Drug Funds Missing; 9 Deputies Suspended : $200,000 or More Seized by Narcotics Unit May Not Have Been Turned In, Prober Reveals

Nine veteran members of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department narcotics bureau were relieved of duty Friday while federal and county investigators pursue allegations that the deputies misappropriated tens of thousands of dollars confiscated in drug raids.

Sheriff Sherman Block, appearing saddened and subdued at an afternoon press conference, said the members of an entire departmental narcotics investigation unit--a sergeant and eight deputies--had been temporarily relieved of duties.

‘Great Embarrassment’

“I deeply regret that I have to tell you,” the sheriff said, “that corruption has apparently touched members of my department and caused great embarrassment to all of us who wear a badge.”

There was no immediate indication of how long the investigation is expected to take, but one federal law enforcement official said that arrests in the case could begin as early as next week. FBI and Internal Revenue Service agents, acting with search warrants, removed evidence from the home of at least one of the deputies late Friday.

A federal law enforcement source said that while some details remain sketchy, it appears that more than $200,000 might have been taken. There was no indication that narcotics were taken.

“It’s not nickel and dime,” the source said. “We don’t know the full amount of money at this time. It could run into a couple of hundred thousand dollars.

“The money was not getting to the evidence vault. I think they took a little each time rather than a major amount.”

Block refused to divulge many details of the allegations against the narcotics officers, all of whom worked in a unit that targeted only major narcotics traffickers.

The sheriff did indicate the possibility that not all of the deputies were responsible for the missing cash. But, Block said, “since these people work as a team, the entire team has been placed on administrative leave.”

The nine officers worked out of the Sheriff Department’s narcotics bureau headquartered in Whittier and handled investigations throughout the county, according to department officials. Block said some of the officers had worked together for several years and others for a shorter period of time.

Block said the investigation began last October when an internal audit showed what appeared to be a misappropriation of funds handled by the narcotics unit. The FBI was brought in on the case in May, and the IRS joined in July. No criminal charges have been filed in the case.

The eight deputies and the sergeant were placed on administrative leave, which will allow them to keep their guns and badges and receive pay while not performing any duties.

Fears Major Scandal

The sheriff declined to disclose the amount of money that the accused deputies allegedly misappropriated. He acknowledged, though, that narcotics officers in major cases “do come in contact with significant amounts of money.”

Block expressed concern about the reputation of the county law enforcement agency. He said the corruption case “may turn out to be” the biggest scandal of his seven-year tenure as chief officer of the 10,700-member department.

“It’s the first time anything of this magnitude has been suspected in this department,” he said.

A top sheriff’s official, who was not involved in the carefully cloaked internal investigation, said the announcement Friday came as a “total shock” within the department, which has suffered through a series of image-tarnishing incidents this year.

“We are devastated,” said the official, who asked to remain anonymous. “This is a terrible day for us. We are talking about people with excellent reputations.

“This was a ‘majors crew’ working on major traffickers exclusively. . . . They have been around a long time . . . . The question is whether it goes beyond this unit,” he said.

The nine officers involved were identified as Robert Sobel, a sergeant with 19 years’ service, and Deputies Terrell H. Amers, 22 years; James R. Bauder, nine years; Nancy A. Brown, 17 years; Eufrasio G. Cortez, 14 years; Ronald E. Daub, 16 years; John C. Dickenson, 10 years; Daniel R. Garner, 18 years, and Michael J. Kaliterna, 19 years.

Senior Personnel

Block described the nine as “some of our senior narcotics investigators,”

He said: “I wouldn’t say the most elite, but certainly as evidenced by their years of service, there are some senior members of the department.”

All day Friday and after dusk, federal agents were busy inside and outside Bauder’s home in Palmdale. Neighbors said agents wearing jackets with FBI emblems had accompanied other officers inside the home and had removed items. One of the agents said they were serving a search warrant at the house.

