LOS ANGELES -- A Los Angeles police officer assigned to the department's scandal-scarred Rampart Division was charged with making false arrests after he was caught in a sting operation, officials said.

Authorities said Officer Edward Beltran Zamora arrested two undercover officers for investigation of drug possession, although a surveillance video showed they had no drugs.

Police initiated the six-month sting after what officials called an unusual pattern to Zamora's arrests. The officer worked in the Rampart Division, not far from downtown, which was plagued by rogue-policing scandals in the late 1990s in which officers were accused of framing and beating scores of innocent people.

Chief William Bratton said Zamora's case was an example of how the department is trying to tackle such problems.



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Zamora, 44, was released Friday on $20,000 bail and could not immediately be located for comment. There is no phone listing for him in the Los Angeles area.

He faces up to three years in prison if convicted of the felony of filing a false police report and two misdemeanor counts each of false arrest and false imprisonment.

Several times during his 16-year LAPD career, suspects have accused Zamora of planting evidence, authorities said. The city has paid $520,000 to settle two lawsuits filed against him.

In 2003, Zamora was accused in an internal LAPD report of dishonesty, making false statements and falsifying his daily activity field report. Few details of the accusations are available, but according to court documents a police panel concluded he had a report log that did not match information found on radio frequencies and in computer files.

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