L.A. COUNTY'S NEW D.A. SET TO START DEC. 4 NEW '3 STRIKES' POLICY ON COOLEY'S AGENDA.

Byline: Beth Barrett Staff Writer

Steve Cooley - elected Los Angeles County district attorney in a landslide - promised Wednesday to reform the criminal justice system and revisit both the Belmont Learning Center scandal and the immunity agreement with former Rampart dirty-cop Rafael Perez.

Looking rested and relaxed at his Sheraton Universal Hotel suite after his defeat of two-term incumbent Gil Garcetti, Cooley was ready to head for the downtown Criminal Courts Building to work on a new ``three strikes, you're out'' policy. This policy, he vowed, will deal with predator criminals severely but treat nonviolent ones ``proportionately'' to their offenses.

With former District Attorney and California Attorney General John Van de Kamp already chosen to head his transition team, Cooley made it clear in an interview with the Daily News he's eager to get started after he is sworn in at his alma mater, California State University, Los Angeles, on Dec. 4. ``Our justice system needs to be improved,'' the career prosecutor said. ``I want to make changes so that the public can be proud of its justice system.''

Garcetti called Cooley early Wednesday, promising cooperation during the transition. Cooley got 64 percent of the vote to Garcetti's 36 percent, with campaign consultants saying Garcetti's failure to win big cases and pursue public corruption allegations were key issues.

Garcetti said during a press conference that he was satisfied with his more than 30-year career as a prosecutor.

``Crime is at its lowest level in decades,'' he said. ``We have focused on attacking domestic violence, hate crimes, computer crimes and other crime problems in a new way.''

Cooley said he will quickly set a grand jury agenda to more vigorously investigate cases of potential misconduct by public officials, among other reforms.

He added that he intends to carefully review Belmont after Garcetti and both the state Attorney General and City Attorney's offices concluded none of the suspected felonies or misdemeanors referred to them by the school district's inspector general could be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

``I really want to review what they did and what they didn't do,'' Cooley said of Garcetti's decision not to proceed against any of the Belmont principals. ``When you're talking about ($170 million) in taxpayers' dollars and no one has a handle on what went wrong there, I think the public deserves to know.''

Similarly, Cooley said he is prepared to tackle the Rampart police corruption scandal, including whether Perez may have violated his immunity agreement.

Perez was given immunity and a lighter, five-year sentence for stealing $1 million in cocaine from an evidence locker after he first swore he didn't kill anyone and then testified to crimes he alleged other cops committed.

Since then, Perez and another former anti-gang cop have been accused by an old girlfriend of three murders, which Perez has denied through his attorney, Winston Kevin McKesson. The bodies, supposedly buried in Mexico, have not been found.

`The immunity agreement is just a contract, and I want to see if it's been breached or not,'' Cooley said. ``I want to see if the people got snookered and if we have to fix it.''

McKesson said the agreement hasn't been breached, and that Perez has ``been honest and forthright throughout the proceedings.''

Staff Writer Rick Orlov contributed to this story.

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L.A. County District Attorney-elect Steve Cooley talks Wednesday about his immediate job plans.

Hans Gutknecht/Staff Photographer