Carlos Arellano was a narcotics detective with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department when the agency received a disturbing tip that he was fraternizing with criminals.
After months of investigating, the department accused him of being involved with a drug-trafficking organization, cultivating his own marijuana plants and discussing drug payments in phone conversations that fellow detectives overheard on a wiretap, according to court records cited by the Los Angeles Times. In 2011, two years after the initial tip came in, Arellano was fired.
But an appeals court panel this week upheld the veteran deputy’s efforts to keep his job, ruling that the law did not allow the department to use evidence gathered from the wiretap in a disciplinary proceeding, The Times reported.
Arellano’s attorney praised Wednesday’s appellate decision, saying her client has always denied he was the person heard on the wiretap and had been wrongly portrayed as “a bad guy.”
“This case from the beginning was an overreaction from the Sheriff’s Department,” Elizabeth Gibbons said in remarks quoted by The Times.
The deputy, who joined the department in the late 1980s, is on paid administrative leave and is not actively investigating drug crimes, said department spokeswoman Nicole Nishida. Last year, he was paid $130,000 in salary and other compensation, according to county records.
Nishida said the department is considering whether to appeal to the California Supreme Court.
The decision marks the latest setback for Sheriff Jim McDonnell, who has made several attempts to go to court to fire deputies like Arellano who were discharged for misconduct but won their jobs back after appealing to the county’s Civil Service Commission, according to The Times.
The commission, a panel of five appointed by the Board of Supervisors, hears disciplinary cases against county employees and can overturn or reduce punishments. In the case of law enforcement officers, the commission’s proceedings are not open to the public.