Retired LAPD Detective Held in String of Robberies : Arrest: The holdups occurred in the Los Angeles area around the time he left the force after a high-profile career.

By PAUL LIEBERMAN

July 6, 1994 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

A recently retired Los Angeles police detective who conducted some of the department’s most sensitive organized crime investigations was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of committing a series of armed robberies.

Acting on a warrant issued in Los Angeles, Las Vegas police arrested Michael D. Brambles, 45, who retired from the police force in March. During 23 years with the LAPD, Brambles was given many high-profile assignments, including heading the investigation into the ZZZZ Best carpet cleaning company and serving as the LAPD’s main contact with longtime Beverly Hills madam Elizabeth Adams, who passed him the pillow-talk intelligence gleaned by her call girls.

Brambles is charged in nine armed robberies beginning March 3, three weeks before his retirement. Police officials said, however, that they believe Brambles was already on leave, meaning he was not on duty at the time of the crimes.

The eight-page criminal complaint gives few details, but the chief investigator on the case said most of the robberies were at restaurants in the trendy Melrose area, the Mid-Wilshire district and the West San Fernando Valley. One was at a dry cleaner. A sole gunman was reported in each case, usually arriving near closing time, police said.

The last of the robberies was May 4. Brambles was picked up for questioning on the next day, police said, when one of the robbery victims, a security guard, by chance spotted him at an Inglewood motel and insisted he was the gunman.

Charges were not filed until after a lengthy investigation, and Brambles was arrested in Las Vegas, where he moved after retirement, police said.

Detective Larry Hedwall, one of two members of the elite robbery-homicide unit assigned to the investigation, said Brambles steadfastly maintained his innocence.

“He’s insisting that we have the wrong person,” Hedwall said.

Law enforcement officials involved in the investigation said Brambles’ former position made the case difficult.

“Any time you see a colleague or a past colleague cross the line, it’s painful,” Hedwall said. “You hate to believe that’s possible, but we all know it is.”

Although the case is not classified as an organized crime matter, it was assigned--in part because of its sensitive nature--to the organized crime unit of the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. That was the same unit that prosecuted many of the suspects Brambles chased as a supervising detective within the LAPD’s Organized Crime Intelligence Division (OCID), which he joined in 1984.

Described by his boss there as “an exceptional guy . . . very, very articulate,” Brambles had even represented the LAPD at a Congressional hearing in Washington, testifying about mob figures suspected of having hidden influence over whiz kid entrepreneur Barry Minkow, whose ZZZZ Best carpet cleaning company collapsed in 1987 in a $100-million fraud.

But Brambles’ own high-flying career later took a downward turn, amid several clashes with colleagues and internal police investigations. In a remarkable incident in a police force sometimes criticized for its code of silence, another OCID detective accused him before a grand jury of improperly coaching a witness at a 1989 photo lineup in a mob case, saying Brambles signaled the man to identify a suspect.

Brambles denied that he had tipped off the witness, and no public disciplinary case was brought in that incident. Nevertheless, he was transferred out of OCID near the end of 1989 and assigned to the West Los Angeles station. There he returned to the public eye when he testified in 1990 on behalf of accused madam Adams, saying she had provided him with “extremely reliable” information as an informant--including the identity of a terrorist reportedly planning to bomb the English Parliament.

All did not go smoothly for Brambles at West Los Angeles, however, as he was disciplined for sexual harassment. According to police records, he left an obscene photo of himself on the desk of a female detective trainee.

A Police Department spokesman said Brambles retired effective March 26, with a pension of just under $30,000 per year. Though police officials said they believe Brambles had gone on leave earlier, personnel records that would confirm the leave were not available Tuesday.

Detective Hedwall said “no one was ever hurt” in the robberies.

“The suspect was armed with a handgun,” acted alone and “just generally (went) in and out, most often at closing time,” he said.

Hedwall said police thought they had identified suspects in at least a couple of the robberies but that the investigation took an unexpected turn with a “one chance in a billion” occurrence: The clerk at the dry cleaning store also worked as a security guard at an Inglewood motel and spotted Brambles at that establishment.

Brambles had a handgun when he was brought in for questioning, but that was not surprising, the detective said, because “he’s a policeman.”

The complaint, filed in Los Angeles Municipal Court, says two robberies occurred March 8 and one each March 3 and 29, April 14, 17, 23 and 25 and May 4. Nine victims were named, six men and three women. As in many robbery investigations, the case hinged on “identification from the victims,” Hedwall said.

Though Brambles was long a controversial figure in law enforcement circles--attracting loyal admirers and fierce enemies alike--those who knew him were shocked to learn of the criminal investigation.

“I sure hope he’s smarter than to get involved in something like that,” said retired LAPD Capt. Stuart Finck, who headed OCID for more than a decade.

Los Angeles prosecutors have recommended bail for Brambles be set at $500,000 when he is brought here to face the charges.