Lee Baca: LA County Sheriff, Obstruction, and Federal Conviction

Lee Baca’s federal conviction came in March 2017, when a Los Angeles jury found the former Los Angeles County Sheriff guilty on three felony counts tied to a scheme to derail an FBI investigation into deputy brutality inside the county jail system. The counts were conspiracy to obstruct justice, obstruction of justice, and making false statements to federal investigators.¹ He was sentenced to three years in federal prison and reported to a facility in Texas in February 2020.²

What the FBI Was Investigating

Around 2010, FBI special agent Leah Marx began looking into reports of deputy-on-inmate violence in the Los Angeles County jails. The bureau recruited Anthony Brown, an inmate serving a lengthy state prison sentence for bank robbery, as a confidential informant, and in the summer of 2011 provided him with a contraband cellphone to document conditions inside Men’s Central Jail.³

The abuse the FBI was investigating was not isolated. A September 2011 ACLU of Southern California report documented roughly 70 inmate declarations of unprovoked beatings within a single year, corroborated for the first time by civilian witnesses including jail chaplains. Margaret Winter of the ACLU National Prison Project said no jail in the country matched the “pervasive, savage, long-standing and notorious” level of deputy-on-inmate violence in Los Angeles County.⁴ A county-appointed Citizens’ Commission on Jail Violence later found a “troubling culture” in the Custody Division marked by excessive force, disrespect for inmates, and a “code of silence,” and blamed a “failure of leadership.”⁵

The Obstruction Scheme

When guards discovered Brown’s cellphone, the Sheriff’s Department did not cooperate with the federal investigation. It moved to shut the investigation down. Prosecutors described the response as a coordinated obstruction campaign ordered from the top of the department.

Deputies transferred Brown between facilities under a rotating series of aliases, including “John Rodriguez,” “Kevin King,” “Chris Johnson,” and “Robin Banks.” The internal operation was nicknamed “Operation Pandora’s Box.” At least 13 deputies were assigned to watch Brown, and he was held in solitary confinement for 18 days while the FBI was told he had been released.³⁶

Two sheriff’s sergeants then confronted Agent Marx at her home, filmed the encounter, and threatened her with arrest. Baca authorized the confrontation, telling subordinates to “do everything but put handcuffs on her.” Retired Captain Tom Carey testified that when Baca watched a video of the encounter, he laughed and said it was “the best laugh he’d had in months.”⁷⁸

Baca also went after the FBI directly. He publicly accused the bureau of acting illegally, sent a letter making similar accusations to U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte, and had a deputy request a warrant from a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge to search FBI offices in Los Angeles. Conspirators tampered with witnesses to keep information from reaching federal authorities.⁹¹

Assistant Sheriff Cecil Rhambo testified that he explicitly warned Baca not to interfere with the federal investigation. Baca continued anyway.⁹

The Plea Deal, Mistrial, and Conviction

Baca announced in January 2014 that he would not seek a fifth term and would step down by the end of the month, citing the “negative perception” facing the department. By then, 18 current and former deputies had already been charged with illegal conduct in the jails.¹⁰

In February 2016, Baca reached a plea agreement with federal prosecutors. He admitted lying to investigators during a 2013 interview, and the deal capped his prison exposure at six months. His attorney asked for no prison time at all, citing decades of service and an Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis.¹¹

On July 18, 2016, U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson rejected the deal. He called the proposed six-month sentence a “gross abuse of the public’s trust” and said it would “trivialize” the rule of law. Anderson found that Baca’s lies had derailed an investigation into inmate beatings and encouraged an “us-versus-them mentality” in which deputies were taught to cover up abuses. Baca’s age and Alzheimer’s diagnosis, he said, were “heavily outweighed” by the harm his conduct had caused.⁸ Baca withdrew his guilty plea, and prosecutors added two charges: conspiracy to obstruct justice and a substantive count of obstruction.¹²

His first trial ended in a mistrial in December 2016, with the jury deadlocked 11-1 in favor of acquittal. Prosecutors retried the case and added the false-statements charge back in. Judge Anderson barred the defense from presenting testimony about Baca’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis, ruling that claims about its effect on his statements to investigators were “speculative,” and he also prohibited Baca from wearing a Sheriff’s Department lapel pin in front of the jury.¹³

On March 15, 2017, after roughly two days of deliberation, the jury convicted Baca on all three felony counts. Prosecutors had described him as a “cowardly king who chose to protect himself while sending pawns and other underlings to do his dirty work.”¹

