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LOS ANGELES (CNS) - Two former Long Beach Police Department officers were acquitted Wednesday of a felony charge alleging they filed a false police report involving an arrest more than five years ago.
Dedier "Eddie" Reyes, 40, and David Salcedo, 30, each were charged in December 2021 with one count of filing a false report stemming from a Feb. 15, 2018, arrest.
Reyes was also charged with a felony count of perjury under oath -- a count on which he was also acquitted.
"I agree with the jury's verdict," Salcedo's attorney, John Barnett, said shortly after the verdict.
Deputy District Attorney Kristopher Gay declined to comment on the verdict.
In his closing argument Monday, the prosecutor told jurors that the two were "lying about their observations" in their reports.
"... It's not about mixing things up. It's about making things up," Gay told the jury. "They made up the entire thing to justify the arrest."
Surveillance video from a taqueria showed a different man leaving behind a satchel that contained a handgun, and the man who had been arrested was released from custody. Long Beach police said in December 2021 that detectives had discovered discrepancies between the police reports and the surveillance video.
Reyes' attorney, Benjamin Karabian, countered that the allegations were "completely out of character" for his client, who had been on the force for 14 years, was serving as a training officer and had a reputation as an "exceptional gang enforcement officer."
"We're talking about the possibility of a mistaken observation. ... If they could have reasonably been mistaken, you have to accept that conclusion," he said, telling jurors that a mistake "does not equal guilt."
Barnett told jurors that Salcedo was still on probation with the police department at the time, and said the two wouldn't intentionally lie in their reports because they knew the taqueria -- where the bag containing the handgun was found -- had surveillance video cameras.
Salcedo's attorney said his client had "no motive" to purposely identify the wrong man as having carried the bag, and noted that the man who was arrested and the man who left the bag were each about the same height and weight.
Reyes and Salcedo were initially suspended pending the outcome of the department's internal affairs investigation. The two were "served with termination notices" in April 2022, according to Long Beach police.
In July 2022, a man who had been convicted of assaulting Reyes was re- sentenced to time already served after his conviction was vacated in part due to the then-pending criminal case against Reyes and Salcedo.
Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón noted that Reyes was the only witness to the crime that resulted in Miguel Angel Vargas -- who had a prior residential burglary conviction -- being sentenced to 39 years in prison following his 2011 conviction for one felony count each of assault on a peace officer with a semiautomatic firearm.
"The jury relied on the credibility of this officer. As a result of the pending charges against Reyes and concern that there may have been procedural errors that occurred at trial, we are unable to maintain confidence in the integrity of the assault conviction," Gascón said then.
Vargas, who had served 12 years behind bars, agreed to waive sufficient time credits to allow him to be placed on a year of post-release community supervision and to enter a six-month residential re-entry program to allow him to transition back into the community following his lengthy period of incarceration, according to the District Attorney's Office.