Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies swept the department’s executive offices for listening devices they thought might have been planted by federal agents, a retired lawman testified Wednesday in the criminal trial of the former undersheriff.
John Powell, formerly in charge of technical equipment for the sheriff’s department, testified that in September 2011, Lt. Stephen Leavins told him to launch a covert operation to search the offices of then-sheriff Lee Baca and undersheriff Paul Tanaka for “bugs” — without Baca’s knowledge.
Powell said Leavins told him that there could be a “leak” coming from the department’s executive suite.
But Leavins didn’t know that Powell had been an FBI informant for about 10 years and he immediately contacted the bureau to warn that “if they had something in there, we would find it,” the witness said.
Powell told a Los Angeles federal jury that he and his team went to the department’s Monterey Park headquarters after business hours and waited for the offices to clear out before “sweeping” the executive suite — finding nothing.
Powell’s testimony came on the fifth day of trial for Tanaka, who is charged with two counts of obstructing justice by attempting to derail the federal jails probe.
Baca, his former boss, pleaded guilty last month to a charge of lying to investigators and faces sentencing in May.
A string of prosecution witnesses testified this week to a growing climate of paranoia and fear among members of the sheriff’s department in August 2011 once the federal probe was revealed.
“It was pretty clear to me that people were concerned about what was happening,” Powell said.
The prosecution’s case against Tanaka, 56, of Gardena, is winding down, with the last witnesses expected to take the stand tomorrow and Friday.
Prosecutors contend that Tanaka “managed” a plan to thwart the jails investigation, partly by approving a scheme to “hide” an inmate-turned- informer from officials wanting him to testify before a grand jury.
Tanaka’s attorneys counter that their client was kept in the dark about details of the plan to keep Brown “safe,” and knew only that Baca had ordered that the inmate-informant be “protected” from other detainees and potentially angry jail guards.
Anthony Brown, the inmate at the center of the case, became an issue for jail guards when an FBI cellphone was found in his possession, and sheriff’s officials realized that he was cooperating in a secret federal probe they previously knew nothing about.
Prosecutors allege that Tanaka oversaw a conspiracy that included tampering with witnesses, and threatening to arrest a federal agent who had been carrying out her lawful duties.
Gilbert Michel, the deputy who smuggled the cellphone to Brown, is expected to testify Thursday morning.
Michel, the first sheriff’s deputy to be charged in the wide-reaching investigation, faces up to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty in 2012 to a bribery count and agreeing to cooperate with federal prosecutors.
Leavins was sentenced to over three years in federal prison for his role in the conspiracy to impede the grand jury jails investigation.
–City News Service