by David M. Reutter and Rod L. Bower
Former Los Angeles County Sheriff Leroy David “Lee” Baca faces up to six months in prison after pleading guilty on February 10, 2016 to charges that he lied to federal investigators in an attempt to cover up a conspiracy to thwart an FBI probe into brutality and excessive use of force by deputies in the county’s sprawling jail system.
In a plea agreement filed in federal court, Baca admitted to twice lying about his involvement in hiding a prisoner-turned-informant from FBI agents. In fact, according to the agreement, Baca ordered the prisoner, Anthony Brown, to be moved from facility to facility under different names, and placed then-Undersheriff Paul Tanaka in charge of executing that plan, dubbed “Operation Pandora’s Box.”
Baca also acknowledged that he lied when he told investigators he was unaware that his subordinates planned to contact FBI Special Agent Leah Marx at her home. Deputies confronted Marx and, in an effort to intimidate her, falsely threatened her with arrest. Baca admitted that he directed the deputies to approach Marx, telling them they should “do everything but put handcuffs” on her, according to his plea agreement.
The guilty plea marks a stunning ...
The City of Chicago paid $7,625,000 to settle a civil rights action brought by a former prisoner who was wrongfully convicted of rape and exonerated by DNA evidence.
Dean Cage was 27 years old when he was arrested for the November 1994 rape of a 15-year-old girl as she walked ...
A settlement agreement was reached in a class-action lawsuit challenging a postcard-only mail policy at Kansas’ Wyandotte County Adult Detention Center (WCADC), while a federal district court awarded damages to a pro se prisoner challenging a similar policy at a jail in Johnson County.
The settlement involving WCADC provides that ...
Officials in Lorain County, Ohio have settled a lawsuit stemming from a pretrial detainee’s suicide death.
When police arrived at Cheryl Sweeney’s home on May 26, 2012 because her husband had passed away, they arrested her on an outstanding warrant for failure to pay fines. During the booking process at ...
A father and son have been charged with misconduct and theft for inappropriate conduct with prisoners and double-billing supervision over a work crew from a Tennessee jail.
According to Police Chief Mark Sirois, the Johnson City Police Department began an internal investigation in October 2012 involving prisoner work details. The ...
The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed as moot an appeal by the Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) that challenged a preliminary injunction regulating its provision of kosher meals to prisoners. The appellate court also vacated orders by the district court that clarified its injunction.
As previously reported in PLN, ...
A prisoner who was subjected to excessive force and denied due process at the Pike County Detention Center in Murfreesboro, Arkansas received $501 plus court costs following a summary judgment order and settlement agreement.
Prisoner Alan C. Onstad was caught by jail guard Jack Naron passing love notes to female ...
The last remaining member of the “Angola 3” – believed to have served the longest term in solitary confinement in the United States – was released from prison after almost 44 years, while consistently maintaining his innocence in the 1972 murder of a guard at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in ...
There are many arguments against the privatization of prisons, jails and other detention facilities. Over the years, Prison Legal News has published numerous articles detailing the problems with having a for-profit company fulfill the essential governmental function of incarceration – including higher levels of violence, higher average recidivism rates, lack of public accountability and, in some cases, outright corruption and fraud.
Such reporting has revealed common factors in the private prison industry that have contributed to deficiencies at for-profit prisons, such as inadequate staffing, inexperienced and low-paid guards, high staff turnover rates and inadequate medical care.
For private prison companies, their business model of cutting costs in order to generate profit unsurprisingly results in occasional lawsuits – “occasional” because engaging in litigation is a daunting task filled with procedural hurdles and complexities that are beyond the ability of the average prisoner, as most lack even a high school education. And in cases where a prisoner is rendered incapacitated or dies, a legal action seeking to hold a private prison firm accountable only results if there are family members willing to seek justice on the prisoner’s behalf.
However, when confronted with a lawsuit that reaches the point of an impending trial ...
The City of St. Louis, Missouri and Correctional Medical Services (CMS, now Corizon Health) both agreed to pay settlements in a lawsuit filed by the estate of a jail detainee who died due to heroin withdrawal.
Upon being booked into a St. Louis jail in July 2007, Isaac Bennett, Jr. ...
