 | Rampart Scandal -- The Perez Transcripts
Rafael Perez was an officer in the Los Angeles Police Department’s Rampart Division’s anti-gang unit, until he was charged with stealing eight pounds of cocaine from department evidence storage. As part of his plea agreement for reduced time, he gave, and may still give, a series of statements about wrongdoing by officers in the unit. The results have been mind-boggling.
In Los Angeles the District Attorney asked the court to set aside more than a hundred convictions. The LA City Attorney recommended and the city council approved a $15 million settlement for Javier Ovando, one of the Rampart victims. The Los Angeles Police Department has been placed under federal supervision. This is just the beginning.
The court appointed lawyers for citizen/victims of the Rampart police are reviewing thousands of cases, in an effort to identify and correct all of the abuses of the Rampart police. The city anticipates that damages payments to victims will exceed $100 million. Damage to the criminal justice system and people’s confidence in it may be irreparable.
The magnitude of Rampart police misconduct is astonishing. Equally astonishing is the fact that the police crimes went unnoticed by the authorities for years. They became public only when Det. Perez was arrested for his own crimes. In a successful effort to reduce the years in prison that awaited him, Perez turned on his criminal colleagues. The “blue wall of silence” was breached, but for all the wrong reasons.
In the course of the Rampart investigation, the District Attorney’s office produced twenty-nine transcripts of Perez’ admissions and allegations. NACDL received copies of those transcripts and is making them available to the public. NACDL hopes that their availability will assist lawyers in helping to overturn wrongful convictions and will assist the public in understanding the Rampart scandal.
The Rampart scandal is one in a sad series of Los Angeles police scandals. And the problems associated with Rampart can be found throughout the country. In the last year the media showed across the country that people have been “framed” and sentenced to prison, or even sentenced to death. Others have been brutalized or killed by police on the streets, in station houses and jails. Lawlessness within our police departments is a national problem. Rafael Perez and his partners in crime have counterparts in each of our communities.
Provided here are 29 transcripts of interviews with Rafael Perez by the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office from September 1999 through July 2000. Each transcript is available to view online or download in its original MS Word or WordPerfect document formats.
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