Three Los Angeles County Sheriff’s officials facing trial for allegedly abusing jail visitors will appear in court this morning for a motions hearing, and a fourth is expected to plead guilty later Tuesday to a federal count of lying to FBI investigators.
Sgt. Eric Gonzalez and deputies Sussie Ayala and Fernando Luviano are charged with illegally arresting or detaining five people — including a female Austrian diplomat — when they tried to visit inmates at the Men’s Central Jail.
Co-defendant Noel Womack is scheduled to enter a guilty plea in the case this afternoon. A fifth deputy, Pantamitr Zunggeemoge, pleaded guilty earlier this year and is awaiting sentencing.
Womack and Zunggeemoge, who initially denied that at least one jail visitor was beaten by deputies while handcuffed, have now changed their stories and may testify against their three colleagues whose trial could begin later this month, according to news reports.
The five deputies had said the victim, a man who had come to visit his brother, fought with them in a waiting area and had to be restrained. They denied the man’s allegations that he was handcuffed and then beaten.
Their account remained unchanged under scrutiny from internal sheriff’s investigators, the district attorney’s office, the man’s defense lawyers and federal authorities. But two of the deputies have now changed their stories, the Los Angeles Times reported.
With their trial set to open later this month, both have struck deals with prosecutors that require them to plead guilty to criminal charges and, if called on, to testify against their former colleagues, according to court records cited by The Times.
Under the terms of the agreement he signed last week, Womack gave prosecutors a new version of the violent 2011 encounter in a windowless, secluded room in the Men’s Central Jail facility, The Times reported. Deputies, he said, beat the jail visitor even though the man was handcuffed and not resisting as he was held on the floor, according to a copy of the plea agreement reviewed by The Times.
Womack has agreed to plead guilty to a felony charge that he lied to FBI agents during an interview last month when he told them he did not know if the visitor was handcuffed, the agreement said. He admitted to lying again when he told the agents his supervisor had ordered him to punch the man and a third time when he said the strikes he inflicted on the man had been necessary, according to the agreement cited by The Times.
Womack’s agreement requires him to resign from the sheriff’s department, and he will be banned from working in law enforcement. Prosecutors, for their part, will recommend to the judge that Womack receive no time in prison, although the judge could disregard the suggestion and sentence Womack to as many as five years behind bars, court documents show, according to The Times.
The plea agreement between prosecutors and Zunggeemoge, who faced several allegations of abuse and dishonesty, was sealed by U.S. District Judge George H. King.
But a court filing by another defendant last month said that Zunggeemoge, too, has told prosecutors that the visitor was handcuffed during the incident. In his statement to prosecutors, the filing said, Zunggeemoge said deputies had concocted a story that only one of the man’s hands was cuffed to justify their use of force.
The filing also said that Zunggeemoge has agreed to cooperate fully and testify for the government if prosecutors call him as a witness, The Times reported.
—City News Service