For almost 5 hours Friday, the Civilian Oversight Fee grilled two former members of a secretive unit throughout the L.A. County Sheriff’s Division accused of focusing on former Sheriff Alex Villanueva’s foes.
The controversial — and now disbanded — Civil Rights and Public Integrity Element was behind a number of of the high-profile investigations that dominated the headlines all through Villanueva’s tenure, together with these into the county watchdog, a county supervisor, a member of the oversight fee and a Los Angeles Instances reporter.
Practically two years after voters ousted Villanueva and elected Robert Luna as sheriff, questions have lingered about what the unit did and why it was created within the first place. This week’s particular listening to sought solutions from two of the unit’s central figures, Sgt. Max Fernandez and former murder Det. Mark Lillienfeld.
Their testimony confirmed the unit had thought of extra instances than beforehand recognized, although officers apparently publicized solely these referring to Villanueva’s sharpest critics. And in some cases, oversight officers mentioned, the unit’s personal members gave the impression to be above the regulation.
By the point the testimony wrapped up midafternoon, the fee’s sometimes reserved chair, Robert Bonner, had come to a stark conclusion in regards to the “McCarthy-esque” unit: “It was set up to intimidate Alex Villanueva’s critics,” he mentioned. “We must be sure this will never happen again.”
Villanueva has beforehand defended the unit, calling it a mandatory device for combating corruption, and saying he recused himself from all decision-making that might create a battle of curiosity.
The concept for the secretive squad on the middle of Friday’s listening to stemmed from Villanueva’s 2018 marketing campaign for sheriff, when he ran as a progressive reformer promising to handle corruption within the division’s higher ranks. In keeping with Lillienfeld, the unit shaped about six months after Villanueva took workplace, although he mentioned Villanueva first floated the thought to him two weeks earlier than profitable the election.
When The Instances investigated the unit three years in the past, there have been 9 recognized members. This week, Lillienfeld mentioned the quantity fluctuated from two to 10. On paper, the unit’s detectives have been scattered across the division on different assignments. One was imagined to be working patrol in Lancaster, and one other was assigned to a gang crime unit.
In 2021, a memo by oversight fee member Sean Kennedy steered asking state or federal officers to research the Villanueva administration’s “highly unusual announcements” about investigations that appeared to “suggest a pattern of targeting” those that criticized the division.
On Friday, Kennedy and different commissioners reiterated that sentiment — particularly after Lillienfeld revealed the unit had examined “55 or 60” complaints.
“It’s interesting there were 55 or 60 cases,” Bonner mentioned, “but the only ones that anybody’s ever heard of are the investigations of commissioner Patti Giggans, Supervisor [Sheila] Kuehl, Sachi Hamai the former [L.A. County] CEO, Inspector General Max Huntsman and Maya Lau, the Times reporter. Those are the only ones you’ve ever heard of — and there’s a reason for that.”
The Villanueva administration rehired Lillienfeld to affix the unit in 2019, after he’d already retired from the division as soon as and hung out working for the district legal professional’s workplace.
Whereas working for the D.A. in 2018, he was briefly banned from all county lockups when he was caught on digital camera dressing as a deputy and sneaking into Males’s Central Jail to ship a McDonald’s Egg McMuffin and a cup of espresso to an inmate.
On Friday, Lillienfeld supplied a extra detailed account of the weird incident, saying it was all a part of an investigation aimed toward liberating a wrongfully convicted prisoner by discovering proof that may level to the actual killer. As a part of the inquiry, he started leaving meals for an inmate informant to offer to the suspected killer with the intention to win his belief. Ultimately, Lillienfeld mentioned, he deliberate to sneak in a tapped cellphone in hopes the actual killer would confess.
However the operation, which Lillienfeld alleged was approved by a court docket order, went south when one other inmate found the meals and jail officers caught on. Afterward, a commander who Lillienfeld mentioned had it out for him determined to open an administrative inquiry and put up fliers in all county jails warning deputies to not let him in.
“I’m the effing good guy here who got an innocent man out of prison,” Lillienfeld mentioned Friday, including that he was “very happy” together with his wage on the Sheriff’s Division and didn’t have to smuggle contraband into jails on the aspect.
When Fernandez, the sergeant who additionally served within the unit, took the stand, he confronted questions on his tattoos and whether or not they signified membership in any of the deputy gangs or subgroups which have bedeviled the Sheriff’s Division for half a century.
