COPS, RAPPER DEATHS LINKED REPORTS TIE RAMPART FIGURE TO STARS' SLAYINGS.

Byline: Beth Barrett Staff Writer

The Rampart Division scandal took a new twist with two national magazines publishing articles this week claiming a cadre of LAPD cops with ties to the criminal gangsta-rap underworld weren't fully investigated for possible roles in two superstar rappers' slayings and other crimes.

The articles in Rolling Stone and The New Yorker suggest that top police and prosecutorial officials covered up or bungled the Rampart investigation at least in part to get closure of the scandal with the least damage politically.

The Rolling Stone article by Randall Sullivan and The New Yorker piece by Peter J. Boyer, which also was aired Tuesday night on ``Frontline,'' link three former Los Angeles Police Department cops - key Rampart figure Rafael Perez, convicted bank robber David Mack and Kevin Gaines, who was slain in a Ventura Boulevard confrontation with an undercover narcotics officer.

The articles raise questions about the officers' possible links to the unsolved slayings of Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas on Sept. 13, 1996, and Biggie Smalls (Notorious B.I.G.) in Los Angeles on March 9, 1997.

Chief Bernard C. Parks dismissed the articles Wednesday as ``rumors, great for cocktail conversations.''

``What would be our interest in not solving the Biggie Smalls murder, our most serious crime in our city's homicide unit?'' Parks said.

He questioned the idea that the department would want to protect either Perez, who's in prison for stealing cocaine from a department evidence locker, or his former partner, Mack.

``If these people were clean as the driven snow, maybe that would be a theory,'' Parks said.

Perez's stories

The articles that rely on several of the same sources assert police and prosecutors chose to believe convicted felon and admitted liar Perez's stories of dirty Rampart anti-gang cops rather than pursue Perez's buddies - cops fraternizing with the rappers, and possibly involved in murder.

Both extensively quote former LAPD Detective Russell Poole, who said he resigned from the force in frustration, with Rolling Stone suggesting Parks eased up on the investigation to keep from embarrassing other African-American cops, with former District Attorney Gil Garcetti, the Los Angeles Times and the rest of the city's political establishment following.

Poole is quoted in Rolling Stone saying, ``Criminal cops get protected because the department wants to avoid scandal and publicity.'' And that protection seemed to increase exponentially whenever the criminal cop was African-American, the article said.

Neither Poole nor his Beverly Hills attorney, Leo Terrell, could be reached for comment Wednesday.

Poole, in a lawsuit against the city, claims his constitutional rights to report criminal matters of public concern were suppressed, among other allegations.

Bogus leads

The crux of the magazines' accounts is that when Perez, a former anti- gang cop, was arrested Aug. 25, 1998, in connection with stealing $1 million worth of cocaine, he steered investigators away from his close friend and fellow officer Mack, and possibly other LAPD officers connected with Death Row Records or other rappers.

That may have included Gaines, the African-American officer who was shot by off-duty white cop Frank Lyga on March 18, 1997, while driving a vehicle registered to Death Row Records, according to the accounts.

Lyga said Wednesday that he was ``screwed'' by Parks and City Attorney James Hahn.

He charged that Hahn preferred settling with Gaines' family for $250,000 rather than defend a hard-working, honest white cop against an African-American with a questionable past for fear of alienating his African-American political base prior to the mayoral election. The settlement stirred controversy at the time because it split the payoff to three family members to keep it under the $100,000 limit that required City Council approval.

Lyga added that Parks is the consummate administrator, a chief who would rather ``fire than arrest'' bad cops, to keep the department from public scrutiny and to avoid its humiliation.

``He wants all the power and will step on anyone to get it,'' Lyga said. ``He doesn't want to be embarrassed. He'd rather handle it secretly.''

Chief Assistant City Attorney Thomas C. Hokinson said none of Lyga's assertions is true, and that he negotiated the settlement with the Gaines family attorney, Johnnie Cochran Jr. - O.J. Simpson's trial attorney - after the city was sued for some $25 million.

Hokinson said he couldn't remember how much - if any - of Gaines' past or association with Death Row Records was considered during the settlement. Normally, background checks are a routine part of litigation.

