Former Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca was sentenced Friday to three years in prison for overseeing a scheme to derail a federal probe into corruption in the jails,
with a judge denouncing the longtime lawman as an embarrassment to the profession.
Baca was given until July 25 to put his affairs in order before turning himself in at a federal prison in either Kern County or Oregon. He was also ordered by U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson to serve a year of supervised release after he is released and pay a $7,500 fine.
Baca’s attorneys had asked that he serve only home detention, and have vowed to appeal. The judge will decide whether the ex-sheriff can remain free pending arguments before the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Anderson, who presided over a series of trials that led to the conviction of 10 former members of the Sheriff’s Department involved in the conspiracy, said Baca “knew what he was doing was wrong, and he had no problem using his office to further his own agenda.”
Baca, 74, was convicted in March of obstruction of justice and two other federal charges for his role in the scheme to thwart the FBI probe into inmate mistreatment in the jails that he ran, and of lying to the FBI.
After about two days of deliberations, a criminal jury in downtown Los Angeles — the second to hear the case — found that Baca authorized and condoned the scheme.
“Blind obedience to a corrupt culture has serious consequences,” Anderson said.
During his two trials, prosecutors described Baca as being the top figure in the multi-part conspiracy, which also involved his former right-hand man, Paul Tanaka, and eight deputies who took orders from the sheriff.
The former sheriff showed no emotion as Anderson handed down the sentence. At one point, Baca nodded at his wife, but declined to make a statement during the 90-minute hearing.
Prosecutors had asked for a two-year prison term, noting that they would ordinarily seek about four years, but took into account Baca’s age and diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. During the sentencing hearing, however, Anderson excoriated Baca, telling him that if it hadn’t been for the ex- lawman’s health, Baca would have received the same five-year term given to Tanaka, the former undersheriff.
Anderson told Baca his Alzheimer’s diagnosis is not a “get-out-of-jail card.”
The judge referred to the “lasting damage you caused our community and the sheriff’s department,” saying Baca’s actions were taken “to burnish your legacy — all at the expense of the public’s trust.”
“Your loyalty was perverted,” the judge said, adding, “Your actions embarrass the thousands of men and women who put their lives on the line every day.”
Speaking to reporters outside court, Baca thanked his wife, his attorneys and “the people of Los Angeles County,” saying he has continued to hear words of support from the public.
“I would like to say that for me, it was an honor to serve the county of Los Angeles for over 48 years,” he said.
Baca did not specifically address comments made by Anderson, but said he was honored “to see the performance of such wonderful people that are deputy sheriff’s in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.”
“I’m grateful for their willingness to sacrifice many, many hours without pay to continue to do their jobs,” Baca said, adding that he has been “a blessed person.”
In a pre-sentencing memorandum, prosecutors wrote that in helping derail the FBI probe, Baca “abused the great power the citizens of Los Angeles County had given him,” while false statements made during a sworn interview with investigators was a “deliberate attempt to deflect blame and place it entirely on the shoulders of others within his department,” the prosecution wrote.
In his argument for a probationary term with community service, defense attorney Nathan Hochman cited Baca’s decades of public service, Alzheimer’s diagnosis and “peripheral” role in the wide-ranging conspiracy.
Hochman asked the judge to consider “an individual with one of this country’s most exceptional public service careers spanning over almost 50 years, an individual who suffers from the incurable and rapidly progressing and debilitating mental health disease of Alzheimer’s, and an individual for whom prison will not allow him to obtain medical care in the most effective manner and will subject him to especially harsh treatment due to his medical condition as well to his age and former position as LASD Sheriff.”
Hochman spoke for over an hour during the sentencing hearing, asking that his client be spared prison time due to his “vulnerable” mental state and the likelihood that he would be “taken advantage of” by fellow inmates. But his request was sternly rejected.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Brandon Fox said Baca had “abused his power” and “destroyed” the reputation of the Sheriff’s Department. Fox noted that under the recent leadership of Sheriff Jim McDonnell, the department has started to rebuild.
McDonnell issued a statement saying he remains confident in the justice system “and how law enforcement and its leadership are held accountable to the laws of our country and to the people we are entrusted to serve.”
“The trials and the resulting convictions have been difficult for the men and women of the sheriff’s department who have always worked with integrity and continue to serve the public with honor,” McDonnell said.
Baca — who ran the nation’s largest sheriff’s department for more than 15 years —was first tried in December on obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice counts, and prosecutors had planned a second trial on the false statements count. But a mistrial was declared after jurors deadlocked 11-1 in favor of acquitting the former sheriff, and Anderson combined all three counts in the retrial. Baca did not take the stand in either trial.
The charges stemmed from events six years ago when a cell phone was discovered in the hands of an inmate at the Men’s Central Jail. Sheriff’s deputies quickly tied the phone to the FBI, which had been conducting a secret probe of brutality against inmates.
At that point, sheriff’s officials closed ranks and began an attempt to halt the formerly covert investigation by concealing the inmate-turned- informant from federal prosecutors, who had issued a summons for his grand jury appearance.
In a final statement of defiance — and a pointed criticism of the FBI’s smuggling of a phone to the jailhouse informant — Baca told reporters outside court Friday, “I will never accept a cell phone in a county jail given to a career criminal. I don’t care who puts it in.”
The charges against the various sheriff’s officials involved a host of illegal acts, including a 2011 incident in which two sheriff’s investigators confronted an FBI agent in the driveway leading to her apartment and falsely told her they were in the process of obtaining a warrant for her arrest. Baca denied having advance knowledge of the illicit attempt to intimidate the federal agent.
Prior to the first trial, Baca had pleaded guilty to the lying count, but subsequently backed out of the plea deal — which called for him to serve no more than six months in prison — after the judge rejected the agreement as too lenient. If Baca had not withdrawn from the plea, he could have been handed a sentence of five years behind bars. He was then indicted on the three felony counts for which he was subsequently convicted.
Baca became sheriff in December 1998 and won re-election on several occasions. He was poised to run again in 2014, but federal indictments unsealed in December 2013, related to excessive force in the jails and obstruction of that investigation, led Baca to retire the following month.
Hochman wrote that his appeal is justified because the court erred in barring jurors from hearing evidence of Baca’s “cooperation” with both the federal probe and an independent county review board, and that the panel should have heard about the ex-sheriff’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis.
The attorney also claimed the jury should have been allowed to consider evidence of improvements Baca made in the training of jail guards to de- escalate problems and successfully deal with violent and/or mentally ill inmates. Baca was not charged with any instances of jail brutality.
In addition to the 10 people convicted in connection with the Baca conspiracy case, 11 other now-former sheriff’s department members were also convicted of various crimes uncovered during the FBI investigation.
Outside court, Acting U.S. Attorney Sandra R. Brown told reporters Baca had demeaned the public that repeatedly elected him and the deputies who looked up to him.
“Rather than fulfill his sworn duty to uphold the law and protect the public, Lee Baca made a decision to protect what he viewed as his empire, and then he took actions in an effort to simply protect himself,” she said. “He wore the badge, but ultimately, he failed the department and the public’s trust.”
— City News Service