Jury Acquits Ex-Assistant City Atty. of Lying to DMV

Former Assistant City Atty. Betsy Mogul, wife of an ex-Los Angeles police officer charged with two contract murders, was acquitted Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court of a charge of lying on a Department of Motor Vehicle form to cheat the state out of taxes.

Jurors deliberated for about four hours before finding Mogul, 41, not guilty of a single perjury count--a charge that led to her dismissal from her $78,000-a-year post. She had been accused of falsely claiming on a DMV form in 1983 that she bought a Mercedes-Benz car from her father to save about $600 in sales tax.

Mogul testified that she signed the form without reading it at the urging of her husband.

“I just want to say thank God for the jury system,” Mogul said after the verdict. “Because of the experience I’ve had since my husband was arrested in 1986, I have learned that the police and the prosecutors are petty, corrupt and venal politicians.”

Husband Investigated

The charge against Mogul, filed by the district attorney’s office in February, 1987, grew out of an investigation into alleged criminal activities by her husband, William Leasure, 42. The LAPD veteran of 18 years is charged with arranging two murders in 1980 and 1981 and with being involved in a statewide yacht theft ring. Mogul’s lawyer, Robert Horner, contended after Thursday’s verdict that police had sought the perjury charge against Mogul to pressure her into testifying against Leasure.

“The police abuse is staggering,” Horner said. “They threatened people. They tried to use any kind of force they could to get her terminated, and it worked because (City Atty.) Jim (James K.) Hahn is terrified of bad publicity.”

Hahn fired Mogul in January, 1988. Mike Qualls, a city attorney spokesman, said at the time that Mogul was discharged “for conduct unbecoming an employee of this office” after she had been ordered to stand trial on a perjury charge.

Horner, now in private practice in Beverly Hills, said he quit a $95,000-a-year post as Hahn’s chief assistant to defend Mogul, whom he once supervised in the city attorney’s office. He said Mogul has been virtually unemployed as a lawyer since she was fired.

Action Called Error

“I would hope that the city attorney would not force her into litigation about the job they took away for no reason,” Horner said. “I hope that after this nightmare Mr. Hahn would rectify the error and give her her job back.”

City attorney’s office officials could not be reached for comment.

Now that she has been acquitted, Mogul said, she plans to “turn my prayers and my efforts to seeing that my husband also gets justice. I believe he’s innocent.”