2 More Ex-Deputies Sentenced in Drug Money Case : Law enforcement: Husband and wife are among 19 officers convicted in the scandal. He was already serving a term for an earlier conviction in the case.

Two more former Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies, a husband and wife who served a combined 40 years with the department, were sentenced to federal prison Wednesday in a drug money-skimming scandal in which 19 deputies now have been convicted.

During the sentencing hearing for the couple, a federal prosecutor said the government is ready to investigate higher-ups, if only it could get names.

Terrell H. Amers, who is already serving a 46-month sentence on convictions in an earlier phase of the case, received an additional 41 months for stealing, laundering and failing to pay taxes on thousands of dollars in drug funds originally seized by elite department narcotics teams.

U.S. District Judge Laughlin E. Waters also sentenced Amers’ wife, Genevieve, to 21 months for her role in concealing the money from tax authorities.

Both sentences followed recommendations by probation officers and were less than half as long as federal prosecutor Barbara Scheper had urged. Terrell Amers was ordered to serve his new sentence, starting now, concurrently with what remains of the one he has been serving. His lawyer estimated he will have to serve about three more years.

The judge branded both of the Amers a disgrace to law enforcement, but he also remarked, in relation to Terrell Amers, “I am a little puzzled why the government filed two cases against him,” especially since the chief federal prosecutor in the scandal, Thomas Hagemann, had once referred to Amers as “the baby of the bunch,” the man who stole the least.

Last April, Robert R. Sobel, a former sheriff’s sergeant who cooperated with prosecutors, maintained that the money skimmed from funds seized from drug dealers goes far higher in the department than prosecutors have yet alleged. And on Wednesday, Scheper revealed that Terrell Amers had said in private letters to the judge that higher-ups were involved.

Scheper remarked that although Amers “says, ‘I’m a scapegoat, a little guy,”’ he has yet to come forward to name any “big fish.”

Outside the courtroom, after the sentencing, Scheper remarked that if Amers or others “tell me who they are, we’ll go investigate them.”

But Amers’ attorney, Paul R. DePasquale, said he feels it is up to Sobel to name any higher-ups. DePasquale and Genevieve Amers’ attorney, Russell J. Cole, said the only reason prosecutors went after Amers’ wife was that he would not cooperate.

In a lengthy statement to Waters in court, Cole said the 19 former deputies now convicted were all on the sheriff’s prestigious narcotics enforcement teams. They were the “creme de la creme” of the Sheriff’s Department and had been unable to resist the temptation of easy money, he said.

The prosecutor said that, in all, $1.5 million in drug funds belonging to the government was stolen by the deputies.

Judge Waters declared that if these officers were “the creme de la creme, “ Los Angeles is in “a pretty sad state.”

Waters said he could not contest that the money represented a big temptation, but he noted that those convicted were sworn officers and their failure to uphold standards of honesty was particularly reprehensible.