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Perez pleaded guilty in 1999 to stealing cocaine from a police evidence locker.

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- A California judge ordered Los Angeles Police Department informant Rafael Perez to state prison Thursday until officials can determine his proper release date.

Perez' attorney, Winston Kevin McKesson, said that according to his plea agreement, Perez should have been released in June.

But the Los Angeles district attorney told the judge in Thursday's court appearance that Perez should remain in jail until at least December.

The judge scheduled a July 23 hearing to determine the release date.

It was the arrest of Perez, then an LAPD officer, after he was caught stealing eight pounds of cocaine from a police evidence locker that started the corruption scandal in the troubled former LAPD anti-drug and anti-gang division. He was granted state immunity in exchange for his cooperation in the investigation, which revealed alleged police abuses that range from planting evidence to shooting unarmed suspects.

The confusion surrounding Perez's release centered on whether he began accruing state good-time and work-time credits when he was sentenced in February 2000. According to California prison guidelines, those credits would allow Perez a day off his sentence for every day he served in state prison.

But prison officials and Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney William Hodgeman argued that local jail time for Perez was not equivalent to state prison time where they expected him to complete his term.

Perez sat silently with his head down throughout Thursday's hearing. He is serving a five year prison term as part of the plea agreement. He has been held at a secluded Los Angeles County jail facility since September of 1999 so that investigators would have easy access to him.

Before ordering Perez into state custody, Los Angeles Superior Court judge Robert Perry criticized the handling of his sentencing. "We keep making mistake after mistake," said Perry. "I believe he is not being treated properly, he's not getting what he bargained for. The message we are sending is if you are a dirty police officer, it doesn't do a lot of good to cooperate."

Perez has provided over 4,000 pages of testimony describing how he and other officers in the Rampart Division's anti-gang unit routinely planted drugs and guns on suspects, fabricated arrest reports, beat suspects in custody and in some cases shot unarmed, innocent people.

Federal authorities launched a civil rights investigation after Perez admitted he and his former partner, Nino Durden, shot Javier Francisco Ovando and planted a gun on him in 1996. Perez could face federal charges because prosecutors have concluded he does not have federal immunity, CNN has learned.

Ovando, paralyzed from the shooting, was convicted of assaulting the officers. He was released after serving nearly three years in prison and eventually settled the largest civil lawsuit in city history, $15 million.

Perez's plea agreement with state prosecutors has thus far led to criminal charges against eight officers, including an attempted murder charge against Durden.

In March, Durden also accepted a plea agreement in return for his cooperation with the investigation.

The scandal has led to more than 100 criminal convictions being overturned and the city of Los Angeles signing a consent decree with the U.S. Justice Department requiring federal oversight of the police department's management and training policies.

CNN Producer Stanley Wilson contributed to this report.