Standing outside his house at about 7 p.m. after the federal agents had gone, Bauder, who said he had served for the last two years with the major narcotics team, denied the theft allegations.

“I have no knowledge of any theft,” he said. “I have never seen it, and I never participated in it. . . . I was confronted with some allegations, but it is all news to me.”

Bauder, his wife and two children recently moved from a nearby house where they had lived for about five years.

“They are real nice people,” said one neighbor, Marguerette Surur. “I’m still shocked, and I don’t believe it. I hope it’s not true.”

Another of the deputies named Friday, Dickenson, was awarded the Sheriff’s Department’s highest award, the Medal of Valor, in March, 1988, for his participation in a drug raid. Dickenson was wounded and a fellow deputy was fatally shot.

Sheriff Block insisted that narcotics investigations will not be crippled by the probe.

However, he said, “it certainly will be impacted because of the trauma of this situation.”

Block was flanked at the press conference by Lawrence Lawler, special agent in charge of the Los Angeles FBI office, and Earl J. Acquaviva, chief of the criminal investigation division of the Los Angeles IRS office.

The missing money was seized in drug investigations and never reached the evidence locker, Lawler said.

“We continue to investigate it hand-in-glove with the Sheriff’s Department and the Internal Revenue Service,” Lawler said. “We’re not done with it yet, so we don’t have a handle on how much money is involved.”

U.S. Atty. Gary A. Feess said his office is also involved in the investigation. He said the department encouraged the probe by outside law enforcement agencies.

“The case was brought to us by the Sheriff’s Department,” Feess said. “From the beginning, they’ve been interested that the case be thoroughly and completely investigated.”

The suspensions of the deputies came as federal prosecutors are preparing a major corruption case against Darnell Garcia, a former U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent based in Los Angeles. Garcia was arrested in Luxembourg last July after a seven-month manhunt spearheaded by the DEA. Garcia, along with two other former agents, was accused in a 36-count indictment of conspiring to set up a drug network and laundering profits from the operation through several banks.

Federal officials say that roughly 40% of the cocaine now entering the United States is being shipped into the Los Angeles area, putting hundreds of millions of illicit dollars into circulation.

The Sheriff’s Department seized about $34 million in drug money and 6,000 pounds of cocaine in 1988. The seizures represented sharp increases over 1987, sheriff’s officials said. During the same period, the Los Angeles Police Department seized $35 million in drug-related money and 10,500 pounds of cocaine. The figures were slight increases over 1987.

Block vowed to eliminate corruption in the Sheriff’s Department.

“We cannot tolerate defections by those entrusted to defend us,” he said. “Any hint of corruption in this department will be vigorously investigated, and those involved in corrupt conduct prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

Over the past year, the Sheriff’s Department has been dogged by bad publicity involving some of its deputies.

In February, sheriff’s narcotics Detective Rickey Ross was arrested by Los Angeles police officers after he was found sitting in a parked car with a prostitute. Accused of murdering three other women, Ross spent three months in jail before being released when prosecutors found that ballistics tests performed on his gun had erroneously linked him to the slayings.

Nonetheless, Ross was fired because he allegedly had been smoking cocaine with the prostitute.

In March, a former deputy, Eugene A Harris, filed a suit alleging that the department tolerated “neo-Nazi-like” and “Ku-Klux-Klan-style” activities inside the Central Men’s Jail in a pattern of discrimination against black inmates and deputies alike. The FBI has been investigating allegations of racially motivated misconduct at the jail.

Last June, Deputy George Thomas Markel--a lightning rod for complaints since he joined the department in 1978--was arrested on suspicion of robbing a prominent Miami attorney. In earlier complaints against him, Markel allegedly used unnecessary force to subdue a civilian and used “fear and intimidation” to get another deputy to help him claim unearned overtime.

Times staff writers John Chandler, Jane Fritsch, Daryl F. Kelley, Eric Malnic, William Overend, George Ramos, Richard Simon and Henry Weinstein contributed to this story.