff’s Department and the district attorney’s office, has been probing the murders of 44 prostitutes and transients since 1985.

Last September, the state attorney general’s office was asked to head up part of the probe that dealt with possible police corruption.

The task force has determined that as many as eight officers--through the rank of captain--participated in a variety of abuses ranging from sexual relationships with prostitutes to allowing drug-buying informants to keep some of the seized narcotics.

The findings have been passed along to the department’s internal affairs division, which will make recommendations on discipline. The final decision on discipline rests with Chief Burgreen.