The Generals: Power, Deception and a Cover-Up that Goes to the Top

Summary

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Crimes of the Times – "The Generals: Power, Deception and a Cover-Up that Goes to the Top"

Date: October 7, 2025
Host: Christopher Goffard, L.A. Times Studios

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Episode Overview

This episode of Crimes of the Times, hosted by Christopher Goffard, delves deeply into the scandal that toppled the leadership of the powerful Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Investigative focus centers on Sheriff Lee Baca and his once-heir apparent, Undersheriff Paul Tanaka, as federal authorities probe efforts to obstruct an FBI investigation into inmate abuse in L.A.'s county jails. Drawing from FBI interview recordings, firsthand accounts, and in-depth analysis, Goffard dismantles public myths, exposes the inner workings of law enforcement politics, and unpacks how a culture of secrecy and loyalty enabled a sprawling conspiracy to reach the top echelons of the agency.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The "Vikings" and the Culture of Deputy Cliques

• Paul Tanaka’s Viking Tattoo:
  An FBI interview brings scrutiny to Tanaka's tattoo marking him as a “Linwood Viking”—one of several deputy cliques in the department.
  • Tanaka: "When I got mine, the Vikings were like. There was no scandal, there was no belief that people who had tattoos were up to no good." [00:38]
• Allegations of Gang Culture:
  The episode draws a line from such symbols to decades of abuse allegations and federal lawsuits, with Goffard noting:
  • Goffard: "The most notorious of these groups was the Linwood Vikings, described by a federal judge in the 1990s as a Neo Nazi gang. The county had paid out $7.5 million to settle lawsuits alleging abuse by some members." [01:38]
• Tanaka’s Evasive Responses:
  Tanaka repeatedly denies having insight or memory about crucial details.
  • Tanaka: "If you said, I'll give you 5 million in cash today, tax free, I would lose it. I wouldn't be able to. I have no idea." [02:37]

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2. The FBI Probe and the Cover-Up

• Smuggled Cell Phone and Jail Informant:
  The FBI placed a phone into the hands of inmate Anthony Brown to document jail abuse, provoking outrage at the highest levels of the Sheriff’s Department.
  • Tanaka on Sheriff Baca’s reaction: "I just remember him being mad, mad, mad. Lot of colorful language. Just mad. And you find out that effing phone, and you get that phone… I want to know everything that's on that phone." [07:19]
• Threatening the FBI:
  FBI Agent Leah Marks, leading the probe, was surveilled and threatened with arrest—a move Tanaka denies ordering.
  • Leah Marks (to Tanaka): "So you didn't direct them to come and inform me that I was going to be arrested the next day?"
  • Tanaka: "No." [08:52]

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3. “Gray Area” Policing and Leadership Denials

• Tanaka’s Policing Philosophy:
  Subject to criticism is Tanaka’s encouragement of operating in the “gray area,” which many interpret as condoning misconduct.
  • Tanaka: "I realize now, of course, retrospect, gray is a bad color to use in police work. It was not in the traditional sense of what people think. Gray area is the dark area. It's like right outside the line. Because I always made it clear. You crossed the line. You're gone." [06:14]
• Deflection and Evasion:
  Both Tanaka and Baca, in federal interviews, consistently deny knowledge or responsibility regarding key facets of the cover-up:
  • Tanaka (on changing Anthony Brown's records): "I don't know. I did not give the order." [09:06]
  • Baca (on threatening Leah Marks): "Once Leah was threatened with an arrest, it went too far, okay? On the sheriff's department side, it went too far. And if she was sitting right here, I would apologize to her." [15:24]
• Operational Responsibility:
  • Baca: "I don't get into operational matters. I have 17,000 employees. I have 23 sheriff stations and huge contracts. And I have to rely on the people that I have in the intermediate managers." [15:00]

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4. The Collapse of Leadership

• Indictments and Resignations:
  • Tanaka steps down as criticism mounts. Baca later announces his retirement after a wave of indictments reach his inner circle.
  • Baca (public statement): "I'm not going to seek reelection for a fifth term as sheriff and I will retire at the end of this month." [21:16]
  • Goffard: “Baca had once told the ACLU, I will never, ever resign. I intend to be sheriff as long as I live.” [20:45]
• Federal Prosecutors’ Strategy:
  Prosecutors, wary of prosecuting a popular lawman, aim for a plea deal.
  • Brandon Fox (prosecutor): "We knew it would be hard to have the jury find him guilty of obstruction of justice… In February of 2016, we felt the strongest case against him was the false statement case." [25:14]
  • Baca initially agrees to a plea; the judge rejects the deal as too lenient, leading to a trial.

