PROSECUTOR TAKES OVER BELMONT PROBE INVESTIGATION FOCUSES ON CRIMINAL ACTIVITY IN SCHOOL PLAN.

Byline: Beth Barrett Staff Writer

District Attorney Steve Cooley said Thursday the Belmont Learning Center criminal probe has entered a new stage, with a top prosecutor assigned to develop specific criminal cases.

Denying published characterizations that the seven-month probe has narrowed, Cooley said the investigation of how the nation's costliest school came to be built on ground seeping potentially toxic and explosive gases was being refocused as a ``traditional criminal investigation,'' rather than primarily an environment review.

``We have cause to pursue certain theories of criminal liability,'' Cooley said in an interview. John Zajec, head deputy in charge of target, or special, crimes has been put in charge.

Until this month, the probe was being handled by a special task force headed by Anthony Patchett, who continues in that role but is now reviewed by Zajec.

Sources told the Daily News that Cooley stepped in aggressively earlier this summer to salvage an investigation that had grown expansive and undisciplined. Patchett declined comment Wednesday.

The sources said before the reorganization, Patchett was on the verge of being ousted as the probe appeared in danger of floundering amid task force members' competing agendas, interests and approaches.

Cooley promised voters during his fall campaign he would get to the bottom of the Belmont scandal, while accusing his predecessor Gil Garcetti of not taking it seriously.

Now leading the investigation against a backdrop of tremendous political interest - including the Belmont principles, among them the developers, led by Kajima Urban Development, and the district's law firm at the time, O'Melveny & Myers - Cooley said he is concerned only with the facts.

``There are a bunch of people with their own agendas, but that's irrelevant to me. What's relevant is the facts,'' he said. ``There are more people with political agendas in this case than Carter has liver pills.''

Cooley and Zajec both declined to discuss the details of the possible crimes committed during construction of the unfinished $175 million downtown high school, which sits unprotected by any barrier atop an oil field.

Cooley said the inquiry has taken several surprising turns.

``They were entirely unexpected areas that no one ever imagined existed,'' he said.

Los Angeles Unified Superintendent Roy Romer said he backs prosecutors' probe of potential criminality at Belmont, but the results will not alter his plan to move forward toward completing the school or selling the property.

``I have no quarrel with anyone pursuing something that had a criminal aspect to it,'' Romer said. ``But that doesn't change anything I'm doing. It doesn't change that we need to make a decision on this property.''

By mid-July, Cooley was holding marathon meetings with the task force, which had collected thousands of documents, before deciding early last week to assign Zajec to handle the specific criminal aspects of the inquiry.

``We've focused it,'' Cooley said. ``We've terminated some aspects of the probe ... because the facts presented don't merit investigative and prosecutorial resources, while others merit them. We're focusing on those that may involve criminal culpability.''

The reorganization of personnel, he said, reflects a more structured chain of command, where ``people check and double check what's going on,'' Cooley added. He also has limited the number of people involved in the more sensitive - and therefore more easily compromised - aspects of the investigation.

Cooley said there is no time line to complete the criminal investigation. He acknowledged the statute of limitations for some crimes might already have elapsed but vowed to nonetheless expose any wrongdoing.

``We will expose it, which is a great public service,'' he said, adding it should discourage others from doing the same sort of things.

Sources said grand jury time reserved by prosecutors in August and September in anticipation of presenting their Belmont case has been postponed. Prosecutors so far have only gone to the grand jury on Belmont for subpoenas, sources said.

Cooley said whether charges ultimately are filed or not, the public will get a full accounting of the case.

``The public is going to find out what went wrong with this world-class public works tragedy,'' he said.