Police Detective Alleges Corruption |

Sept. 26, 1979

June 27, 1980: After more than 1,000 hours of investigation, the district attorney's office closes its inquiry into Det. Donald Wicklund’s charges of misconduct in the Los Angeles Police Department, ending a messy, complicated case involving a TV production company’s loan to a police official and the unauthorized leak of police files for a movie script. Deputy Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti, who was then the head of the special investigations division, said none of Wicklund’s allegations had been substantiated.

The accusations, which gradually emerged after Wicklund’s Sept. 26, 1979, interview on KABC-TV Channel 7, involved a 1976 internal affairs investigation he helped conduct in the unauthorized release of the “Skid Row Slasher” files by Deputy Chief George N. Beck, one of the senior officers in the case. Beck was suspended for 10 days and demoted from assistant chief to deputy chief over the incident, The Times said. Police Chief Daryl Gates, who led the investigation of the release of the “Slasher” files when he was assistant chief, said Beck was guilty of nothing more than using bad judgment.

"The investigation revealed that Beck had obtained a $42,500 loan for use in the construction of a new home from an executive of a television production company,” The Times said on Oct. 10, 1979. "Help in arranging the loan, which was repaid shortly after being made, came from Sanford Lang, a television production assistant who often golfed with Beck."

"Wicklund has described Lang as the connection between Beck and two men allegedly associated with organized crime figures," The Times said. Lang told The Times: "I don't know anybody in organized crime."

The investigation of Wicklund’s corruption charges also cleared two police supervisors in the North Hollywood Division, Police Capt. Norman Judd and Police Capt. Stephen Gates, the brother of Chief Gates.

As the case unfolded, Chief Gates sharply criticized the Herald Examiner and KABC-TV for unfair and inaccurate reporting. Chief Gates said of the accusations against Judd: "We knew when it was first brought to the news media's attention that there was absolutely no truth to these allegations … but for some newsmen to pick up on those kinds of accusations have done nothing but punish the reputation of a very fine officer."

After the dust had settled, Gates said he never doubted Wicklund’s sincerity but said the detective should have gone to the proper authorities instead of making his accusations on a TV show.

Beck later filed a $3-million defamation suit against KABC-TV, although a search of the clips fails to show any resolution of the case. In October 1980, a judge dismissed a class-action libel suit by all uniformed LAPD officers against ABC and Channel 7 Eyewitness News, ruling that case law prohibits a large group from recovering damages for defamation.

On the jump, The Times’ stories on the Wicklund case, beginning the day after the TV program aired.

Sept. 27, 1979