Monique Cottalorda and Gregorio Vasquez were two of approximately 170 men and women wrongfully convicted because of misconduct uncovered in an investigation into the Los Angeles Police Department's Rampart division.
Additional information about the Rampart case can be found here, in our Groups Registry.
Officer Rafael Perez and his partner, Officer Nino Durden, arrested Vasquez and Cottalorda on July 15, 1997, charging each with possession of heroin.
In his report, Perez said the officers had arranged to buy heroin from Vasquez, agreeing to meet him at Sixth Street and Oxford Avenue on the edge of the Koreatown neighborhood.
Perez said in the report that after he and Durden showed up, they questioned Cottalorda, who told the police that Vasquez had hidden the heroin in his waistband. Perez said Durden then searched Vasquez and found the drugs.
Vasquez, who was 34 years old, and Cottalorda, who was 22 years old, entered guilty pleas on October 9, 1997. Vasquez received a sentence of four years in prison. Cottalorda, who was on probation at the time of the arrest, received three additional years of probation, with the condition that she spend the first 365 days of her sentence in the Los Angeles County Jail.
On August 17, 1998, Perez was charged with theft, possession of cocaine, and forgery. The jury deadlocked at his trial (with a majority voting for conviction) in December 1998. Police investigated further, and additional charges were filed against Perez.
Just before his retrial on September 8, 1999, Perez pled guilty to eight drug charges and struck a deal with prosecutors. In exchange for a sentence of no more than five years in prison, he would cooperate with an investigation into the Rampart operations.
During an interview on April 5, 2000. Perez said that he had falsified the arrest report for Vasquez and Cottalorda.
Perez said he used a pager to contact a person to arrange a drug buy.
“When they arrived, we formed the opinion that these were the people that were supposed to deliver heroin to us,” Perez said, referring to Vasquez and Cottalorda. “However, we could not find any heroin on them. The part of the report where it says that the girl told Durden that he had narcotics in his front waistband is incorrect. What actually occurred was, we found out where they lived. We did a follow-up to their residence. At the residence was an older gentleman, who I believe he said was the father of the female.”
Perez said he asked that man if he and Durden could search the apartment. Perez said the man agreed to the search. “While searching in the bedroom where the female and the male resided, we found a stuffed animal,” Perez said. “Inside that stuffed animal, we found a large piece of tar heroin. About $600 worth of tar heroin. That is the heroin that we attributed to Mr. Vasquez. And that is the heroin that was used as evidence against him.”
On April 17, 2000, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, asking a judge to vacate the convictions of Vasquez and Cottalorda and dismiss their cases. Vasquez had been released on parole on November 24, 1999.
“The District Attorney’s Office no longer has confidence in the evidence supporting these convictions and has concluded that the judgments of conviction should be overturned,” the petition said.
A judge granted the petition on June 27, 2000.
Separate from his theft convictions, Perez later pled guilty to federal civil rights and firearms violations resulting from a Rampart-related shooting. Durden pled guilty to stealing drugs and money from a suspect and for covering up that shooting.
More than 200 lawsuits were filed against the city by persons wrongfully convicted based on the Rampart misconduct or by those who claimed they had been falsely arrested. It’s not known if Vasquez or Cottalorda received compensation for their wrongful convictions. There is no public final accounting, although a report from 2007 said the city had paid out $75 million, and more recent reports put the figure at closer to $125 million.
– Ken Otterbourg
Posting Date: 10-14-2025
