Former Undersheriff Paul Tanaka, already sentenced to five years in prison in a federal probe of jail misconduct, got some more legal bad news Thursday as part of a civil lawsuit over alleged wrongdoing.
Tanaka can be asked to admit or deny a series of allegations posed to him during his upcoming deposition in a lawsuit accusing him of retaliating against a deputy for refusing to falsify documents and to campaign for Tanaka in his failed bid to become sheriff, a judge ruled Thursday.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Susan Bryant-Deason also ordered Tanaka and his lawyers to pay $8,000 in financial sanctions to plaintiff Ban Nguyen’s lawyer, Richard Love, for his work in bringing the motion on his client’s behalf.
The judge said she was eliminating some of the requests-for-admissions sought by Love that could potentially be used against Tanaka in a possible future criminal case.
Defense attorney Armineh Megrabyan argued that all of the questions could potentially infringe on Tanaka’s Fifth Amendment rights in any case brought against him or either the federal or state level.
“We have a very reasonable fear,” Megrabyan said.
In his lawsuit filed in February 2015, Nguyen alleges violations of his civil rights and the state Labor Code. The suit names Tanaka, Los Angeles County, two LASD captains and two department sergeants.
Nguyen’s case is unrelated to another in which Tanaka was sentenced in June to five years in federal prison for his role in a wide-ranging 2011 conspiracy to derail a federal investigation of misconduct in jails.
According to the lawsuit, Nguyen began working with the department in June 1996 and was a background investigator for the personnel bureau. He says that in 2012, a sergeant asked him to falsify documents for specified applicants so that they could pass the background process and be hired. He claims he refused and complained to a lieutenant about the sergeant’s order, but nothing was done.
A captain asked Nguyen to campaign on behalf of Tanaka, but Nguyen declined and was subsequently demoted to a position doing background checks for prospective civilian members of the department, according to his lawsuit.
Two sergeants also gave Nguyen an excessively large caseload and subjected him to unwarranted criticism of his work, according to his lawsuit, which alleges a captain increased the retaliation after Nguyen complained to then-Sheriff Lee Baca.
Then-Long Beach police Chief Jim McDonnell defeated Tanaka, who also has served as Gardena’s mayor, in November 2014 in a runoff election for sheriff.
–City News Service