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5. Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On Law Enforcement Partnership:
  • Lee Baca: "We have too much to do than put prisoners who are at risk in a position where they are trusted more than I am. I am not going to accept that." [17:17]
• On the Culture of the Department:
  • Baca: "The culture in the jail. It's us versus them. They're the enemy and we're the ones that are good guys now that can get taken to an extreme." [13:35]
• Regret and Reflection:
  • Tanaka: "In retrospect now, I think I would have taken a firmer stance and said, wait a minute. Before we start trying to question another agency's motivations, why don't we sit down with the head guy and have a conversation? But then that's just. It's Monday morning." [09:50]

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6. The Final Reckoning

• Legal and Political Consequences:
  • Goffard: “…the Feds had been building their cases strategically, working their way up the chain of command, but holding off on indictments against the top brass until they learned all they could. Finally, they had reached the top.” [11:16]
  • Jack Leonard (reporter): "This comes after a steady drumbeat of criticism for the last few years. What is really the critical factor that he's been facing is the jail scandal." [22:29]
• Personal Fallout:
  • Baca announces retirement citing the divisive nature of another election, but federal scrutiny is rising.
  • Baca’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis enters legal proceedings, further complicating public perception and federal prosecution strategy.

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Notable Quotes (with Timestamps and Attribution)

• “If there are 10 people in the room, he wants all 10 to consider him friend. No conflict.”
  — Paul Tanaka on Sheriff Baca [05:47]
• “Gray is a bad color to use in police work… It’s like right outside the line. Because I always made it clear. You crossed the line. You're gone.”
  — Paul Tanaka [06:14]
• “No one is a greater believer in inmate rights than I am.”
  — Lee Baca [13:35]
• “Once Leah was threatened with an arrest, it went too far, okay?... And if she was sitting right here, I would apologize to her.”
  — Lee Baca [15:24]
• “I’m not going to seek reelection for a fifth term as sheriff and I will retire at the end of this month.”
  — Lee Baca [21:16]
• “Pandora’s Box, the fall of LA’s sheriff.”
  — Christopher Goffard [26:43]

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Important Segment Timestamps

• 00:38 – 02:37: Tanaka and the Viking tattoo – culture, symbols, and denial.
• 06:14 – 09:50: Gray area philosophy and Tanaka’s deflections in FBI interview.
• 13:35 – 17:53: Baca’s perspectives on jail culture, trust, and the anger at the FBI probe.
• 19:40 – 21:32: Baca’s resignation and public reflections.
• 22:29 – 23:18: Reporter analysis on Baca’s resignation and the FBI’s tightening net.
• 25:14 – 26:28: Legal maneuvering, plea deals, and impending trial.

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Tone and Storytelling

Christopher Goffard’s narration is measured, cinematic, and meticulously detailed—always inviting listeners to question received narratives and peer behind official denials. Interviews and dialogue snippets maintain the authentic voices of those involved: Baca’s elliptical, aggrieved defenses; Tanaka’s gruff evasions; and the Feds’ methodical persistence.

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Summary

In this episode, Crimes of the Times peels back the façade of America’s most powerful sheriff’s department as its leaders face federal heat. Through tense interviews, internal culture wars, evasions, apologies, and regret, Goffard unpacks how power and institutional loyalty shielded wrongdoing—until, inevitably, the truth clawed its way to the top. As indictments close in, the fate of Baca, Tanaka, and the very fabric of L.A. law enforcement hangs in the balance, raising haunting questions about accountability, trust, and the corrosive lure of unchecked authority.

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Transcript

[Lee Baca]

I don't want to interfere with an FBI investigation.

