One of the least principled law enforcement officers in the country has finally come to the end of his career, with a modicum of justice being done. Former Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca has been sentenced to 3 years in prison.
Baca was a relentless supporter of Hamas-CAIR and other Muslim Brotherhood-linked organizations. However, it was Baca’s obstruction of an FBI investigation into abuses in the county’s jails that was his undoing. Apparently, this was a situation that couldn’t be made to go away with offers of deputization, introductions to celebrities, or political access.
If only Lee Baca had chosen to represent the citizens of Los Angeles, instead of the denizens of Hollywood and groups with deep pockets such as the Scientologists and Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups, things might have ended very differently for him.
“Ex-L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca sentenced to three years in prison in jail corruption scandal,” by Joel Rubin, Los Angeles Times, May 12, 2017 (thanks to Larry):
Former Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, once a towering, respected figure in policing, was sentenced Friday to three years in federal prison for his role in a scheme to obstruct an FBI investigation of abuses in county jails, marking an end to a corruption scandal that has roiled the Sheriff’s Department for several years.
U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson announced Baca’s fate in a downtown courtroom filled with loyal supporters on one side and the FBI agents and prosecutors who ensnared him on the other. Baca, 74 and suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, showed no emotion as the decision was read.
Before issuing the sentence, Anderson, who has dealt unsparingly with the former sheriff throughout his legal battle and last year threw out a plea deal that would have sent Baca to prison for no more than six months, unleashed a scathing rebuke of the man who ran one of the nation’s largest law enforcement agencies for 15 years.
Excoriating Baca’s refusal to accept responsibility for having overseen and condoned the obstruction ploy carried out by subordinates, the judge portrayed him as a man driven by his desire to protect his own reputation and maintain control over the Sheriff’s Department.
“Your actions embarrass the thousands of men and women [in the department] who put their lives on the line every day,” Anderson said to Baca. “They were a gross abuse of the trust the public placed in you.”
The prison term, Anderson added, should serve as a deterrent to other public servants. “Blind obedience to a corrupt culture has serious consequences,” he said. “No person, no matter how powerful, no matter his or her title, is above the law.”
Baca was ordered to surrender to federal prison officials by July 25. Although he is expected to ask to remain free on bail while he pursues an appeal, it is an open question whether he will be allowed to do so. Anderson denied the same request from Baca’s second in command, former Undersheriff Paul Tanaka, who was forced to begin his five-year sentence.
No decision has been made on where Baca will serve his sentence. His defense attorney requested that he be assigned to a camp in Taft, Calif., or barring that, a camp in Oregon. After serving his time behind bars, Baca must also spend a year under supervised release. He was also fined $7,500….
Source: http://pamelageller.com