SET UP BY A LYING COP AND STILL IN JAIL

I hope the cop ends up being put away himself. Fat chance, I suppose

Bob Lisker, Bruce's father, was visiting his son at juvenile hall just after the boy was booked for murder. Bob recalled a conversation he had with his wife, Dorka, the night before the murder. Dorka told Bob one of Bruce's friends, Mike Ryan, had come over, asking if he could do any odd jobs around the house in exchange for money. Bruce often did these odd jobs around his parents' home in Sherman Oaks, Calif., for money, and sometimes brought Ryan along so he could earn a few dollars as well. That particular day, Ryan showed up alone, and Dorka told him she had nothing for him to do.

Like Bruce, Ryan was also a drug addict going nowhere fast. The two had struck up a friendship while attending meetings for drug addiction rehabilitation in 1982. They shared a common bond: getting high. Ryan, also 17, was homeless and jobless. For half the rent, Lisker let his new friend sleep on his couch. The friendship ended after only a few months, when Ryan didn't pay his share of the rent as agreed and Lisker kicked him out. Ryan went to Mississippi.

Three weeks after the murder, ironically, on April Fools' Day, Van Nuys Police Detective Andrew Monsue paid a visit to Lisker at Sylmar Juvenile Hall. Lisker was desperate for the police to investigate Ryan for the murder; he had no evidence of his former friend's guilt, just a nagging suspicion. Bruce told the detective that Ryan had an unusual fascination with knives. Monsue said he would look into the whereabouts of Ryan on the morning of the murder. It was later determined that the detective did interview Ryan, but only so he could say he had cleared Ryan as a suspect so the prosecution of Lisker would not be derailed.

Ryan had been in Los Angeles for several days prior to the attack. He told Monsue that at the time Dorka Lisker was being beaten and stabbed to death, he was 12 miles away, in a knife fight with an unknown black male. He claimed to have stabbed the man in the shoulder. Ryan told the detective he had checked into a nearby motel that morning and hopped on a bus headed back to Mississippi the next morning. Monsue discovered that Ryan had checked in that afternoon, but had used the alias "Mark Smith." Unbelievably, Monsue never bothered to verify the alleged knife fight. The detective did do a records search on Ryan, but used the wrong birthdate. Had Monsue used the correct date, he would have found Ryan's conviction for a knifepoint robbery, committed 10 months before Dorka Lisker's murder.

Monsue never shared the contents of his interview and investigation of Ryan's story with the prosecutor assigned to the Lisker case, Phillip Rabichow. Subsequently, this information was never given to Lisker's attorney, Dennis Mulcahy, who could have possibly used it to free his client.

Mulcahy was not permitted to argue at Lisker's trial that Ryan was the real killer. No evidence had been presented to suggest that Ryan was even a suspect. The judge didn't believe there was a good-faith basis to allow the defense to pursue this theory. Alas, the jury never even heard the name Mike Ryan.

During Lisker's trial, prosecutor Rabichow relied heavily on the evidence given to him by investigators, in particular Monsue. Rabichow convincingly relayed to the jury that the bloody footprints at the scene "resembled quite closely" those of Lisker. He explained to the jury how it would have been impossible for Lisker to see his mother lying on the floor simply by looking in the window, as he had claimed. Conveniently, there was a jailhouse snitch who came forward to testify that Lisker confessed to him; but that was just icing on the cake. Rabichow truly believed Lisker killed his mother, and the prosecutor would see that justice was served. When the jury came back with a verdict of guilty, Rabichow considered his job done.

In 1995, Bob Lisker passed away. Bruce described his father as "a loving father and tireless supporter." On Bruce's website, www.freebruce.org, he writes, "My dad's memory fueled the next several years of progress towards justice in my mother's murder."

Lisker immersed himself in every legal document surrounding his case. In 2000, he discovered a 1998 letter to the parole board written by Monsue. In the letter, Monsue stated that the $150 missing from Dorka Lisker's purse—money that had allegedly been taken during the attack—had been discovered in the attic above Bruce Lisker's old bedroom. Lisker hired a private investigator, Paul Ingels, who contacted the homeowners. They stated they had never found any money and had never even heard of Monsue, much less spoken to him. Two years ago, Lisker filed a petition claiming wrongful conviction and lodged a complaint with the internal affairs division of the Los Angeles Police Department, along with an epilogue of his case to date.

