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- <text id=90TT3431>
- <title>
- Dec. 24, 1990: American Notes:Los Angeles
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1990
- Dec. 24, 1990 What Is Kuwait?
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- NATION, Page 23
- American Notes
- LOS ANGELES
- Keeping The Loot
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p> 1984 federal law allowed police agencies to keep assets
- seized from drug traffickers and money launderers. But not, of
- course, for personal use. Last week six members of an elite Los
- Angeles County sheriff's narcotics squad were convicted of
- conspiring to steal $48,000. They were acquitted of larceny on
- a grander scale: spending $1.4 million in confiscated cash on
- luxury cars, boats, jewelry and vacation homes.
- </p>
- <p> The convicted officers may be only the first to fall in a
- widening corruption investigation that has tarnished the once
- squeaky-clean image of Los Angeles law-enforcement agencies.
- Dozens of narcotics agents from both the sheriff's office and
- the city police department are suspects. The probe began two
- years ago, after a deputy's wife tipped off Sheriff Sherman
- Block to the thefts. Block disbanded four of his narcotics
- teams and suspended 26 deputies, including some of his most
- decorated veterans.
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-
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