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Tanaka convicted in Sheriff’s Department corruption case

by City News Service • April 6, 2016

Paul Tanaka retired from the sheriff's department in August 2013.
Paul Tanaka retired from the sheriff’s department in August 2013.

LOS ANGELES – The former second-in-command of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department was convicted Wednesday of obstructing a federal probe of misconduct in the county jails.

Former Undersheriff Paul Tanaka, 57, was convicted of conspiracy to obstruct justice and obstruction of justice.

U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson scheduled sentencing for June 20.

Tanaka, who is the mayor of Gardena, faces up to 15 years in federal prison. U.S. Attorney Eileen Decker declined to say how much prison time she would push for, but said she hoped it would be “considerable.”

Decker said jurors have “spoken loudly, they’ve spoken swiftly,” adding that Tanaka and other top leadership at the department contributed to a culture of lawlessness.

“It was an issue of leadership,” Decker said. “This could have been stopped at any time.”

The panel deliberated for less than three hours over two days before reaching the verdict.

Tanaka declined to comment as he left the courthouse. Defense attorney Jerome Haig said he will appeal.

“The verdict is only another step in the process,” Haig said. “We plan on appealing the eventual sentence in this case, and we’re hopeful that a court of appeals will view the evidence in a way more favorable to Mr. Tanaka.”

Federal prosecutors said Tanaka directed eight alleged co-conspirators in a scheme to thwart a 2011 investigation into allegations of excessive force within the jail system.

“This was Paul Tanaka’s operation,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Brandon Fox told the jury during his closing argument. “He was the director, he was in charge.”

Painting the defendant as a man of “many faces,” Fox said Tanaka worked to “overrule and undermine” the goals of the sheriff’s department, acting as the “authority everyone was operating under to engage in this conspiracy.”

The case stemmed from events five years ago when a cellphone was discovered in the hands of an inmate at the Men’s Central Jail. Sheriff’s deputies quickly tied the phone to the FBI, which had been conducting a secret probe of brutality against inmates.

At that point, sheriff’s officials “closed ranks” — at the direction of Tanaka — and began an attempt to halt the formerly covert investigation by concealing the inmate-informant, Anthony Brown, from federal prosecutors, who had issued a writ for his grand jury appearance, prosecutors said.

The charges included a host of “overt acts” — including allegations of witness tampering and attempting to threaten an FBI case agent with arrest.

A defense attorney, however, argued that much of the prosecution testimony was motivated by jealousy, delivered by retired sheriff’s officials with grudges against Tanaka. “Ladies and gentlemen, it is not a crime to be a strong leader,” defense attorney H. Dean Steward said in his summation. “Paul Tanaka was a pro-active, strong leader. He ruffled some feathers. He’s had some people that don’t like his leadership style and don’t like him. But that’s not a crime.”

Steward told the jury that ex-sheriff Lee Baca — Tanaka’s boss at the time — “was in control of this entire situation.”

The attorney said it was Baca who demanded that his underlings “make sure that Anthony Brown stay in the jail system,” rather than transfer to state prison, where he was headed in August 2011.

“Baca was the driving force here, with Paul Tanaka trying to help out with bits and pieces” of information, Steward told the panel.

“Baca is pushing everybody — and I mean everybody,” the attorney said, suggesting that if his client believed that the sheriff’s orders were “reasonable and lawful,” then there was no criminal intent on Tanaka’s part.

Without intent, Steward said, “you’re not guilty.”

But in his rebuttal, Fox countered that Baca’s role “has nothing to do with the guilt of Paul Tanaka.”

Baca, the prosecutor continued, “made Paul Tanaka the director of this sad movie.” The defendant chose the players, “wrote the script” and “made sure his presence was felt,” Fox said.

During two days of testimony, Tanaka denied remembering details of his communications with his alleged co-conspirators — all of whom have been convicted previously in the case.

Phone logs focusing on days in August and September of 2011 that were relevant to the case revealed about 70 calls between Tanaka and the alleged co-conspirators, but only one between Tanaka and his then-boss, Fox said.

Baca pleaded guilty in February to a charge of lying to investigators and is awaiting sentencing in May.

George Hofstetter, president of the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, the union that represents deputies, called Tanaka’s conviction the end of “the era of corruption” in the department’s upper management.

“The department can move forward now that the truth about the failed leadership of disgraced former Sheriff Lee Baca and Undersheriff Paul Tanaka has been revealed through the judicial process,” Hofstetter said. “The Baca-Tanaka era created leadership failures that left the sheriff’s department and ALADS members with real scars from rising assaults on deputies, and emotional scars from diminished morale as deputies struggled to perform a dangerous and difficult job under a cloud they didn’t create.”

