OFFICER SAYS HE GAMBLED AWAY CASH

LOS ANGELES -- The disgraced officer at the heart of the LAPD corruption scandal claimed he slept with an informant and gave crack cocaine to another who was a homeless addict, it was reported Sunday.

Former Officer Rafael Perez also said he gambled away some of the thousands of dollars in cash that he and his partner allegedly stole from suspected drug dealers.

His testimony to a Los Angeles Police Department task force was reported by the Daily News of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Times.

A police spokesman declined to comment Sunday.

"It is an ongoing investigation that we cannot comment on," Officer Jason Lee said.

Perez, a former member of an anti-gang unit in the Rampart Division, is cooperating with authorities in exchange for leniency when he is sentenced for stealing 8 pounds of cocaine from a police evidence locker.

He has alleged that officers framed suspects, lied on the witness stand and even shot unarmed men.  More than 30 convictions have been overturned, and 20 officers have been relieved of duty, suspended, fired or have quit.

Altogether, more than 70 police officers are under either criminal or administrative investigation by the police, the Daily News said, citing sources it did not identify.

Perez, meantime, reportedly told investigators that more than half of the arrests he made were illegal.

Among other things, he claimed that he and a former partner gave cocaine to a homeless woman they used to point out drug-dealing locations and taxi drivers who were dealing on the side.

Perez also said one 1997 informant became his lover.  The woman informed mainly on family members, Perez alleged.

"She didn't want to keep using family members as suppliers," he said.  "Because they weren't treating her right.

"She was tired of her family members being involved in this.  That's why she had no problem giving everybody ( up )."

Perez also claimed he lost some of the money taken from suspects while gambling.  He once gambled for 16 hours straight in Las Vegas, the former officer said.

"Even if it was just for one day, I had to get out there," he said.  "So I would go to Vegas ...  and lose $3,000 and didn't worry about it.  Because the next time that I came back, I won $4,000."

Perez told investigators that he and other officers sometimes made sure a case would fall apart to protect an informant who knew about their illegal operations.

"We didn't want to give our informant that much power, that much knowledge, something that he could hold over us," Perez said.

Perez was arrested in August 1998 for allegedly stealing cocaine evidence.  He told corruption investigators that shortly before the arrest, a sergeant and fellow officers tipped him off that he was being watched.

"You cannot investigate me and then call down to my division and say, 'Hey look.  You know, what's Perez doing today?' They're going to tell me.  Rampart's a close division,'" he said.

Perez doubted that police could be trusted with a corruption investigation.

"You know, it's like the fox guarding the henhouse.  There's too many relationships, too many friends, too many connections," Perez told investigators.

"It's ironic that Perez would make those comments as he sits in his cold jail cell," police Cmdr.  David Kalish told the Daily News.

Meanwhile, his attorney said Perez is a changed man who reads his Bible for hours in jail.

"It's interesting; it's kind of like when you see a reptile shedding its skin," Winston Kevin McKesson said.

"This is a man who wants to atone."