Lee Baca Begins Serving Federal Prison Time

Ex-L.A. County Sheriff behind bars in Texas for obstruction of justice and lying to FBI

The man who ran the nation’s largest sheriff’s department for 15 years is now behind bars.

Former Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca began serving a three-year federal\ prison sentence in Texas for obstruction of justice and lying to the FBI.

The 77-year-old former sheriff, who has Alzheimer’s disease, was sentenced in May 2017 but had remained free pending appeal.

Baca’s department frequently worked with local police.

The U.S. Supreme Court last month rejected Baca’s last-ditch bid to review his appeal. The denial was expected since the high court agrees to hear only a small percentage of the appeals it receives.

After that, U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson ordered directing Baca to surrender to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons on or before Feb. 5.

According to a federal Bureau of Prisons online database, Baca is being held at Federal Correctional Institution La Tuna, located in Anthony, Texas, just north of El Paso.

Baca was convicted of charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice,

obstruction of justice and making false statements. During his two trials, prosecutors described the ex-lawman as being the top figure in a conspiracy, which also involved former Undersheriff Paul Tanaka.

Baca was first tried in December 2016 on obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice counts, and prosecutors had planned a second trial on the false statements count.

But a mistrial was declared after jurors deadlocked 11-1 in favor of acquittal, and the judge in downtown Los Angeles combined all three counts in the retrial that ended with Baca’s conviction. Baca did not take the stand in either trial.

Baca confessed that during an FBI investigation into abuse committed by deputies in the county’s jail system he instructed deputies to visit an FBI agent at her home and do “everything but arrest her.” The deputies attempted to convince the agent she would be arrested if she did not back off.

Baca later denied sending his deputies to visit the agent, but later admitted to it as part of a failed plea deal that did not pan out. Baca originally reached a plea deal with prosecutors that would have allowed him to do no more than six months behind bars in exchange for a guilty plea on one count of lying to the FBI.

In addition to lying, Baca also admitted that he ordered his Undersheriff Paul Tanaka to carry out a plan to hide an inmate that the FBI was using as an informant. Anthony Brown was allegedly rebooked under a number of different names and transferred to several locations in order to keep him from testifying before a federal grand jury.

Baca retired in January 2014 following the indictment of 18 mostly low-level deputies by a federal grand jury. He won the sheriff’s seat in 1998 and cruised to re-election in the next two elections. He ran unopposed in 2010.

Baca backed off of running for a fifth term in 2014. Tanaka, however, launched a failed bid to become sheriff but was soundly defeated by Jim McDonnell two years ago.

Twenty other former sheriff’s officials have been convicted.