Former Los Angeles County Undersheriff Paul Tanaka was convicted last week of obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice — the culmination of half a decade’s worth of federal investigations into corruption in the LA County Sheriff’s Department.
On Wednesday, April 6, following two hours of deliberation, a federal jury found Tanaka guilty in a case built around his intentional impeding of an FBI investigation into prisoner abuse in the LA jail system. This follows the February admission by former LA County Sheriff Lee Baca that he deliberately thwarted an FBI investigation into abuse in LA jails.
“They’ve sent a message that those who are being housed in our jails are entitled to civil rights and it is our job to protect that right,” U.S. Attorney Eileen Decker said of the decision, according to the LA Times.
Tanaka could face up to 15 years in prison following the conviction, with sentencing scheduled for June 20. Tanaka was not offered a plea deal, like the one that has kept Baca from serving more than six months in prison. That deal is still pending final approval.
Spokespeople for sheriff’s department employees had strong words for the disgraced former sheriff and undersheriff.
“You had, in this case, managers who decided to cross the line,” Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs President George Hofstetter told the LA Daily News. “It tarnished everything. It makes everybody look bad.”
Hoffstetter, as president of the association, represents rank-and-file deputies.
Brian Moriguchi, president of the Professional Peace Officers Association, representing department managers, had more to say about the “embarrassment” of the trial.
Speaking to the Daily News, Moriguchi spoke of a gulf between those who still support Tanaka and those who do not.
“There are strong feelings on both sides in regards to Tanaka himself,” Moriguchi said. “Many of the employees benefited from Tanaka’s style of leadership and many others were hurt by his style of leadership, and so there’s a very strong divide in the Sheriff’s Department as to whether this is a good thing or a bad thing for Paul Tanaka himself.”
According to the LA Times, Tanaka’s style was “running the department’s day-to-day operations with an iron hand.” This assessment seems in line with Tanaka’s statements to The Malibu Times in October 2013 during his bid to replace Baca as LA County Sheriff. Tanaka argued for stronger use of force in local jails.
“There’s a policy … that’s very restrictive on their ability to handle situations that might require hands-on in a lawful manner,” Tanaka said at the time. “Deputies will tell you that their ability to maintain safety and security not only of themselves but of the inmates has been hindered.”
Earlier that fall, a report by a blue-ribbon commission determined that Tanaka “failed to uphold the department’s goals and values” — an assessment Tanaka harshly criticized.
“That [report] was by a blue ribbon commission, none of whom have ever worked inside of a jail,” he told The Malibu Times in 2013.
“If you go back and read all the testimony, you’ll see that if you did not like Paul Tanaka, you went in there and you made all these allegations,” he said. “You never got questioned on your credibility, or your sources, or whether or not you were telling the truth.”
Jurors did not seem to buy Tanaka’s defense that he was not in the loop of corruption. Tanaka argued that Baca sent commands directly down without consulting his undersheriff. However, call logs presented at the trial swayed the jury that Tanaka was in the know and part of the conspiracy.
“Mr. Tanaka’s own words were that the undersheriff ran the department day-to-day and that the sheriff was the face of the department,” juror Mark Nolan told ABC 7 News.