``Factual disputes existed and it was a death case,'' Hokinson said. ``It was a fair and reasonable settlement for the city of L.A.''

Parks said the ``Poole theory'' hooks people together who knew each other, including Perez, Gaines, Mack and another officer, Sammy Martin.

``But the fact they are all friends doesn't mean they commit crimes together,'' Parks added. The Smalls investigation remains open and active, both police and District Attorney's Office prosecutors said Wednesday.

William Hodgeman, who prosecuted Death Row Records head Suge Knight and now is leading District Attorney Steve Cooley's Rampart team, confirmed Poole handed off the information he'd compiled on the Biggie Smalls slaying in the fall of 1999 before resigning.

Hodgeman said he passed the material along to his office's major crimes unit. He declined to characterize Poole's information.

Insufficient evidence 

Sandi Gibbons, Cooley's spokeswoman, said the case is the LAPD's to investigate, but that one prosecutor is assigned to the case. She said there are two working theories in the Smalls killing - one of which is Poole's, but that there isn't sufficient evidence under either scenario to file a case.

Dan Schatz, who headed the LAPD's Rampart Task Force until leaving to become chief of the Prescott Valley, Ariz., police force, called the premise that Parks would go out of his way to protect African-American cops ``a joke.''

Gaines was an African-American as is Mack, while Perez is Puerto Rican.

Los Angeles Police Protective League President Mitzi Grasso said there's no evidence to support the shielding of African-American officers.

``There's no concerted effort by our department to protect black officers,'' Grasso said. ``I think they treat everyone the same.''

Pool 'obsessed'

Schatz said his unit and robbery-homicide assigned to the Smalls slaying shared information that might link Perez, Mack and Gaines.

He said Poole was ``obsessed' with the Smalls case from the beginning, but greatly exaggerated his role in the investigations and drew conclusions that weren't supported by the facts.

``Russ Poole violates every rule in the detective book,'' said Schatz. ``He'd write it down, and blurt it out, even if he can't corroborate it.''

He said he warned ``Frontline'' about basing too much of its story on Poole.

``I told them, I firmly believe if you use him, if you give him credibility, you will regret it,'' Schatz said.

Other law enforcement sources, who declined to be identified, said they found Poole to be ``well-motivated,'' and a ``good guy'' who believed he always had a grasp on the big picture but had little patience for those who didn't share his vision.

Rolling Stones' Sullivan described what Poole uncovered about Mack's possible involvement in the Biggie Smalls killing, including Tupac Shakur posters in Mack's garage, a black Impala SS that resembled the one used in the Smalls' drive-by, and Smalls' best friend picking Mack out of photos as one of the people at the door of the Petersen Automotive Museum in the Wilshire District shortly before Smalls was ambushed.

Schatz said investigators followed the leads, but hit a dead end on the car, and no one they interviewed could place Mack at the museum that night.

The closest they got was that Mack may have worked a few Death Row events, and that a few other officers may also have done gigs for the rap producer, he said.

When the FBI served a search warrant on Death Row Records for its financial records, LAPD investigators went along, looking for payments to its officers. Schatz said he didn't believe any such financial connections were established.

David Kenner, the company's attorney, did not return phone calls Wednesday.

Schatz confirmed other connections raised by the publications but said that while they raised the specter of an association of officers who had some ties to the rap industry, they were checked out and found either to be untrue or unprovable.

Perez's ties to Mack, he said, were well-known, dating from a undercover drug buy that turned confrontational and resulted in Mack shooting and killing the armed buyer. Backup units were already at the scene, and investigators later concluded the shooting was within policy, he said.

Perez also joined Mack in Las Vegas shortly after Mack held up a Bank of America with the help of an accomplice Nov. 6, 1997, and got away with $722,000 - most of it never recovered. Perez told prosecutors in 1999 that he was ``as surprised as anybody'' when he learned Mack had been arrested. Perez subsequently failed five polygraphs.

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Photo: (1 -- 2 -- color) This week's Rolling Stone and The New Yorker magazines claim some LAPD cops had ties to the criminal underworld.