[Paul Tanaka]

There's nobody that wants to get rid of bad cops more than I do.

[Brandon Fox]

Were you aware of LASD changing Mr. Brown's name?

[Lee Baca]

No.

[Brandon Fox]

We still didn't know how high up this whole thing went.

[Lee Baca]

I would not have subjected the FBI to me saying I don't trust them. We have too much to do than put prisoners who are at risk in a position where they are trusted more than I am. I am not going to accept that.

[Paul Tanaka]

I got mine in 25 years ago, when I got mine, the Vikings were like. There was no scandal, there was no belief that people who had tattoos were up to no good. I was a kid, I always wanted to tattoo and never had a real good. I'm just curious, why did he pick the Vikings as a. I have no idea. It was picked long before I got there.

[Christopher Goffard]

An FBI agent was asking Paul Tanaka about the Viking tattoo on his calf. He had gotten it in the late 1980s when he was a sheriff sergeant in South LA. Now, in November 2012, he was the department's much feared number two man with plausible ambitions to be the next sheriff.

[Paul Tanaka]

Then all of a sudden, it became criminal to have a Miki tattoo. When a reporter asked me that, shit, if I would have known you guys were going to consternate over Viking, I would have got Mickey Mouse, you know.

[Leah Marks]

I would advise against a Mickey Mouse tattoo.

[Christopher Goffard]

The tattoo on Tanaka's calf denoted membership.

[Christopher Goffard (Host/Narrator)]

In a group of hard charging deputies known as the Linwood Vikings. Other deputy cliques with names like the Pirates, the Rattlesnakes, the Cavemen, the Regulators and the Reapers had their own tattoos. Some included the number 998 code for an officer involved shooting. Depending on who you asked, these cliques were menacing deputy gangs or benevolent social clubs united by the shared experience of patrolling some of LA County's most dangerous streets. The the most notorious of these groups was the Linwood Vikings, described by a federal judge in the 1990s as a Neo Nazi gang. The county had paid out $7.5 million to settle lawsuits alleging abuse by some members. Paul Tanaka described the Vikings as an innocent station mascot. He could not even recall where he got his tattoo.

[Paul Tanaka]

If you said, I'll give you 5 million in cash today, tax free, I would lose it. I wouldn't be able to. I have no idea.

[Christopher Goffard]

So you have no clue?

[Paul Tanaka]

I have no clue.

[Christopher Goffard]

Tanaka's tattoo broke no law, but to the FBI it was emblematic of his fraught history at the Sheriff's department and his resistance to Acknowledging its ugly side, increasingly the Fed saw Tanaka as the figure who had done more than anyone to create the culture at the LA county jails. Sheriff Lee Baca was the public face of the country's largest sheriff's department. A skilled, tireless politician who shuttled endlessly between community events, shaking hands, posing for photos, working crowds. He portrayed himself as a reformer. But it was under Sheriff Paul Tanaka that he had put in charge of running the agency's day to day operations. Like the jails, Tanaka had a flintier temperament and a decidedly more old school policing philosophy. Now the Feds wanted to know how much Tanaka knew about the department's effort to crush an FBI probe into the jails the year before and who had sent two sergeants to threaten Agent Leah Marks with arrest. Marks herself was in the room that day asking Tanaka questions.

[Leah Marks]

We really do appreciate you coming in and not the greatest of circumstances.

[Christopher Goffard]

In this recording you can hear some of the qualities that made her a good interviewer. The former social worker whose non combative, almost casual approach had been so effective in getting witnesses to talk.

[Leah Marks]

I mean in all honesty, we are just talking, right? Okay, we're just talking. This isn't grand jury, this isn't.

[Christopher Goffard]

We're just talking has the ring of water cooler chit chat. But of course Tanaka must have known how dangerous this setting was for him. It's a crime to lie to a federal agent. The room was full of feds and they wanted to know had he been carrying out Sheriff Lee Baca's orders? Had he been acting on his own? Why after all had the sheriff appointed him second in command?

[Leah Marks]

How come you think he did that?

[Paul Tanaka]

He's told this very publicly to a lot of folks is I have promoted Paul Tanaka all these years is because he does exactly what I asked him to do.

