North Hollywood : Man Jailed Over False Police Brutality Claim

A North Hollywood man was sentenced this week to 60 days in jail for filing a false police report in which he claimed he and a friend were beaten by three law enforcement officers, Los Angeles City Atty. James Hahn said.

Sidney Emilio Caron, 34, was sentenced Thursday after he pleaded no contest to the misdemeanor count in Van Nuys Municipal Court. Adolfo Pino Aquino, 29, who allegedly helped file the report, failed to appear for his arraignment and there is a warrant for his arrest, Hahn said.

The case stemmed from a police-brutality report filed by Caron and Aquino on Aug. 10, in which the two men were taped by a patrol car video camera fabricating the story, Hahn said.

Hahn said the two men had been drinking beer on a couch in an alley between Whitsett Avenue and Laurel Canyon Boulevard in North Hollywood.

Police officers asked the men to take the beer inside, which they did, Hahn said.

But Caron and Aquino later offered a different account to an LAPD investigator: They said the officers had beaten them, Hahn said.

Investigators became suspicious when the two recounted slightly different stories, Hahn said. Caron said they had been beaten with flashlights while Aquino said officers used batons, according to authorities. The two men also did not bear physical evidence of abuse, Hahn said.

The investigators put the two men in an LAPD patrol car equipped with a video camera and left them alone, Hahn said.

Hahn said the video captured a conversation in which the two men coordinated their accounts of the phony beating and Caron said the two men would “win big” if the pair stuck to their story.

Hahn called the use of the camera “a compelling example of the value of equipping LAPD cars with video cameras in order to protect the taxpayers against bogus claims and arrestees.”