Former Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca is expected to plead guilty today to a federal charge stemming from the corruption probe of the department’s management of the jails.
His attorney, Michael Zweibeck, told the Los Angeles Times that Baca will plead guilty to a single count of making a false statement, and the plea deal calls for him to spend no more than six months in prison.
There was no immediate comment from federal authorities, but U.S. Attorney Eileen Decker and FBI Assistant Director in Charge David Bowdich are expected to hold a midday news conference to discuss the case.
Zweibeck told The Times the plea agreement means prosecutors will not pursue any additional charges against Baca. The deal must be approved by a federal judge.
He is the latest — and highest-ranking — department official to be enveloped in the corruption scandal stemming from violence in the jail system. Baca, 73, retired in 2014 at the height of the federal probe. He had been sheriff since December 1998.
A federal judge today was expected to approve an agreement ending the case against sheriff’s Deputies Joey Aguiar and Mariano Ramirez. They were convicted of falsifying records documenting the 2009 beating of a handcuffed inmate, but they were acquitted of a federal civil rights charge and jurors deadlocked on a charge of excessive force. Prosecutors had planned to re-try them, but under the agreement, the excessive force charge will be dismissed, and the deputies will receive prison terms of between 21 and 27 months.
Aguiar and Ramirez were the latest of 21 current and former sheriff’s officials to be tried by federal authorities in connection with the FBI’s multi- year investigation into brutality and other misconduct in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
The probe previously went only as high as Paul Tanaka, the former undersheriff, who faces trial in March on conspiracy charges for allegedly managing a secret plan in 2011 to “hide” an inmate-turned-informant from FBI handlers during the jails probe.
