6 Drug Officers Partially Cleared : Scandal: Jury acquits 5 deputies, LAPD detective on 13 counts in corruption case. Jurors deadlock on other charges and more deliberations are ordered.

In a startling setback for government prosecutors, six Los Angeles County narcotics officers were acquitted Wednesday on 13 counts of civil rights and theft charges spawned by a federal corruption investigation.

But the jurors told a federal judge that they remained hopelessly deadlocked on the remaining 14 counts against five sheriff’s deputies and a Los Angeles police detective who are accused of skimming drug money, beating drug dealers and planting cocaine on suspects.

U.S. District Judge Robert M. Takasugi ordered the jury to resume deliberations but not before announcing the acquittals--which mark the first major court defeat for prosecutors in the 3 1/2-year-old money-skimming investigation known as Operation Big Spender.

Prosecutors previously had obtained 11 convictions, including four guilty pleas from sheriff’s deputies, in one of the worst corruption scandals in local law enforcement history.

The current trial, which is in its seventh month, involves members of a joint LAPD-Sheriff’s Department anti-drug team, which operated in Southwest Los Angeles in the mid-to late 1980s and had been praised for its effectiveness against drug traffickers.

The narcotics officers later became targets of the Big Spender investigation and were accused of beating drug dealers with fists and flashlights, skimming hundreds of thousands of dollars in drug cash and falsifying police reports.

During their trial, the government found its chief witness contradicted repeatedly by federal agents. The judge moved at one point to declare a mistrial because FBI agents had destroyed some accounts of key interviews. The defense hammered at the credibility of drug dealers who were testifying for the prosecution.

After deliberating for 16 days, the jury failed to convict a single defendant Wednesday on criminal charges.

As the acquittals were read, the defendants broke into broad smiles, shook hands with their attorneys and nodded to family members and friends in the courtroom. As they left court, other law enforcement officers--including sheriff’s deputies and U.S. Marshals--congratulated them with handshakes.

“We’re very pleased,” said defense attorney Larry Bakman, who represents Deputy John L. Edner. “It’s a big win and a shock to the government.”

Attorney Lindsay A. Weston, who represents Deputy Roger R. Garcia, said the verdicts probably will lift the morale of not only the officers on trial but their supporters in the department. “I think this is a vindication for these men as well as for the officers on the street,” she said.

The other defendants--Los Angeles Police Officer Stephen W. Polak and Deputies Edward D. Jamison, J.C. Miller and Robert S. Tolmaire--also were elated with the partial verdict and were optimistic that the remaining counts would result in either more acquittals or a hung jury.

“It seems clear that the jury’s predisposition is toward a not-guilty vote,” said Tolmaire’s attorney, Roger Cossack.

While leaving the courtroom, prosecutors and investigators in the case declined to comment. “I won’t have anything to say while the jury is still in deliberations,” said Assistant U.S. Atty. Thomas H. Bienert Jr.

Other law enforcement officials, including Sheriff Sherman Block and LAPD Chief Daryl F. Gates, also declined to comment. But sources close to the money-skimming investigation said the jury verdicts came as a shock.

“It’s an enormous disappointment,” said one Sheriff’s Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“It’s frustrating,” added a federal official, “but we’ll have to just wait and see what the jury does with the remaining counts.”

The jurors concluded that:

* Miller and Tolmaire were not guilty of charges that they beat drug dealers Jesse Harrod and Derrick Leichman during a 1986 drug raid.

* Garcia, Miller and Tolmaire were not guilty of stealing cash from Harrod and Leichman during the same incident.

* Jamison was not guilty of theft and civil rights violations for allegedly stealing several thousand dollars that prosecutors contend he slipped underneath his vest during a 1987 drug raid.

* Polak was not guilty of civil rights violations for allegedly stealing cash from drug dealer Dion Floyd during another 1987 raid.

* Edner, Miller, Tolmaire and Garcia were not guilty of stealing property and valuables from the house of convicted drug dealer Alander Smith in 1985. The stolen property allegedly included crystal figurines, a portable generator, a jade elephant and assorted fur coats.

* Tolmaire was not guilty of hitting Smith with a flashlight while questioning the handcuffed drug dealer in front of Smith’s home.

The other verdicts for acquittal included additional allegations of theft, false arrest and giving false testimony.

In all, the deputies were indicted on 27 counts and faced the possibility of serving up to 63 years in prison. The acquittals, however, sliced that indictment in half.

The remaining charges include other theft and civil rights counts. The jury also said it remains deadlocked over the prosecution’s central allegation that the narcotics officers conspired to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars in a scheme that started as early as February, 1985, and continued as late as 1988.

The thefts began with the skimming of several hundred dollars from drug raids to feed a “kitty” at the Lennox station, prosecutors alleged. The money was used to buy equipment and guns for deputies.

But the thefts escalated and thousands of dollars, as well as jewelry and other valuables, were stolen, the government said. One of the chief prosecution witness, ex-Sheriff’s Sgt. Robert R. Sobel, testified that he and other crew members shared in the money-skimming scheme and once received more than $20,000 apiece in the biggest single theft by deputies.

Sobel was a key figure for the prosecution during the trial and spent 16 days on the witness stand. But some of his testimony was contradicted by FBI agents. For example, Sobel testified that FBI reports of his interviews are replete with errors--which the agents denied.

Prosecutors also relied on convicted or admitted drug dealers who testified that officers beat them to extract information from them or planted drugs on them. The defense alleged that the dealers were testifying only in an attempt to reduce their own prison sentences and to retaliate against narcotics officers.

When no guilty verdicts were rendered Wednesday, defense attorneys said it was clear that the jurors had serious reservations about the testimony of Sobel, the drug dealers or both.

“If the jury had believed Sobel, there obviously would not have been any acquittals,” said Jamison’s attorney, Bradley Brunon

“The real question is that if the jury remains hung, will the government retry the case?” said attorney David Wiechert who added that he and his client, LAPD Detective Polak, were “guarded but hopeful” about the outcome.

Until Wednesday’s verdicts, the only other defense victory came last fall, when the brother-in-law of a convicted deputy was acquitted of a charge that he had lied to a federal grand jury during the money-skimming investigation.

The outcome of the trial has been eagerly awaited not only by defendants and prosecutors but by other suspected narcotics officers who remain the targets of the ongoing money-skimming investigation or who are defendants in upcoming trials.

Shortly after the verdicts were read in Judge Takasugi’s courtroom, in fact, the jury selection process began three floors down in another federal trial involving two suspended sheriff’s deputies and the spouse of a third ex-narcotics officer embroiled in the money-skimming scandal.

Deputies Robert Juarez and Tyrone Powe are accused of conspiracy, theft and income tax charges. Yhvona Garner is also charged with money laundering and income tax offenses.

Garner’s husband, Daniel, has already pleaded guilty to theft and other charges in the case, as have two other former deputies--Virgil Bartlett and Eufrasio G. Cortez.

But a defense attorney and prosecutors in that trial said the latest verdict should have little impact. “It won’t affect anybody,” said attorney Joel Levine, who represents Powe.

“Ours is a very different case,” said Assistant U.S. Atty. Steven M. Bauer, one of the co-prosecutors. “We already have three guilty pleas. That’s the bottom line.”

Times staff writer George Ramos contributed to this story.