Officer Is Given Prison Term in Youth’s Beating : Courts: Dana Patrick Hansen is sentenced for violating the civil rights of a Panorama City teen-ager. The judge criticizes cover-up efforts.

A Los Angeles police officer was sentenced Monday to a year and a day in prison for violating the civil rights of a Panorama City teen-ager whose skull was fractured when he was beaten by the officer six years ago.

In sentencing Dana Patrick Hansen, who was convicted by a jury of two misdemeanor civil rights violations, U. S. District Judge Edward Rafeedie said the officer had lied on the stand and offered a “contrived and fraudulent” defense.

Rafeedie also sharply criticized what he called a pattern of police officers attempting to cover up incidents of excessive force by falsely arresting the victims.

Hansen was convicted March 9 of using excessive force when he beat 16-year-old Jesus Martinez Vidales and of falsely arresting him for assault on a police officer. The incident occurred on Aug. 26, 1986, in the 1400 block of Blythe Street, a high crime area where Hansen and his partner were investigating a car they believed might have been stolen.

According to trial testimony, Martinez Vidales ran from the car and attempted to hide beneath a parked ice cream truck. Witnesses testified that officers pulled him from under the truck and Hansen struck him several times with his baton. Witnesses said they heard Martinez Vidales screaming while being hit. They said he was attempting to cover himself and ward off the blows and was not resisting or attacking the officers.

The young man was hospitalized for three weeks. The car was later found not to have been stolen.

Following the incident, Hansen was suspended for 15 days by the department. Martinez Vidales won a $42,000 settlement from the city last year after filing a lawsuit over the incident.

Rafeedie could have sentenced Hansen, who is a defendant in an upcoming civil rights lawsuit involving another incident, to two years in prison. In 1988, the penalties for civil rights violations were amended. Such violations are now classified as felonies and carry stiffer penalties, but Rafeedie ruled that the officer must be sentenced under the guidelines at the time of the incident.

Hansen’s attorney, Carol A. Rohr, asked Rafeedie to place the 14-year police veteran on probation. She said Hansen was the victim of the political fervor that followed the Rodney G. King beating last year and was chosen for prosecution by the U. S. Department of Justice as a message to law enforcement.

Rohr said that before the King incident, federal prosecutors had offered Hansen a plea agreement that would have allowed him to leave the department and pay a $1,000 fine. But after the beating, they withdrew the offer when Hansen said he would accept it.

“The government turned him down flat,” Rohr said. “The only difference was that Rodney King had happened. A political bandwagon had to be mounted and they chose to mount it with Dana Hansen. Someone had to be an example to all of law enforcement.”

But federal prosecutor Michael J. Gennaco said the offer to Hansen was withdrawn because more evidence was accumulated in the case. “It had nothing to do with the Rodney King incident,” he said.

Gennaco said Hansen should be sentenced to a year in jail because he has refused to acknowledge the jury’s verdict and accept responsibility for his actions. He said the Police Department and Chief Daryl F. Gates also reject the jury’s verdict. Gennaco said Gates is considering allowing Hansen to take a leave of absence while serving his sentence.

“What is the LAPD going to do?” Gennaco said. “Absolutely nothing whatsoever. . . . Is the message clear? No, it is not.”

Rafeedie said there was “probably some political motivation behind the prosecution” but it did not lessen the seriousness of the conviction. He said he agreed with the jury’s findings that Martinez Vidales was wrongfully beaten and arrested.

“It is clear from the evidence he was arrested without cause,” Rafeedie said. “It is simply a cover-up for excessive use of force. It’s a familiar pattern that I have seen for 23 years.”

The judge also sentenced Hansen to five years probation.

More than 40 family members and police officers--many in uniform--attended the sentencing in support of Hansen.

In responding to Gennaco’s statements in court, a spokesman for the Police Department said no further action was taken against Hansen following the verdict because he had already been punished for the incident. Cmdr. Robert Gil said the city’s charter prevents an officer from being investigated twice for the same misconduct.

Hansen can apply for a leave while serving his prison sentence, but Gates has said no leave with pay would be granted, according to Gil. Gates believes that the prosecution was motivated by the King case, Gil added.

“He just thought that it represented some overzealousness on the part of the federal government in the sense that this officer is being prosecuted five years after the original incident occurred,” Gil said.

Hansen, whose father and older brother are police officers, has been on a desk assignment since a 1989 back injury that occurred on the job. He has filed for a disability pension. Rohr said Hansen will never be able to return to active duty and wants to become a high school history teacher.

In 1986, a Van Nuys woman won a $112,000 judgment from the city in a case in which Hansen was accused of doing nothing to stop his partner from beating the woman after she was arrested for investigation of drunk driving.

In 1983, Hansen shot and killed a 15-year-old boy who was pointing a shotgun at a group of youngsters. A district attorney’s office investigation concluded that use of deadly force was “clearly reasonable” in the case.

Times staff writer Leslie Berger contributed to this story.