Murder - General & Miscellaneous, Corruption & Scandals, Law Enforcement - Conduct & Ethics

The Dark Side of the Force

Name: The Dark Side of the Force
Author: Jan Golab
ISBN: 9780871134998

by Jan Golab

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Overview

Ford and Von Villas were two of the finest cops in what was widely regarded as the best-run police department in the country. Each had over a decade of experience and stacks of commendations. They had risen through the inner-city ranks to a station affectionately known as Club Dev, in an affluent section of the San Fernando Valley. Charismatic and outgoing, both Vietnam war heroes and beloved husbands and fathers, these men led private lives that mirrored their glowing professional reputations. And yet for years, and frequently from right behind their desks at Club Dev, they had been "capering" - running an out-call prostitution service, dealing automatic weapons, and committing insurance fraud, armed robbery, and finally murder-for-hire. Bruce Adams was another Vietnam vet, but unlike Ford and Von Villas his history of stress had played havoc with his work as an auto mechanic. Nearly homeless when he met Detective Ford, he responded to the attractive officer's offer of friendship and was soon being conned into joining their schemes. It would not be until many nerve-wracking months later, when he learned of a plan to kidnap, rape, and murder a friend of his, erotic dancer Joan Loguercio, that he was finally able to convince the still-incredulous federal agents to move in on the case. Bruce Adams risked his life in the bust that saved Joan Loguercio and led to the arrest and conviction of L.A.'s notorious killer cops. And if this book has all the elements of the most compulsively readable thriller - including an unlikely hero - it is also an eloquent commentary on the violent legacy of Vietnam and the dangerous business of delegating trust and authority in modern society.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

The Los Angeles Police Department long had a reputation as one of the best in the nation. Then came the revelations in Edward Humes's Murderer with a Badge (Nonfiction Forecasts, Oct. 5, 1992), Norma Jean Almodovar's Cop to Call Girl (Nonfiction Forecasts, March 29) and the Rodney King beating. To that list can be added this shocking tale of two officers, both highly regarded by their colleagues and neighbors, who established a prostitution ring, trafficked in automatic weapons, perhaps committed an armed robbery and carried out at least one murder for hire. With eminent fairness, freelance writer Golab tells the story of Richard Ford and Robert Van Villas, both raised in dysfunctional families, both Vietnam War heroes, both loving husbands and fathers who betrayed their law enforcement trust and were found guilty of murder in 1988, and are now serving life sentences, pending appeals. A sobering and depressing, yet highly readable, book. (Aug.)

Richard Paul Snyder

The LAPD is the cleanest major city police force in the country. It is mostly immune to the politicization that subjects most other forces to wholesale corruption. Thus chief Darryl Gates was shocked back in July_ 1983 when two of Los Angeles' finest were accused of being a veritable two-man crime wave: burglary, robbery, pimping, conspiring to kidnap a woman and make it look like a sex crime by raping and torturing her, and other felonious offenses. Thanks to informant Bruce Adams, the now-notorious Robert Von Villas and Richard Ford's schemes were exposed. An intimate of the two rogue cops, the mechanic risked his life--indeed, is still risking his life--to reveal all for little reward (only the federal witness protection program is lucrative; Adams and family are now scraping by under new identities in another state). Initially, Vietnam vet Adams hooked up with fellow vet Richard Ford at a VA meeting for PTSD. A ne'er-do-well, Adams was befriended by Ford, who, along with Von Villas, was known for his good deeds. The two officers, on the surface, were model cops in a model district, the San Fernando North, aka Club Dev. Their salaries not affording them the life-styles they aspired to, however, the two cops wheeled and dealed in real estate, commodities, and other tangibles by day, and in weapons, sex, and murder-for-hire by night. The book's first half is true crime at its best, reading like fiction; once the bust comes down, the story necessarily slows as various investigations, legal manuverings, and proceedings are depicted in depth.