Fernandez mentioned he wasn’t in any of the teams however testified that within the early 2000s he drew a emblem for the Compton station’s Baker-to-Vegas relay race workforce. The intricate hand-drawn picture featured a kneeling samurai-style warrior holding a double-headed ax and a defend emblazoned with a cranium and the letters CPT.
After he left Compton station, Fernandez mentioned, he heard a few of the different deputies had made his artwork right into a tattoo. One of many deputies with that tattoo is Lt. Larry Waldie, who has beforehand testified the picture was related to the Gladiators, a deputy group he mentioned butted heads with the Compton station’s extra infamous inked group referred to as the Executioners.
Although Fernandez mentioned that he too had a tattoo of the warrior picture, he mentioned his was not numbered — as some deputy clique tattoos are — and that he doesn’t take into account himself a member of the Gladiators.
At one level, Kennedy extra instantly raised questions on Fernandez’s credibility and whether or not it might have an effect on his suitability for a corruption squad. He introduced up a felony case from the mid-2000s through which an appellate court docket mentioned Fernandez had given false testimony throughout a felony trial and that the error was “deliberate and no slip of the tongue.”
When requested about it, Fernandez pushed again.
“I’ve never lied on the stand,” he mentioned. “That’s ridiculous, I’m an anti-corruption cop.”
One of many anti-corruption investigations he dealt with was the case in opposition to Kuehl and Giggans, each vocal critics of the Villanueva administration. The investigation centered on greater than $800,000 value of contracts Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority awarded to Peace Over Violence, a nonprofit run by Giggans. The group’s hotline for reporting sexual harassment on the transit system got here beneath scrutiny after a whistleblower alleged Giggans was unfairly awarded the hotline contract as a quid professional quo for supporting Kuehl.
This yr, state prosecutors formally rejected the case, saying they’d accomplished a “thorough and independent investigation.” However on Friday, Fernandez alleged state investigators beforehand advised him prosecutors had by no means really allow them to study the proof.
“The whole thing was covered up,” he mentioned.
The Peace Over Violence investigation had additionally led to different allegations, together with the declare — repeated often by Villanueva — that Huntsman was concerned in tipping off Kuehl earlier than the Sheriff’s Division searched her house.
In a press release Friday, Villanueva known as Fernandez’s testimony “a damning indictment of the integrity of [state Atty. Gen. Rob] Bonta’s position on the Peace Over Violence investigation.”
“Fernandez confirmed what we knew, that Bonta assumed control of the public corruption investigation for the sole purpose of burying it, not to investigate it as he claimed,” he mentioned. “This calls for a federal-level review of Bonta’s actions and public statements, which don’t appear to reconcile with the facts.”
Throughout Friday’s listening to, Kennedy grilled Lillienfeld about why he didn’t examine after studying Fernandez could have executed one thing related, allegedly telling the whistleblower’s husband a few search warrant within the case. Lillienfeld mentioned he didn’t assume Fernandez had leaked any info maliciously and identified that Fernandez didn’t inform the targets of any warrants.
Some commissioners balked at that reasoning.
“That makes it seem like we have two systems of justice,” Commissioner Irma Cooper mentioned. “Anyone else you would have had charged.”
One line of questioning for which Lillienfeld offered few solutions targeted on the Villanueva administration’s investigations into journalists, together with a former Instances reporter who wrote a narrative in 2017 a few leaked checklist of drawback deputies. After a prolonged and secret felony inquiry, in 2021 the Sheriff’s Division urged the state legal professional normal to prosecute a number of oversight officers in addition to Lau, then a reporter for The Instances, alleging she knowingly obtained “stolen property.” This yr, the state turned down the case.
Although Lillienfeld mentioned the corruption squad didn’t routinely examine Instances reporters, he didn’t supply further particulars in regards to the investigation into Lau, citing a associated ongoing investigation.
The oversight fee initially launched into a string of particular hearings in early 2022 as a part of an long-term effort to research deputy gangs. After listening to sworn testimony from whistleblowers and different division members over the course of a number of months, in early 2023 the particular counsel for the fee issued a report condemning the “cancer” of deputy gangs and urging the sheriff to ban the teams.
This yr, the hearings resumed, that includes testimony from Villanueva and his former undersheriff. There are not any further hearings scheduled, however as Kennedy wrapped up Friday’s questioning, he floated the chance.
“I think that this hearing raises startling questions about how the Sheriff’s Department has targeted this commission and other oversight officials,” he mentioned. “Unfortunately, because of the repeated claims of confidentiality, it’s very difficult to get to the bottom of the matter, although I think we came close.”
