3 King Case Defendants Notified of U.S. Inquiry : LAPD: Koon, Powell and Wind may face indictment next week on federal civil rights charges, sources say.

The U.S. attorney’s office may seek federal grand jury indictments as early as next Thursday against at least three Los Angeles police officers on charges that they violated the civil rights of Rodney G. King, according to several sources close to the investigation.

Although officials would not name which three officers are likely to be indicted, The Times has learned that Sgt. Stacey C. Koon and Officers Laurence M. Powell and Timothy E. Wind have received letters from federal prosecutors in Los Angeles identifying them as targets of the inquiry. “You are a target of the investigation . . . and the grand jury proceedings may result in the filing of criminal charges against you,” the July 15 letters stated.

The three officers were invited to appear before the grand jury in their own defense on Tuesday, but none of them did. John Barnett, the attorney for a fourth officer, Theodore J. Briseno, refused to reveal whether his client received a target notice.

During a three-month state court trial this spring in Simi Valley, Briseno broke ranks with the other three officers and testified that he tried to stop the March 3, 1991, beating when he believed his colleagues were “out of control.” All four officers were found not guilty on all charges except for Powell, who is facing a retrial in state court later this year on one count of assault.

The not-guilty verdicts touched off the worst urban riots this century and prompted U.S. law enforcement officials to reopen a federal investigation into the King beating. President Bush said he was “stunned” by the verdicts, adding that “it was hard to understand how the verdicts could possibly square with the video” of the beating.

On Thursday, seven Los Angeles police officers who were bystanders at the beating scene were called to testify before the grand jury for a second time, and more are scheduled to return for additional questioning on Tuesday, according to their attorney, Diane Marchant.

She said that all of the roughly 20 officers at the Lake View Terrace site of the King beating were responding to subpoenas and that none of them had received letters informing them that they were targets of the investigation.

“Everyone who was there that night has been in there to see the grand jury,” she said.

The target letters, signed by Assistant U.S. Atty. Steven D. Clymer, state that “the grand jury’s inquiry extends to the events leading up to, including, and following the arrest of and the use of force against Rodney King on March 3, 1991, near the intersection of Foothill Boulevard and Osborne Street in Los Angeles. The inquiry includes your actions as a law enforcement officer for the Los Angeles Police Department.”

Clymer declined to comment Thursday about the federal investigation. John L. Hoos, a spokesman for the Los Angeles FBI office, which has been conducting the investigation, also would not comment.

As the federal government presses forward with its case against the officers, legal experts warned that convicting them of civil rights violations will not be a simple matter.

Federal law provides for fines of up to $10,000 and a prison term of up to 10 years for any group of two or more people who conspire to “injure, oppress, threaten or intimidate” a person in the free exercise of that person’s rights, including the right to be protected from harm while being arrested. To win a conviction on that count, prosecutors would not need to prove that the officers acted with racial bias toward King.

A separate federal statute provides for a fine of up to $1,000 and up to one year in prison for any officers who, in carrying out their official duties, deprive citizens of their rights or subject them to special punishments because of their race. The prison time can be extended up to 10 years, however, if there is bodily injury to the victim.

Although the conspiracy charge provides slightly stiffer penalties, proving it in this case would mean demonstrating that the officers “had a meeting of the minds,” said Laurie Levenson, a professor of law at Loyola University.

“When you have people acting in a very excited state, that’s hard to show,” Levenson said.

UCLA law professor Peter Arenella said that in order to find the officers guilty of violating King’s civil rights, the prosecution will need to prove that the officers intended to do so, not merely that they used excessive force. That is a tougher burden than the government faced in the state trial, Arenella and other legal experts said.

But if prosecutors can convince a jury that the officers used excessive force, that would provide powerful evidence of their intent to deprive King of at least two civil rights: to be safe from unreasonable search and seizure and to be protected against punishment without due process of law.

“Theoretically, it ought not to be difficult” to prove civil rights violations in excessive force cases, said Barry Tarlow, a criminal defense lawyer in Los Angeles. “But historically, it has been extremely difficult.”

The reason, he said, is that police argue that they form the “thin blue line” protecting society and therefore should be given wide latitude in carrying out their duties. Juries often find that argument persuasive, Tarlow said.

Moreover, Tarlow and other lawyers agreed, the specifics of this case--with the intense level of public scrutiny, the earlier not-guilty verdicts and the outbreak of rioting in their wake--make its outcome all but impossible to predict.

If indicted, the officers would once again have to ask their union, the Los Angeles Police Protective League, to pay for their legal defense, as it did for the Simi Valley trial.

Police sources said each defendant was provided $100,000 to cover attorneys’ expenses and other legal costs in the first trial, but that union officials might be reluctant to foot the bill a second time. In that event, the sources said, the out-of-work officers indicted in federal court might declare themselves indigent and ask for court-appointed attorneys.

Meanwhile, also on Thursday, a panel of state appellate court judges was reviewing a petition filed by Powell’s attorney, Michael Stone, asking that his retrial on the state charges be moved out of Los Angeles County because of the intense publicity over the case and the subsequent riots.

Times staff writer Ronald J. Ostrow contributed to this report.

LAWSUITS SETTLED: The City Council has approved $1.6 million in settlements of four lawsuits alleging police misconduct. B3