[Christopher Goffard]

From the Los Angeles Times. This is Pandora's box. The fall of LA's sheriff. I'm Christopher Goffard. This is episode five. The generals under Sheriff Paul Tanaka had a reputation as a hard man with small regard for whether he was liked speaking to the FBI. He portrayed his boss, Lee Baca as a man who craved harmony and approval and affection even at the expense of the sheriff's department itself.

[Paul Tanaka]

If there are 10 people in the room, he wants all 10 to consider him friend. No conflict. He and I have had some very animated discussions about this, but at the end of the day, right, he's the boss.

[Leah Marks]

It's not your call.

[Christopher Goffard]

Tanaka had told his cops to work in what he called the gray area. Critics said this encouraged rogue activity. And the remark had dogged him no less than his Viking tattoo.

[Paul Tanaka]

And I realize now, of course, retrospect, gray is a bad color to use in police work. It was not in the traditional sense of what people think. Gray area is the dark area. It's like right outside the line. Because I always made it clear. You crossed the line. You're gone.

[Christopher Goffard]

Two hours into the interview, Leah Marks brought up her plan to put a cell phone in the hands of her inmate informant, Anthony Brown. And it was at this point that Tanaka seemed to realize that she was the very agent his sergeants had threatened with arrest. For a few seconds, he was at a loss for words.

[Paul Tanaka]

You're the person. Yeah, I just.

[Christopher Goffard]

I'm.

[Paul Tanaka]

It took me a while. Took me a couple hours.

[Leah Marks]

I am the person.

[Paul Tanaka]

I will tell you the. So let me start from.

[Leah Marks]

I was gonna say I'd rather you just kind of lay it out there for us.

[Christopher Goffard]

Tanaka said that the sheriff had been furious to learn that the FBI had smuggled a cell phone to an inmate without his permission or cooperation.

[Paul Tanaka]

I just remember him being mad, mad, mad. Lot of colorful language. Just mad. And you find out that effing phone, and you get that phone. You hold on to that phone, and I want. I don't want it to leave our customer. He wanted that inmate sequestered and interviewed. In his words, I want to know everything that's on that phone.

[Christopher Goffard]

By Tanaka's account, the sheriff had seemed in total disbelief that the FBI and the U.S. attorney's office would sanction putting a phone in the hands of a career criminal. The agencies were supposed to be his law enforcement partners. It had to be a rogue agent.

[Paul Tanaka]

He then says, and I want you to find out who brought that phone in, and I want you to work up a case on that person, meaning the rogue agent. The rogue agent, yeah.

[Leah Marks]

You got it. Okay. So it was the sheriff that ordered me to be.

[Paul Tanaka]

These guys were trying to put together a case, and nobody was comfortable. Right? I mean, we're. Nobody's comfortable about any of this. We're operating in not a very nice area here, and I did not want this out. We didn't want it out. And we did have to brief the sheriff on all this because this was. We were marching to his tune, and it was just very uncomfortable.

[Christopher Goffard]

The sheriff's department had surveilled Marks, but Tanaka denied sending the sergeants to confront her outside her apartment.

[Leah Marks]

So you didn't direct them to come and inform me that I was going to be arrested the next day?

[Paul Tanaka]

No. Okay.

[Christopher Goffard]

Tanaka also professed ignorance about who had ordered Anthony Brown's name to be altered in the jail computer so it looked like he didn't exist. Would you have given such orders?

[Paul Tanaka]

I don't know. I don't know. I did not give the order.

[Christopher Goffard]

Or did you ever give an instruction to have this inmate's name changed?

[Paul Tanaka]

No.

[Leah Marks]

Who was leading the charge to, I guess, watching him constantly and changing his name and doing all that sort of stuff? Who was more in charge of that?

[Paul Tanaka]

I don't know.

[Christopher Goffard]

Nor did Tanaka recall the federal writ to produce Anthony Brown that had been ignored. I cannot see how.

[Paul Tanaka]

You cannot remember. No. Yeah. But I don't. I don't remember now. When Agent Marks was. The rogue agent was being investigated.

[Leah Marks]

Can we put rogue in quotes, please?

