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Rafael Perez's plea bargain was finally completed on Friday. He was sentenced to five years in prison for the cocaine theft. With time served, he could be out within two. Fortunately for him, he has been given immunity for his worst crimes: the shootings, the cover-ups, the fabricated evidence. At his sentencing, a tearful Perez offered a moral to the story. "Whoever chases monsters," he told the court, "should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster himself." How to stop that from happening in the future is L.A.'s challenge--and the nation's.
--Reported by Cathy Booth, Margot Hornblower, David S. Jackson and Stacie Stukin/Los Angeles, Edward Barnes and William Dowell/New York and Tim Roche/Atlanta