Pubdate: Fri, 07 Jan 2000
Source: Sacramento Bee (CA)
Copyright: 2000 The Sacramento Bee
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Author: Associated Press

PROSECUTORS TO ASK THAT MAN IMPRISONED FOR FIVE YEARS BE CLEARED

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- In the latest fallout from the ongoing Los Angeles
Police Department corruption probe, prosecutors said they would ask a
federal magistrate to remove a drug conviction that put a man in
prison for five years.

The request was expected to be made today, just one day after a judge
cut three years off a drug dealer's prison sentence because of
now-suspect testimony from former Officer Rafael Perez, who is at the
heart of the scandal engulfing the Los Angeles Police Department's
Rampart station.

Both cases involve Perez, who pleaded guilty to stealing cocaine from
a police evidence locker and is providing information on police
corruption in an effort to receive a lighter sentence.

The probe already has led to the release of four people from prison,
the overturning of several convictions and the removal of a dozen
officers from active duty.

In the latest case, prosecutors plan to ask that Esaw Booker's drug
conviction be overturned, said Victoria Pipkin, a spokeswoman with the
district attorney's office.

Booker, 54, has maintained his innocence since his arrest in 1992 for
selling $20 worth of cocaine. He said the drug was planted on him and
that officers, including Perez, later lied in court to get him convicted.

Booker, who has used a walker since suffering a recent stroke, was in
prison for five years and is still on probation. A federal magistrate
in October agreed to reopen his case after the police scandal broke.

In a related development, Carlos Romero, 25, had his sentence reduced
from nine years to six years on Thursday by Superior Court Judge
Michael Tynan.

Romero may end up only serving half of that because his felony was not
violent, and with time already served he could be freed in 18 months,
said Sandi Gibbons, another spokeswoman for the district attorney's
office.

Romero, who was convicted of cocaine possession in 1998, had three
years added to his sentence because he had pleaded guilty a year
earlier to possession of cocaine base for sale.

But that October 1997 conviction was dismissed last year after Perez
told investigators he provided a false police report about it and lied
in court.
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