Former LA sheriff gets 3 years in prison for impeding the FBI
LOS ANGELES — Former Los Angeles Sheriff Lee Baca was sentenced Friday to three years in prison for obstructing an FBI investigation into abuses at the jails he ran.
The 74-year-old Baca, who is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, was sentenced by a judge who has shown little leniency when it comes to Baca’s role atop a department rife with corruption.
U.S. District Court Judge Percy Anderson said he would have sentenced Baca to five years in prison except for his years of service and the Alzheimer’s diagnosis.
The judge, however, took exception to a defense contention that Alzheimer’s is a sentence of its own.
“As awful as Alzheimer’s disease is, it’s not a criminal penalty,” Anderson said. “Alzheimer’s disease is not a get-out-of-jail card.”
Baca was ordered to turn himself in July 25 to begin serving his sentence.
As he walked out of the courthouse Friday morning, Baca told reporters it had been “an interesting day” and thanked his supporters for standing by him.
“For 48 years, he served the people of Los Angeles with all his might, with all his heart,” his attorney, Nathan Hochman, said. “He gave it his all, all the time.”
The lawman, who worked his way up from guarding inmates to running the nation’s largest jail system — and largest sheriff’s department — was convicted in March of obstructing justice, conspiring to obstruct justice and lying to federal authorities.
Baca abruptly resigned in 2014 as the probe netted several underlings who plotted to hide an inmate informant from his FBI handler when they learned the jails were being investigated. Baca had learned of the probe after a cellphone the informant used to communicate with his handler was found in his jail cell, prosecutors said.
“I will never accept a cellphone in the county jail given to a career criminal. I don’t care who gives it,” Baca said.
The crimes tarnished Baca’s reputation as a man on a mission to promote education and rehabilitation behind bars and who preached tolerance and understanding between people of different cultures and faiths.
The case made it difficult to reconcile the image of the soft-spoken, rail-thin, Zen-like reformer with the man who told the local FBI head and top federal prosecutor he was ready to “gun up” for battle with them and furiously stated: “I’m the —— sheriff, these are my —— jails.”