$400,000 IN SETTLEMENTS OK'D.

Byline: Rick Orlov Staff Writer

The Los Angeles City Council agreed to pay out $400,000 Wednesday to settle three federal civil rights cases involving Rampart anti-gang officers.

The cases include the 1998 station-house beating of a handcuffed prisoner, Ismael Jimenez, who will get $231,000. Jimenez claimed he was severely beaten by Officer Brian Hewitt, who was later fired for attack.

The settlement was considered something of a benchmark in the city's potential total Rampart liability, estimated anywhere from $125 million to $1 billion.

In a second case, Eduardo Hernandez, settled for $169,000 after alleging he was stopped by Officers Jeffrey Stuart and Jeffrey Robb on Feb. 17, 1998. Hernandez said he was arrested without justification, handcuffed and then slammed into a nearby wall.

Both Jimenez and Hernandez claimed to have been detained and harassed over 100 times by Rampart cops.

The officers denied wrongdoing in legal papers, but could not be reached for comment.

Robb resigned from the department, pending discipline, while the complaint against Stuart was not sustained and he remains on the force, said LAPD Cmdr. David Kalish.

Chief Assistant City Attorney Thomas C. Hokinson said the cases may not necessarily reflect future settlements involving false imprisonment.

``Still, it's a good case for us to begin with, it's a reasonable settlement,'' Hokinson said.

Attorney Dennis Chang, one of the lawyers representing the two men, was clearly disappointed that the Jimenez case - widely anticipated in civil rights circles to fetch far more - was not resolved for more money. He said he could not disclose the factors that led him and his client to accept the settlement, which he called ``satisfactory.''

``I know how it's going to look and that it lowers the bar for others,'' Chang said. ``But many factors needed to be taken into consideration.''

The Jimenez settlement got the attention of local civil rights attorneys who are lining up in state and federal court with their own claims.

``I am very surprised it's that low,'' said Sonia Mercado, co-counsel on a number of federal lawsuits involving Rampart officers.

``Your plaintiff's needs are different. For example, a family member might be ill and the person doesn't want to go through three or four years of trials and appeals, exhausting funds on attorney costs.''

Jimenez's claims were buttressed by other factors. An LAPD Board of Rights on June 18 reviewed the evidence and found it compelling enough to fire Hewitt, who denied wrongdoing.

The LAPD then twice pressed to file criminal charges but when a deputy district attorney agreed, he was reassigned. Garcetti has said the case is now being reconsidered.

Studio City Councilman Joel Wachs criticized the settlement process, saying much of the closed-session debate should have been in public because it involved general matters of interest to residents.

``We had a case here where the police knew they had a problem officer, but no one did anything,'' Wachs said. ``Much of our discussion was about policy and that should have been conducted in public.''

The council agreed to explore developing a policy in which the use of closed executive sessions would be limited strictly to lawsuits and not policy matters.

The first Rampart settlement was with Thomas Heo, a cellular telephone merchant, for $60,000 in January.