[Paul Tanaka]

In retrospect now, I think I would have taken a firmer stance and said, wait a minute. Before we start trying to question another agency's motivations, why don't we sit down with the head guy and have a conversation? But then that's just. It's Monday morning. Right. Hoping that over time, you guys will regain the confidence in our organization. There's nobody that wants to get rid of bad cops more than I do. More than we do.

[Christopher Goffard]

Four months after this interview, Tanaka stepped down to spend more time with his family. He said Sheriff Baca had initially stood by him. He was considered his protege, heir, apparently, to the 17,000 person department. But Tanaka had become a flashpoint for criticism as the inmate abuse probe entered its fifth year. The timing of his resignation was curious, since the following month, April 2013, Baca himself appeared at a downtown Los Angeles law office to face the Fed's questions. Is it possible that Baca had forced Tanaka out in hopes that it would relieve pressure on him? As the day of questioning loomed, the feds had been building their cases strategically, working their way up the chain of command, but holding off on indictments against the top brass until they learned all they could. Finally, they had reached the top. Lee Baca had no legal obligation to sit down with the feds, so they had to persuade him that it was in his interest.

[Brandon Fox]

We made that decision early on that if we had charged the case before, we talked to him and they saw this as us building the case up to him, potentially, that he was going to be very unlikely to talk to us.

[Christopher Goffard]

This is Brandon Fox, the federal prosecutor in charge of the case.

[Brandon Fox]

We still didn't know how high up this whole thing went.

[Christopher Goffard]

Sheriff Lee Baca would not be an easy man to pin down. He was about to Take a seat in a downtown LA conference room for a high stakes interview with federal authorities. A setting in which any lies he told could be considered crimes. Baca was known for his elliptical way of talking. His speech was full of well thumbed rhetoric and stock phrases he had been trotting out reflexively during his many years in office. His sentences traveled winding paths through vague precincts to fog filled destinations. Prosecutor Brandon Fox had studied Baca's public appearances to get a sense of what he was in for.

[Brandon Fox]

We'd all done our homework. We all knew what kind of an interview he would be.

[Christopher Goffard]

I asked Fox what he hoped to get out of Baca during the interview.

[Brandon Fox]

Was this just a situation where deputies, sergeants, potentially lieutenants were acting on their own? Or was there some larger conspiracy going on involving higher ranking people? We didn't know the answer to that.

[Christopher Goffard]

During the interview, Baca touted his achievements as a reformer. He spoke about the thousands of inmates who were getting an education in his jails thanks to programs he had established. And he gave some insight into the dynamics of the institution, the nature of.

[Lee Baca]

The culture in the jail. It's us versus them. They're the enemy and we're the ones that are good guys now that can get taken to an extreme. And so in order to change that, you have to put them responsible for the education of these inmates, because that truly is what a jail should do. When it comes to the small percent of people who want to believe that inmates aren't worth redemption, I believe they are. No one is a greater believer in inmate rights than I am.

[Christopher Goffard]

Yet when FBI agent Leah Marks was probing inmate abuse at the jails, his deputies had surveilled her and threatened her with arrest. Baca's answers to Fox's questions were frequently long winded and evasive, full of long pauses, muddled and incoherent.

[Lee Baca]

If we had better communication, we would have had a different outcome.

[Brandon Fox]

I guess. I still didn't get an answer to that question.

[Christopher Goffard]

Listening to this interview, it's hard to tell whether Baca is a man in cognitive decline or a man using his age and inarticulateness as a shield. Again and again, he denied having advanced knowledge of what his department had done, from kicking FBI agents out of an interview room to making the informant disappear, to ignoring a federal writ to produce him.

[Lee Baca]

I don't get into operational matters. I have 17,000 employees. I have 23 sheriff stations and huge contracts. And I have to rely on the people that I have in the intermediate managers.

[Christopher Goffard]

What about the sergeants? Who threatened Agent Leah Marks with arrest. Baca claimed he had not been in the loop.

[Lee Baca]

Once Leah was threatened with an arrest, it went too far, okay? On the sheriff's department side, it went too far. And if she was sitting right here, I would apologize to her.

