A judge has granted a continuance in the federal corruption trial of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s former second-in-command and an ex-captain until November, court papers obtained Wednesday show.
U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson rejected a proposed February trial date and instead scheduled Nov. 3 to begin picking a jury.
Former Undersheriff Paul Tanaka and ex-sheriff’s captain Tom Carey face obstruction of justice charges.
The case was initially set for trial next month, but Anderson ordered attorneys for both sides to meet and agree on a later date. Federal prosecutors in the Tanaka/Carey case are scheduled in the coming months to try three separate use-of-force cases involving current or former sheriff’s deputies, along with the trial of a deputy U.S. marshal facing civil rights homicide and obstruction of justice charges.
The Tanaka/Carey case is expected to take at least two weeks, lawyers said.
Evidence to be delivered to the defense includes a Web-searchable database and 4,000 pages of transcripts from a previous related trial, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Margaret Carter.
Tanaka — who is on a leave of absence as mayor of Gardena — and Carey, who oversaw an internal sheriff’s criminal investigations unit, have denied the charges contained in a five-count indictment returned May 13 by a federal grand jury.
Tanaka and Carey, both 56, are accused of orchestrating a scheme to thwart a federal probe into deputy misconduct at county jails.
Both are charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice, and each is named in one count of obstruction of justice. Carey is charged with two counts of lying on the witness stand last year during the trials of co-conspirators. If convicted, the men face the possibility of multiple years in federal prison.
Carey was head of the department’s Internal Criminal Investigations Bureau until he retired in March.
Tanaka, who, like Carey, testified for the defense at all three trials thus far in the federal probe, retired from the department in 2013.
Sheriff’s Sgt. Eric Gonzalez and deputies Sussie Ayala and Fernando Luviano are facing trial this month for allegedly using unreasonable force on Gabriel Carrillo, a visitor to the Men’s Central Jail, and later lying about the Feb. 26, 2011, incident in reports.
Two former deputies — Noel Womack and Pantamitr Zunggeemoge — have pleaded guilty in the case and await sentencing.
— City News Service