LOS ANGELES – Former Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca was convicted Wednesday of obstruction of justice and two other federal charges for orchestrating a scheme to thwart an FBI investigation into inmate mistreatment in the jails he ran and of lying to the bureau.
Jurors reached the verdict Wednesday afternoon, in their second full day of deliberations in Baca’s retrial. The eight-man, four-woman jury got the case Monday afternoon after hearing nine days of testimony involving more than a dozen witnesses.
Baca showed no emotion as he was convicted of all three counts with which he was charged — obstruction of justice, conspiracy to obstruct justice and making false statements to the FBI. He faces up to 20 years in federal prison, according to prosecutors.
Baca came out of the courthouse and told a throng of media that he’s “optimistic” about the future, while thanking his wife, friends and supporters.
“I also want to say I appreciate the jury system. My mentality is always optimistic. I feel good,” he said as he left, flanked by his lawyers who had their arms around his waist.
“We fought the good fight every day in court,” defense attorney Nathan Hochman said. He predicted a win on appeal, saying the jury was not allowed to hear all the evidence that would have acquitted his client.
The jury foreman, a 51-year-old Los Angeles resident who did not want to give his name, told reporters that the evidence showed Baca tried “at times” to block the FBI investigation and that it was evident that the sheriff was “trying to protect his empire.”
The foreman said the most compelling testimony came from former Assistant Sheriff Cecil Rhambo, who warned Baca about thwarting the FBI.
The 74-year-old retired lawman was tried in December on the first two counts, and prosecutors had planned a second trial on the lying count. But a mistrial was declared after jurors deadlocked 11-1 in favor of acquitting the former sheriff, and the judge combined all three counts in the retrial, which began Feb. 22 with jury selection.
The charges partly stemmed from a 2011 incident in which two sheriff’s investigators confronted an FBI agent in the driveway leading into her apartment and falsely told her they were in the process of obtaining a warrant for her arrest. Baca denied having advance knowledge of the illegal attempt to intimidate the agent.
Nine former sheriff’s officials, including Baca’s top deputy, Paul Tanaka, have been convicted in the case.
In his closing argument, Assistant U.S. Attorney Brandon Fox used a chess analogy, calling Baca “a king” who used his subordinates as chess pieces in a tit-for-tat between the Sheriff’s Department and the FBI.
“The pawns and bishops go out to attack and do all the dirty work,” Fox said, adding that Baca was now trying to disown everything that happened.”
Baca’s lawyer countered that there was no chess game. “This wasn’t even a checkers game,” Hochman said.
Hochman repeatedly pinned blame for the obstruction on Tanaka, who has already been convicted and is serving five years in federal prison.
Hochman insisted Baca did nothing to subvert the probe, but he actually “wanted to join the federal investigation.”
However, a second prosecutor insisted Baca was not only guilty, but was especially culpable given his decades of experience in law enforcement.
“That experience is damning — not a positive — when you talk about committing these crimes,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Liz Rhodes told the jury as she summed up the government’s case.
Rhodes walked the jury through a timeline of the prosecution’s case, saying Baca orchestrated a conspiracy to derail the FBI probe into mistreatment of inmates at jails managed by the sheriff’s department, then lied to federal investigators about his involvement.
Baca “ran this conspiracy the same way he ran this department,” Rhodes said, telling jurors the ex-sheriff appointed Tanaka to oversee the scheme. At the same time, “the sheriff was having multiple briefings because he wanted to know every little thing that was going on,” the prosecutor said.
Baca ran the nation’s largest sheriff’s department for more than 15 years before he retired in 2014 amid allegations of widespread abuse of inmates’ civil rights.
The defense contends that the ex-sheriff is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease and suffered some cognitive impairment as long as six years ago. However, the judge barred Hochman from presenting medical testimony during the retrial.
Previous related stories:
Jury deliberations underway in Baca retrial
Testimony concludes in Baca corruption case, closing arguments set for Monday
Witness: Phone records, emails suggest Baca kept apprised of scheme
Prosecutor blasts Baca for “abuse of Power”; defense lays blame on undersheriff
Jury selection continues for retrial of ex-Sheriff Lee Baca
Jury selection for Baca retrial to start Feb. 22
Judge rules against Baca’s lapel pin, cufflinks pending
Baca to be retried on corruption charges
Baca corruption trial ends in mistrial as jurors deadlock
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Gabriel says
Well, all the arguments and fancy wordplay aside, I’m just glad some justice was done to all inmates under the abuse of Baca. Whether he was on the right or wrong, the damage has been dealt and we’ll just have to deal with it and move on.
callingitasitis says
@ Michelle Egberts
Sorry but Baca decisions were NOT just a bad choice. It was a series of decisive illegal actions taken by Baca just like some of every people you advocate for. We all have made bad choices but if someone has a series of continuous bad (illegal activity) choices, it is the person who must stop and THINK before taking action for a better choice(s). The choice must be from within and for some it is too much to do.
With self-discipline most anything is possible.
Theodore Roosevelt
Laws control the lesser man… Right conduct controls the greater one.
Mark Twain
By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.
Confucius
callingitasitis says
@LEO
Save your breath, it is JUST like the middle east (USA=the great Satan). Some segments of our population will always see ALL cops as bad and an occupation force. LEO will “” NEVER”” win them over. They are fill with hate and willfully blindness. People fall in three groups : sheep, wolves and sheep dogs. The sheep see both as evil and it isn’t changing any time soon. Baca got what ALL corrupt rogue politicians (elected by the people) should get, JUSTICE, *when they break the law. He just happens to have a badge and dishonor all LEO both state and federal.