Sentence, Appeal, and Prison

In May 2017, Judge Anderson sentenced Baca to three years in federal prison.¹⁴ Baca appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing that the trial judge had improperly excluded expert testimony about his Alzheimer’s diagnosis. In February 2019, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the conviction, ruling that the district court had not abused its discretion. The panel found the testimony of Baca’s expert, Dr. James Spar, unreliable because it amounted to speculation about whether and how any Alzheimer’s impairment had affected Baca’s answers to investigators, and it held that excluding the evidence did not deny Baca his constitutional right to present a defense.¹⁵

In January 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Baca’s appeal, finalizing his conviction.¹⁶ Judge Anderson ordered Baca to surrender to the Bureau of Prisons by February 5, 2020.¹⁷ He reported that day to Federal Correctional Institution La Tuna, a low-security facility in Anthony, Texas.¹⁸

In March 2020, shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic began, Baca requested early release, citing the health risks posed by the virus. A federal judge denied the request in April 2020.¹⁹ A 2025 Los Angeles Times retrospective reported that he was released in 2021.³

Others Convicted in the Same Investigation

The obstruction investigation led to the conviction of at least 22 members of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.³

Undersheriff Paul Tanaka, whom prosecutors described as the ringleader directing day-to-day obstruction, was convicted in April 2016 of conspiracy to obstruct justice and obstruction of justice. Judge Anderson sentenced him to five years in federal prison and a $7,500 fine.²⁰

Retired Captain Tom Carey, who helped run the confrontation with Agent Marx, took a plea deal on a false-statements charge, cooperated with prosecutors, became a key government witness at Baca’s retrial, and was sentenced to nine months. Deputy James Sexton, credited with coining “Operation Pandora’s Box,” received 18 months for conspiracy.³

Anthony Brown, the informant hidden from the FBI and held in solitary during Operation Pandora’s Box, filed a civil rights lawsuit against Los Angeles County. In January 2022, the County Board of Supervisors approved a $1 million settlement. Brown, who remains in state prison, said he intended to use the money to provide for his family and to fight his sentence.⁶

Baca’s Alzheimer’s Diagnosis and Current Status

Baca was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in May 2014, shortly after leaving office.¹⁷ The diagnosis was central to his defense throughout the case, but the trial court, the Ninth Circuit, and the Supreme Court all declined to let it excuse his conduct.

On July 14, 2024, Baca, then 82, walked away from his San Marino home and was reported missing by his family. Authorities located him hours later at a restaurant in El Monte, roughly six and a half miles away. He was wearing a medical identification bracelet that helped confirm his identity, and a restaurant manager and server kept him engaged and fed him while they waited for police. Firefighters examined him at the scene, determined he was in good condition, and returned him to his family.²¹²²

1
U.S. Department of Justice. Former LA County Sheriff Lee Baca Found Guilty
2
Los Angeles Times. Former Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca Is Now a Prison Inmate in Texas
3
Los Angeles Times. Crimes of the Times: The Fall of LA Sheriff Lee Baca
4
ACLU. Cruel and Usual Punishment
5
Citizens’ Commission on Jail Violence. Report of the Citizens’ Commission on Jail Violence
6
Los Angeles Times. FBI Informant Jail Abuse Sheriff Settlement
7
ABC7. Witness Says Ex-LASD Sheriff Was Engine of Train
8
The Guardian. Judge Rejects LA County Sheriff Plea Deal
9
Courthouse News Service. Jury Finds Ex-LA Sheriff Obstructing FBI
10
NBC Los Angeles. Sheriff Baca Expected to Announce Retirement
11
Courthouse News Service. Judge Rejects Former LA Sheriff’s Plea Deal
12
ABC7. Baca Found Guilty in Retrial on Obstruction Charges
13
Los Angeles Times. Baca Retrial Opens
14
New York Times. Lee Baca Prison
15
FindLaw. United States v. Baca
16
NBC Los Angeles. Supreme Court Denies Review of Ex-Sheriff Lee Baca’s Appeal
17
PBS SoCal. Ex-LA County Sheriff Lee Baca Ordered to Surrender
18
NBC Los Angeles. Ex-LA County Sheriff Lee Baca Begins Serving Federal Prison Time
19
The Marshall Project. Lee Baca
20
U.S. Department of Justice. Paul Tanaka Sentenced to Five Years in Federal Prison
21
NBC Los Angeles. Former LA County Sheriff Lee Baca Missing
22
ABC7. Former Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca