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LOS ANGELES — A veteran LAPD homicide detective who was transferred to the auto theft division after prosecutors complained about his testimony in a murder case is now the subject of a formal complaint from a prosecutor in an auto theft case, the Los Angeles Times reported. 

The detective, John Curiel, admitted earlier this year to providing false testimony in a murder case which has since been dismissed. He said he confused two cases when he testified about interviewing a murder victim’s relatives and viewing the victim’s body at a time when he was actually on vacation. 

After a complaint in March by prosecutors in that case, the detective was transferred from homicide to auto theft. There, he has continued to investigate cases and testify. 

In a recent case against a man who allegedly went joy-riding in a car that had been left with a valet, Deputy District Attorney Teri Hutchison accused Curiel of being lazy and rude and displaying “selective amnesia” in his testimony, the Times reported Tuesday, citing documents and interviews. 

Hutchison said she asked Curiel to interview the car’s owner on the day of the preliminary hearing in the case.  

She then put Curiel on the witness stand and was appalled when he could not recall details from the conversation, which had occurred minutes before, according to an investigative document summarizing Hutchison’s allegations against the detective. 

Hutchison also said Curiel, who declined to comment for the Times article, falsely testified that the car had been impounded by police. 

Another deputy district attorney last week dismissed the charges in a second murder case in which Curiel was the investigating officer. In that February case, one of two eyewitnesses denied making statements attributed to her in Curiel’s report and in the detective’s sworn testimony at a hearing. 

Capt. Michel Moore, who supervises Curiel, said he was unaware that a murder charge was dismissed this week or that there were conflicts between Curiel’s report and the witnesses’ recollections.  

Moore said he will review the matter to determine whether Curiel should remain in his assignment. 

Meanwhile, Moore is awaiting the outcome of an internal investigation in which Curiel and two other Rampart Division officers were accused of coercing false testimony from a gang member in a December 1998 homicide. It was in that same case that Curiel claims he mistakenly testified about viewing the dead man’s body and interviewing his relatives at the hospital. 

The report about Curiel is the latest revelation from the LAPD’s troubled Rampart Division, which is at the center of a scandal involving allegations that police officers beat, framed and shot innocent people. More than 100 criminal convictions have been overturned and three officers were convicted last month on corruption-related charges. They have appealed.