I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head.
Theodore Roosevelt
have no other view than to promote the public good, and am unambitious of honors not founded in the approbation of my Country.
George Washington
Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.
Aristotle
Michelle Egberts says
Like I’ve said many times over… We are only one bad choice from having a criminal record. It doesn’t matter who you are, what prestigious position you hold or how much money you have… NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW. You break the law, you will be held to answer!!!
Shane Falco says
Your client killed a deputy and you run around making excuses for him.
Baca made bad choices just like you but his didn’t get anybody killed. Yours did.
Michelle Egberts says
@Shane Falco… I don’t condone Mr Lovells actions executing Sgt. Steve Owen and have NEVER made excuses for his actions.
How dare you accuse me of such. As far as Baca, many people died on his watch in his jails at the hands of his deputies.
Shane Falco says
http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2016/10/07/how-could-a-sergeants-alleged-killer-be-in-a-program-that-worked-with-parolees/
This poor Lovell had no where to turn…just snapped…
You and your organization are a fraud and you have he convictions to prove it.
Tim Scott says
LOL…you have no credibility, and dozens of your Foolco posts have proven it.
Tim Scott says
“Baca made bad choices” but since running a medieval dungeon under cover of authority is just fine and dandy with Foolco he doesn’t really hold those choices against him. After all, Baca has a badge so Shane just wants to polish the old guy’s baton.
Shane Falco says
I used Egberts words…bad choices…when in reality from the beginning I have stated that Baca and Tanaka, Rhambo and others were disgraces to the uniform and the profession.
Let’s not forget that at Bacas first trial the jurors deadlocked 11-1 in favor of ACQUITTAL. One person kept him from being acquitted. This clearly guilty individual almost got away with it. Acquittal doesn’t mean you didn’t do the crime, it often just means the jurors didn’t get a clear case.
Just like Michelle Egberts thumping her chest that following multiple felony convictions, she was acquitted and equating it to innocence.
Kate says
… denote how web writers here at “the Times” arbitrarily vary the “GUILTY!” overlay they emblazon, in oversized bold red typeface, across the images of garden variety criminals recently convicted. But, on account it’s Lee Baca, a fellow police officer, we denote that an exception has been made, how it’s an eencie-weencie, itty-bitty-little undersized “GUILTY!” typeface, hardly discernible, which subsequently disappears no sooner than we’ve toggle opened the ad, as though writers didn’t revel in the enjoyment of this particular conviction, quite as much –
Misdeameanor says
Hopefully this shows the others you can’t get away with it no matter how far up u are in the chain of command. That’s only a few of so many that are corrupt. It’s sad because the ones that are good and go by the book can’t have a real chance because there is so many that are corrupt and make the good ones look bad, people like me Joe citizen that will never trust them, been in their Web of lies and had to go to jail and your never believed it’s very sad. I hope the ex sheriff Baca has to go sit in lock up in a cell and maybe get a big taste of his own corrupt medicine. Justice did prevail..
callingitasitis says
Adios Basura
False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.
Socrates
What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.
Confucius
Laws control the lesser man… Right conduct controls the greater one.
Mark Twain
Now let us see what the federal court Judge will impose as a sentence. Now we get to see the endless appeals to a higher court. Justice is served
Citizen says
Good I’m glad they convicted his crooked ass there are plenty of his cronies still left in the department and that department will always be corrupted.. and that’s just my opinion
yattagottalotta says
And you are correct. They almost let him go in the first trial… I grew up in LA. you know how crooked the LAPD dept and sheriffs are. Remember the Rimpau incident?????
Michelle Egberts says
Rampart
LEO says
Dont forget…just like all of us, there are also a lot of good cops. They just dont make the news.
Tim Scott says
The Sheriff and his chief undersheriff are in jail for covering up the systematic brutality and violent crimes of a good number of deputies who have since been convicted. Undoubtedly their cover up efforts were at least partially successful so there should have been more.
Honest question…do you think that sort of top to bottom corruption could exist in a department made up of “mostly good cops”? Or do you think that, at best, a cop in that department is the kind of cop who turned a blind eye on the crimes of “their own”?
There may be a lot of good cops, but I’d say that very damn few of them are in the LA County Sheriff’s Department.
Tanya says
Tim Scott that was very well put.
K.Burns says
This is happening in all kinds of sheriff office’s around the United States it’s just these pigs got caught!! Above the law is what most pigs think. It does me a solid to see these untouchable pigs get exactly what they deserve!!! I have respect for the men in blue there job is one if not the most difficult and stressful plus challenging jobs around. But they should never play untouchable because one day it could bit you in the ass!!!!!!
Dm says
He’s a POS. And the whole LASD is one of the most corrupt depts. About time one of these scumbaggs with badges get caught up. Now if only we could clean sweep all of LASD…..
Tim Scott says
Another badged scum bites the dust. Too bad they let him retire and collect his pension.
Mr. Platitude says
Not sure we need to see an elderly Alzheimer patient in prison, but…. if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime. What is good for the goose is good for the gander.
AV supporter says
You would not believe how many elderly alzheimer people is in jail now for less of a crime
yattagottalotta says
exactly. like shoplifting
Tanya says
Exactly.