Previous related stories:

Tanaka denies advance knowledge of deputies’ scheme in jails case

Tapes show deputies’ worries over FBI jails probe

Conflicting pictures of former undersheriff emerges in opening statement

Jury selection underway for Tanaka trial

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Filed Under: Crime/ Safety

18 comments for "Tanaka convicted in Sheriff’s Department corruption case"

  1. Humptydumputy says

    April 6, 2016 at 9:20 pm

    Bye bye

  2. Michelle Egberts says

    April 6, 2016 at 4:14 pm

    Like I’ve said many times… we’re all one bad choice from having a criminal record. Point on with Baca and Tanaka… many more are coming down

    • Sal V. says

      April 6, 2016 at 4:34 pm

      Apparently it’s ok to purchase property in a redevelopment zone even though you are on the redevelopment board and state law forbids it. You don’t get a criminal record for that. At least if your initials are RRP. It’s also ok to do a no bid $10 million dollar contract for an untested Law Enforcement Aerial Platform System owned by your political pal and contributor. You can also use city logos and seals for your political surveys even though it’s a no-no. Don’t forget that you can put up a fence around a hotel without warning and close it down without due process. None of this will give you a criminal record.

      • Michelle Egberts says

        April 6, 2016 at 5:03 pm

        @Sal V… I understand your dismay. Believe me when your say the corruption in Lancaster is going to stop soon, real soon

        • Sal V says

          April 6, 2016 at 5:08 pm

          How is it going to stop when the ringleader is the mayor who controls judges, district attorneys, and the whole damn town is afraid of him?

          • Michelle Egberts says

            April 6, 2016 at 5:17 pm

            The United States Department of Justice

        • Sal V. says

          April 6, 2016 at 6:34 pm

          I hope you are right Michelle Egberts. But I’ve heard stuff like that for years. He always gets away with his shenanigans. If the Department or Justice or the FBI ever really looked into the business dealings and funny business, they would uncover a bees nest. No bid contracts. Frank V. Jim Gilley.

          • Michelle Egberts says

            April 6, 2016 at 7:03 pm

            @Sal V… I am right. It’s like Humpty Dumpty. Just watch and see. Baca, Tanaka, 9 deputies and soon to be Antonovich and Parris.

        • pirrurris says

          April 6, 2016 at 8:34 pm

          Concur. The only one that can stop the mayor, is the DOJ.

          • Anon says

            April 6, 2016 at 10:11 pm

            But will they? He has bought and paid for protection on a lot of different levels.

        • Sal V says

          April 6, 2016 at 8:35 pm

          I don’t doubt that you are right in the fact that he should face justice. I will believe it when I finally see Parris go down for all he has done. I have just watched him get away with stuff for so long, I have all but lost hope. Karma is way, way, way overdue on him.

    • Cleo Watts Jr says

      April 6, 2016 at 6:18 pm

      A bad choice is when you order the chicken instead of the steak. I’ve done that a few times. A felony is when you bilk a senior citizen out of thousands of dollars, promising him a job as Reba’s chief of security. That’s not a bad “choice” that’s a flaw in your upbringing… oh.. and also a felony.

    • Shane Falco says

      April 6, 2016 at 6:36 pm

      No…people make bad choices and get away with it over and over and over. The more they get away with, the more comfortable their conscience becomes in making bad choices. People get caught by parents, teachers and all kinds of people in their lives and have the opportunity to change. Still, they make more bad choices and try harder to hide them or minimize the consequences which further embolden them until finally…..finally…they are caught and prosecuted.

      Then and only then do you get the criminal record. So let’s be honest, it’s never just one bad choice, it’s a lifestyle until you get caught, whether it’s the sheriff or….you.

      • Tim Scott says

        April 6, 2016 at 6:51 pm

        Or the average cop.

        Problem is that the average cop knows that his fellow cops can be counted on to look the other way, so their chances of getting caught are pretty minimal.

        This is why the average person has reached the point that they are pretty much disgusted with cops.

        Which is why generally speaking the only friends a cop has are other cops.

        That’s the circle.

      • Shane Falco says

        April 6, 2016 at 7:32 pm

        Well, Tim not everybody is an alpha male with the ability to do dangerous jobs. Lucky for you, many firefighters take our $150k-$200k pensions and retire to other states taking L.A. county dollars to spend where people love us. Cops do it too.

        So Tim, you won’t have to deal with all these retired cops and firefighters much and you can have all the section 8, and parolee’s instead. Rest assured though, other alpha males will still be here to keep you safe.

      • TIMSCOTT4MAYOR says

        April 6, 2016 at 11:46 pm

        Spot on Shane sounds exactly like the scumbag cops and his fellow cronies who infest departments across the country.

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