[Christopher Goffard]

Prosecutors confronted him with the angry letter he had written to the US attorney complaining about the FBI's probe of his jails, which he called, quote, illegal, unethical, and irresponsible. He had threatened to withdraw his deputies from joint task forces. They were working with the feds.

[Lee Baca]

See, let me explain this anger business. I don't get really angry. I get more tactical, all right? And anger is a part of it, but it's not the overriding part.

[Christopher Goffard]

The prosecutor compared Baca's tactics to moves in a chess match. Baca agreed on the metaphor.

[Lee Baca]

I wanted a full and clear understanding that we can't afford to have a fight between two agencies. You know, I didn't start this fight.

[Brandon Fox]

Okay, when you said just there, you didn't start this fight, who started the fight?

[Lee Baca]

Whoever decided to do all this and say that you can't trust the sheriff even. I will fight with any level of government that thinks that they can just do anything they want and never even have to explain it. And then if I were told about this, I would be on your side. You would have my green light to do whatever you want to do as an agency.

[Christopher Goffard]

The FBI had not asked his permission to infiltrate his jails because it had not trusted him. But Baca seemed to find this fact intolerable, if not incomprehensible. He seemed personally hurt by it.

[Lee Baca]

I know if it were reversed, I would not have subjected the FBI to me saying I don't trust them. That is unacceptable to me. Okay, we have too much to do. We have too much to do. But than put prisoners who are at risk in a position where they are trusted more than I am. I am not going to accept that. And I don't want to interfere with an FBI investigation. I have enough knuckleheads of my own that I've been able to discover that should be out of the system.

[Christopher Goffard]

Baca admitted he had been resentful about the smuggled phone. He inveighed against federal law enforcement overreach and pointed to Operation Fast and Furious, a hideously bungled gun running investigation in which the ATF allowed criminals to buy guns in an attempt to track them and then lost many of the guns, including two that were found at the shooting of a border agent.

[Lee Baca]

I understand that you had to do what you had to do. But don't believe for one minute that it isn't fraught with risk, because it is. You don't ever want to lose a phone in the jail. And that's what I'm saying to you. There's no evidence of a malicious intent on my part to undermine the mission of the FBI. You want to catch all the crooked deputies I have. In fact, it's helpful because I don't have enough budget to do it all myself.

[Christopher Goffard]

For Sheriff Baca, this interview represented the culmination of a long series of misjudgments and self inflicted wounds. As prosecutors saw it, his narrative had been a web of falsehoods and they believed they could prove it.

[Lee Baca]

In my opinion, your sheriff's department is the greatest law enforcement agency in the world. I want to thank the men and women. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that we love the people of this county.

[Christopher Goffard]

In January 2014, LA County Sheriff Lee Baca stood in uniform at a podium outside the department's Monterey park headquarters, frequently fighting emotion. He had been sheriff for 15 years and had worked at the department for nearly half a century. He was a towering figure in law enforcement. Sometimes called the Teflon sheriff for his ability to survive scandal, he had looked untouchable. He was so popular that he had run unopposed at the last election, his fourth.

[Lee Baca]

And to the people of the county, I extend my deepest gratitude for you allowing me to serve you for the past 48 years. It has been a true dream come true to meet so many incredible people of all races, all religions, all nationalities and all status.

[Christopher Goffard]

Baca had once told the aclu, I will never, ever resign. I intend to be sheriff as long as I live. But the previous month, federal prosecutors had announced a wave of indictments against some of his employees, reaching all the way to two of his lieutenants. And his former second in command, Paul Tanaka, was gearing up to run against him in that year's election. Baca said he wanted to avoid a race that would bitterly divide the agency.

[Lee Baca]

At the same time that I was elected to four terms, I will go out on my terms. I'm not going to seek reelection for a fifth term as sheriff and I will retire at the end of this month.

[Christopher Goffard]

With his voice breaking, Baca concluded by reciting the creed he made all his deputies memorize. Behind him, some were silently mouthing it along with him.

[Lee Baca]

As a leader in the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, I will commit myself to honoring, perform my duty with respect for the dignity of of all people, wisdom to apply common sense and fairness in all that I do, and the courage to stand against racism, sexism, anti Semitism, homophobia, and bigotry in all its forms.