Sgt. Jim Gavin was assigned in 2003 to look into Lisker's allegations. Gavin started from the beginning and attempted to reexamine all of the remaining evidence in the Lisker case.

He confirmed what private investigator Ingels had discovered: that the current owners of the Lisker residence had never found any money, and that Monsue had lied in his 1998 letter to the parole board. Once Gavin knew that Monsue had gone to such lengths to keep Lisker in prison, he started to question other facets of the case.

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And now for the coverup:

The Los Angeles Police Department's civilian watchdog has launched an investigation to determine whether an internal affairs sergeant was improperly ordered last year to shut down his probe of a questionable 1985 murder conviction. The sergeant uncovered new evidence that contradicted the prosecution's case against Bruce Lisker, 39, now serving a life sentence for murdering his 66-year-old mother in the foyer of the family's ranch-style Sherman Oaks home on March 10, 1983. The sergeant, Jim Gavin, also expressed concern that the LAPD detective who investigated the murder may have prematurely dismissed a second suspect and possibly lied to prevent Lisker's release on parole. But before Gavin could complete his work, he said he was ordered by his superiors to stop investigating.

Inspector General Andre Birotte Jr., who reports to the Police Commission, confirmed last week that LAPD officials had asked him to investigate the case because allegations of wrongdoing involved officers from internal affairs and the department wanted to avoid any perception of a "conflict of interest." Additionally, Michael Cherkasky, appointed by a federal judge to monitor the LAPD, said in an interview that he also was reviewing the department's handling of the case. LAPD Chief William J. Bratton, who has been briefed by senior police officials on the Lisker matter, declined to comment.

The high-level interest in Lisker's case comes after a Los Angeles Times investigation last month detailed new evidence and findings that contradicted a prosecutor's claim that a teenage Lisker beat and stabbed his mother, Dorka Lisker, after she caught him rifling through her purse for drug money. Based on the new evidence and findings, uncovered separately by Lisker's defense team, Gavin and Times reporters, the prosecutor, Phillip Rabichow, now retired, says he has reasonable doubt about Lisker's guilt. At least seven of the 12 jurors who voted unanimously to convict Lisker also now say they would have favored acquittal, had they known all of the evidence at the time.

Lisker, imprisoned for the last 22 years, filed a complaint with internal affairs two years ago against the detective, Andrew Monsue, who arrested him for his mother's murder. In the complaint, Lisker alleged that Monsue had failed to investigate another suspect, solicited perjured testimony from a jailhouse informant and lied about finding $150 supposedly stolen from Dorka Lisker's purse. Monsue denies any wrongdoing.

Assigned by internal affairs to investigate the complaint, Gavin took previously unexamined crime scene photographs to an LAPD analyst, who made a startling discovery: A bloody footprint left in a bathroom that was attributed to Lisker at trial did not match Lisker's shoes, suggesting that there was another person in the house at the time of the killing. During Gavin's investigation, police also discovered an autopsy photograph of what appeared to be a footprint on Dorka Lisker's shaved head. The mark was not recognized as a shoe impression at the time of the trial.

At The Times' request, the LAPD further analyzed the impression and determined that it matched the bloody footprint in the bathroom. Gavin also expressed concern that Monsue, the detective, may have prematurely dismissed a second suspect, a friend of Lisker's named John Michael Ryan, who lied about his whereabouts at the time of the killing, had a history of violence and left town the day after the murder. A telephone call from the Lisker home around the time of the murder was made to a number nearly identical to that of Ryan's mother — a call that Rabichow, the prosecutor, now acknowledges could be used to link Ryan to the crime. Ryan killed himself in 1996.

In his complaint to internal affairs, Lisker also questioned Monsue's claim that a couple who purchased the Lisker home after the murder had informed him that they had found $150 in the attic above Bruce Lisker's old bedroom. Monsue made the claim in a letter he wrote to the parole board in which he said that the discovery of the money "confirmed our initial theory" that Bruce Lisker had robbed his mother before killing her. But Gavin could find no evidence that Monsue had ever documented the development in writing. Gavin then contacted the man who Monsue said had reported finding the money. The homeowner later signed a sworn declaration that he could not remember finding money in the attic or ever contacting Monsue.

Gavin had more leads to pursue. But his supervisors had grown impatient and told him that internal affairs was not in the business of investigating homicides, he said. "I was told to shut it down," Gavin said in an interview with The Times. "I was told I was done."

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