Former Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca withdrew his guilty plea today to a charge of lying to federal authorities during an FBI investigation into the county’s jails, clearing the way for a high-profile trial.
Mr. Baca’s attorney, Michael Zweiback, said in court that attempts this morning to hammer out a last-minute plea deal with federal prosecutors had been unsuccessful.
“Unfortunately, we have failed at reaching any kind of resolution we believe would be acceptable in some way to the court,” Mr. Zweiback said.
The negotiations had come after U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson last month rejected an earlier plea deal in which Mr. Baca’s punishment would have been limited to a maximum of six months in prison.
That move meant that Mr. Baca either had to withdraw his guilty plea and go to trial, or to allow Judge Anderson to sentence him for making a false statement to federal investigators, a charge that carries a maximum sentence of five years. Judge Anderson sentenced Mr. Baca’s former No. 2, Paul Tanaka, to five years in prison this year after Mr. Tanaka was convicted in a related obstruction-of-justice case.
In rejecting the earlier plea agreement two weeks ago, Judge Anderson said that a six-month sentence for Mr. Baca “would not address the gross abuse of the public’s trust … including the need to restore the public’s trust in law enforcement and the criminal justice system.” Mr. Zweiback had argued that Mr. Baca should serve no time because he is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.
During private sidebar discussions between the judge and the attorneys this morning, Judge Anderson would not tell the attorneys what sentence he would hand down if Mr. Baca withdrew his plea, Mr. Zweiback told reporters. The judge did indicate that he believed the sentence should be increased based on Mr. Baca’s role in the larger obstruction-of-justice case, using factors such as whether the former sheriff abused a position of trust, said Nathan Hochman, another Baca attorney.
Without a firmer indication of Judge Anderson’s intentions, Mr. Zweiback had indicated that there is a “good likelihood” that Mr. Baca, 74, would choose to go to trial, knowing that prosecutors may bring additional charges besides the single false-statement charge.
“If he’s not going to be in a situation where he has some understanding of what he’s walking into, he may feel he has no alternative but to fight for his life and go to trial,” Mr. Zweiback had said.
Mr. Baca’s Alzheimer’s could be a factor if the case heads to trial and his ability to understand the proceedings deteriorates. The trial could be put on hold if he is declared mentally incompetent.
Mental State Declining
Mr. Zweiback said today his client’s dementia had progressed, but that Mr. Baca remained aware of the legal wrangling.
Legal experts said Judge Anderson’s decision on July 18 to reject the plea agreement was unusual but not unexpected, considering his law-and-order reputation and comments he has made during sentencing hearings in related cases. Besides Mr. Tanaka, Judge Anderson has sentenced seven other lower-ranking sheriff’s officials to terms ranging from a year and a half to more than three years in prison for their roles in obstructing the federal investigation.
Many sheriff’s deputies have been closely watching the criminal prosecutions to see if the punishments for former bosses would approach those of lower-ranking employees following their orders.
Judge Anderson, who was appointed to the federal bench by President George W. Bush in 2002, is a former federal prosecutor who served on the Christopher Commission, which investigated excessive force by LAPD officers after the 1991 Rodney King beating.
The obstruction-of-justice case grew out of a secret FBI investigation launched in 2010 into corruption and brutality by jail deputies. After sheriff’s officials discovered that an inmate, Anthony Brown, was an FBI informant, they booked him under false names and shuttled him to different locations. They also went to the home of an FBI agent and threatened her with arrest.
Prosecutors alleged that Mr. Tanaka directed the efforts to hide Mr. Brown from the FBI and intimidate the FBI agent, with Mr. Baca playing a lesser role. Mr. Baca retired in 2014 before completing his fourth term as the head of the nation’s largest Sheriff’s Dept.
In his plea agreement, Mr. Baca admitted to lying in an April 12, 2013, interview with investigators, when he stated that he was not aware of the plan to confront the FBI agent at her home. In fact, according to the agreement, Mr. Baca was at a meeting where officials came up with the plan, telling his subordinates that they “should do everything but put handcuffs” on her.
Mr. Baca was also involved in a conversation with subordinates about keeping Mr. Brown away from the FBI, though he denied knowledge in his interview with federal investigators, the agreement said. He was aware that his subordinates had stopped FBI agents from questioning Mr. Brown, contrary to what he had said in the interview, according to the agreement.
In entering his guilty plea, Mr. Baca admitted only to lying about the visit to the FBI agent’s home while agreeing not to contest the prosecutors’ other allegations.
This story originally appeared at www.latimes.com
Times staff writer Jack Leonard contributed to this report.
