The city of Los Angeles is expected to announce today it will end up paying a total $70 million in settlements to citizens who were abused by the police as part as what is known as the Rampart Division police scandal. Over the past five years the city has been sued more than 200 times for police mistreatment and abuse. The Rampart scandal began in September 1999 when Officer Rafael Perez pleaded guilty to charges that he had stolen three kilos of cocaine from LAPD evidence facilities. In exchange for a five-year sentence, he promised to tell authorities about a case in 1996 in which he and his partner shot a young man then planted a gun on him to justify the shooting. Attorney Gregory Yates, who represented clients who were abused, said he was disappointed that none of the major lawsuits went to trial in front of a jury. A trial, he said, “would have exposed how massive and widespread the corruption was.”