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Jurors Award $6.5 Million To Rampart Victim
May 26, 2005- Daily Journal
A Los Angeles Superior Court jury awarded $6.5 million to Javier Ovando, a former 18 th Street gang member, who was wrongly convicted and claimed that his public defender failed to properly represent him. Even though the Rampart scandal had not been uncovered at the time of Ovando's trial, jurors voted 9-3 in favor of Ovando, finding that the deputy public defender was 100% responsible for the conviction. One of the jurors said, There was no investigation whatsoever [by the public defender].
In 1997, Ovando was wrongly convicted of trying to shoot then-LAPD officers Rafael Perez and Nino Durden. In that trial, Perez testified that Ovando ambushed the officers with a semi-automatic rifle in an abandoned apartment. Perez further testified that he was forced to shoot Ovando in self-defense. Ovando was sentenced to 23 years in prison and paralyzed from the waist down.
However, in 1999, Perez was caught stealing cocaine from the LAPD evidence locker. As part of his a plea bargain, Perez admitted that he lied about shooting Ovando in self-defense, and that he and Durden frequently framed and abused suspects and lied about it in court. This sparked the Rampart scandal and sent these officers to prison.
Ovando was set free after 3 years, and sued the city of Los Angeles . He recovered a record $15 million.
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