[Leah Marks]

Jack, let's start off with the significance of Baca stepping down.

[Christopher Goffard]

This is my former colleague Jack Leonard, who is covering the story. Sure.

[Jack Leonard]

This comes after a steady drumbeat of criticism for the last few years. What is really the critical factor that he's been facing is the jail scandal. This all started in 2011. There's been an ongoing federal investigation, as you pointed out, and now it's led to charges, and it's just a month later that he has come out and he's said that he's going to step down. We all thought that he was going to be fighting a really tough battle for reelection, but that his heart was in it. It seemed to be.

[Leah Marks]

Can we take him on his word for why he said he wants to retire, or do you think that this might have something to do with the ongoing FBI investigation?

[Jack Leonard]

Well, we don't know, obviously. All we know is what Sheriff Barker said. At this point, there's no indication that the feds are about to indict Barker or anyone else really close to him.

[Christopher Goffard (Host/Narrator)]

But the indictments were getting closer and.

[Christopher Goffard]

Closer to the top.

[Christopher Goffard (Host/Narrator)]

And in May 2015, Baca's former number two man, Paul Tanaka, was indicted for conspiracy and obstruction of justice. Federal prosecutors portrayed him as the ringleader of the scheme to impede the FBI probe into jail abuses. According to the feds, he had approved the decision to send sergeants to to Leah Marx's apartment to threaten her with arrest. His lawyers blamed Baca for the whole fiasco and said Tanaka had been out of the loop. But prosecutors produced logs showing the men had been together during critical periods. On the stand, Tanaka defended the Linwood Vikings tattoo on his calf as an innocent mascot. Just because you say it's evil, he said, does not make it evil. The jury convicted Tanaka, and a judge gave him a five year prison term. Having worked their way methodically up the chain of command and prosecution after prosecution, from deputy to sergeant, lieutenant to captain to undersheriff, the big question remained. Did the U.S. attorney's office have enough to prosecute Baca? There was still a chance to avoid a bruising trial, an option both sides seemed to favor, particularly after Baca's team revealed he was suffering from Alzheimer's disease. In February 2016, with Baca two years into retirement, prosecutors announced that he had agreed to plead guilty to making a false statement to the Feds. He admitted that he had known his sergeants were going to confront Leah Marks. The deal was that he'd plead to one count and the feds would ask for no more than a six month sentence. This appeared to bring the Baca case to a conclusion.

[Brandon Fox]

We knew it would be hard to have the jury find him guilty of obstruction of justice. At the time, In February of 2016, we felt the strongest case against him was the false statement case.

[Christopher Goffard]

But the federal judge who had to approve the deal thought a six month term was too lenient and so Baca withdrew his plea. He would challenge the charges at trial. If he lost, he could face 20 years time. For a man in his 70s, that raised the possibility of dying in lockup. But the timing would turn out to be bad for the Feds. Donald Trump had just defeated Hillary Clinton for the presidency and many people in liberal Los Angeles, where the jury would be picked up, blame the FBI. The trial would pit a much beloved local lawman, a man whose face had been familiar to Angelenos for decades, against a federal agency that had suddenly become deeply unpopular. On the next and final episode of Pandora's Box, the fall of LA's sheriff.

[Brandon Fox]

This was an existential threat to the sheriff's department, but it was of their own making because of what they did.

[Christopher Goffard]

Pandora's Box, the fall of LA's sheriff.

[Christopher Goffard (Host/Narrator)]

Was written and reported by me, your host, Christopher Gofford, for the Los Angeles Times. Mix and sound design by Emily Jankowski.

[Christopher Goffard]

Our editor is Steve Clow.

[Christopher Goffard (Host/Narrator)]

Thanks to LA Times Executive Editor Terry Tang, President and COO Chris Argenteri, and LA Times Studios President Anna Magzanian. Special thanks to LA Times colleagues past and present who have reported on the Sheriff's department and its scandals, including Robert Federechi, Jack Leonard, Joel Rubin, Cindy Chang, Ben Poston, Helene Chekmetyn, Connor Sheets and Carrie Blakener.