Former LAPD Official Receives Year’s Probation

Former LAPD Deputy Chief Daniel R. Sullivan, once considered a top contender for the chief’s job, pleaded no contest Friday to illegally possessing confidential law enforcement information as a private detective and was sentenced to a year’s probation.

He became the highest ranking former LAPD official sentenced on criminal charges since the corruption scandals of the early 1900s.

Municipal Court Judge Veronica Simmons McBeth also fined Sullivan $4,995.

“It’s an appropriate plea given the circumstances,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Alan Yochelson. “It’s a significant fine and the publicity that this case has gathered will serve as a deterrent in future situations.”

Sullivan’s attorney was unavailable for comment.

Sullivan, who last June had pleaded not guilty to 11 counts and denied any wrongdoing, pleaded no contest to five misdemeanor counts, prosecutors said. No contest is the equivalent of a guilty plea for California criminal court purposes.

Prosecutors accused Sullivan and Thomas Whiteaker, of Whiteaker Investigative Services in Mission Hills, of receiving confidential information contained in law enforcement files from Walter Ray Bentley Jr., an LAPD officer who resigned last year after he was arrested on child pornography charges. Yochelson said that Bentley used LAPD computers to get information on people--including witnesses in criminal cases--and then passed the information along to Sullivan and Whiteaker.

Before he retired from the department eight years ago, Sullivan had a widespread reputation as an energetic, capable, untouchably honest officer who was widely admired and at one point was considered a candidate to succeed former Chief Daryl F. Gates.

Cases against Bentley and Whiteaker are pending.

Times staff writer Julie Tamaki contributed to this report.