Justice Dept. Won’t Prosecute Mark Fuhrman

WASHINGTON —  Closing a case that shocked Los Angeles in the midst of the O.J. Simpson trial, the Justice Department has decided not to prosecute Mark Fuhrman on allegations that he assaulted and mistreated minorities during his long career as a Los Angeles police officer, The Times learned Thursday.

The five-year statute of limitations had long since expired on the alleged incidents tied to Fuhrman and other LAPD officers, the department concluded.

The allegations stemmed from 14 taped interviews in which Fuhrman, a key witness in the Simpson case, told a writer that there was systematic misconduct in the Los Angeles Police Department and described some of his actions. Announcement of the Justice Department conclusion is expected soon, possibly today.

“We’re not saying he did nothing wrong,” said a department source familiar with the decision by the civil rights division to close the inquiry that began in 1995. “But we’re barred from proving in a court of law that he did anything wrong.”

It was not clear why it took the department three years to reach the conclusion that all of Fuhrman’s alleged acts took place before 1988. That conclusion is in line with the findings of an LAPD task force that examined the allegations.

The task force found 29 instances between 1977 and 1988 involving Fuhrman or other officers that could be construed as police misconduct, according to the Justice Department.

In addition to reviewing the LAPD report, the Justice Department examined Fuhrman’s personnel file, which a department source said included records of any administrative or disciplinary actions and all civilian or police complaints alleging misconduct by Fuhrman.

The information, covering Fuhrman’s career as a police officer from 1975 until he retired in 1995, was reviewed by attorneys from the civil rights division and the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles to determine if it contained evidence of prosecutable federal civil rights violations. But the reviewers came up with only possible incidents that occurred before 1988, the department source said.

Fuhrman’s participation as a witness in the O.J. Simpson double-murder case sent that trial into an emotional uproar.

It drew angry denunciations from the families of the two victims, as defense attorneys turned the trial into an examination of racial attitudes at the Los Angeles Police Department rather than whether Simpson had murdered his former wife and her friend.

Fuhrman was one of the LAPD detectives who conducted the investigation at Simpson’s home, and defense lawyers accused him of placing a bloody glove in a strategic location on Simpson’s Brentwood estate in an effort to entrap the former football star. The former athlete was found not guilty during the criminal trial. A jury did find him liable for the slayings in a later civil trial.

The Simpson defense team portrayed Fuhrman, who is white, as a racist who hated black people. Because Simpson is an African American, the defense said, Fuhrman seized the opportunity to frame him.

During his testimony in the trial, Fuhrman denied using the word “nigger” against blacks in the last 10 years. He later admitted that he had lied and pleaded no contest to a felony charge of perjury.

The LAPD initiated an internal review and found some graphic and brutal police abuses Fuhrman boasted about on audiotapes made by a writer who interviewed him to be true.

The allegations prompted the Los Angeles branch of the NAACP to call for the federal investigation in an August 1995 letter to the Justice Department.

Then-Deputy Atty. Gen. Jamie S. Gorelick said that the letter would be referred to the department’s civil rights division. A division official subsequently assured the NAACP that federal prosectors would “evaluate the material and conduct further investigation as warranted.”

The Justice Department also reviewed the allegations under civil authority that makes it unlawful for a police department to “engage in a pattern or practice . . . that deprives persons of rights . . . protected by the Constitution.” That inquiry is continuing, a department source said.

Fuhrman left the LAPD and now lives in northern Idaho.