The Board of Supervisors Tuesday approved a proposed $7.5 million settlement of a lawsuit filed against the county and a now-imprisoned former sheriff’s deputy who pleaded no contest to sexually abusing three daughters of a woman he previously dated.
Sean Essex was sentenced in June to 40 years in state prison after pleading no contest to sex-related charges. He had been a sheriff’s deputy for 22 years before he was arrested in April 2022.
He admitted sex-related charges involving four girls who were between 7 and 13 years old at the time of the crimes, prosecutors said at the time.
Three of the victims were related to a woman Essex had dated about 20 years earlier, a prosecutor told a judge at an August 2022 hearing. According to a case summary provided to the Board of Supervisors ahead of Tuesday’s meeting, those three victims were the woman’s daughters. The woman sued the county on behalf of herself and her daughters in 2022.
“The deputy sheriff would frequently stop by the plaintiffs’ family home wearing his department uniform, driving a marked department patrol vehicle,” the document stated, summarizing the lawsuit’s allegations. “On several occasions, the deputy sheriff drove the plaintiffs individually, in his patrol vehicle to get food for the family. During this time, he engaged in unlawful sexual acts with them. Other times, lewd acts occurred when the deputy sheriff was off duty in his personal vehicle.”
Essex “separated from the department in November 2022,” according to the statement from the sheriff’s department.
“This individual’s egregious actions do not align with the values upheld by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department or the dedicated law enforcement professionals who serve our communities with pride every day. The department sets a standard of the utmost ethical, moral and professional conduct for all its personnel. Department members who engage in any misconduct, particularly criminal behavior targeting vulnerable populations, will be thoroughly investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” the department added in its statement.