Narrator Christopher Goffard (2:44)

At his new post, he was working levers in a little cell 8 to 16 hours a day.

Deputy James Sexton (2:50)

I was like, okay, how am I going to better my situation? And it's where I really started to understand the Automated Jail Information System, which is a jail management system at the LA county jail.

Narrator Christopher Goffard (3:02)

And I started learning Sexton's tech prowess and other skills, began to win him some attention with the higher ups and ultimately earned him a job at Operation Safe Jails osj, an elite intelligence unit at the county jail system.

Deputy James Sexton (3:20)

Anything that happens criminally has a nexus to the LA county jail. It's kind of a social contract. It's an unwritten rule that if you're in the game, if you will, in la, you're gonna ultimately end up at the LA county jail. And at the time we were focusing on the interaction of the Mexican mafia and cartels at the time. Tunnels, man, they sent us everywhere. They sent us everywhere. And I kinda had a. I fell into a tribe there.

Narrator Christopher Goffard (3:51)

His stalled career was revving again. He was turning inmates into informants and he was going on missions with the FBI. His ultimate ambition was to join what he calls Narco Majors, a unit that handles major drug busts, the LA equivalent of Miami vice. But in August 2011, it was his expertise with the jail computer system that made him useful to his commanders. They had an unusual request for the deputy who had learned not to say no. They wanted him to make an inmate disappear. This is Pandora's box. The Fall of LA's Sheriff. I'm Christopher Goffard. This is episode two, the Ghost. As FBI agent Leah Marks and her partners were investigating claims of abuse at the downtown LA jail, they found an inmate eager to help. This was Anthony Brown, the so called Durag Bandit. The fact that he was a bank robber gave Marx a good pretext for her visits. He had stolen and hidden some money, she could say, and she was trying to get him to lead her to it. He began giving her names of deputies with a reputation for brutality.

FBI Agent Leah Marks (5:17)

He had a heart condition, he had diabetes. And so because of his medical conditions, he was out of his cell almost daily. Just being able to walk around and see things. I mean, I think in the general sense he probably hoped that we would help him with this case if he helped us. But you know what he told us early on? He was sick of seeing these guys, these guys meaning the deputies engaging in this behavior and then walking out and going free.

Narrator Christopher Goffard (5:46)

One day. Brown told her about a jail deputy named Gilbert Michelle who had offered to bring him a contraband cell phone for the right price. And so Agent Marks and her team quickly launched a plan. Anthony Brown would tell the corrupt jailer of a friend on the streets who Was ready to make the deal. The mysterious friend was named C.J. who was, of course, an undercover FBI agent.

FBI Agent Leah Marks (6:11)

And then we just waited to see if the deputy would, in fact, reach out to the undercover.

Narrator Christopher Goffard (6:17)

What's the purpose of introducing the phone?

FBI Agent Leah Marks (6:20)

Multiple purposes. The first one being we wanted to confirm whether or not these allegations of bribery were even true. Are deputies really taking bribes in exchange for bringing contraband into the jail?

Narrator Christopher Goffard (6:33)

With a cell phone, he would also be able to call his FBI handlers With specific excessive force incidents he'd witnessed while they were fresh in his memory. There was a ticking clock. Brown would not be in the county jail where he could help for much longer. A judge had just given him a 423 year prison sentence, and he would soon be moved to his permanent home and state prison.

Anthony Brown (7:01)

You have a collect call from Anthony brown, an inmate in men's central jail. Hello? Hey. Hey. We got all the info. We're working on our end. I gave dude the number, and he called.

Narrator Christopher Goffard (7:17)

Yeah, Deputy Gilbert. Michelle had called the undercover agent to make arrangements for the money and phone exchange. Agent marks needed Michelle to call back and finalize the plan.

Anthony Brown (7:29)

Tell him to call back right away so that. So that you can get your ship before you go. Okay? I don't know when they're going to move. I don't know. Yeah, tell him. Tell him to call. He's. He's ready. He's got everything. We're good to go. Okay, cool. All right, I'll tell him that. Cool.

Narrator Christopher Goffard (7:52)

Brown is calling from a payphone at the jail. She does not love that he's contacting her this way, since the jail has the ability to listen in if she seems eager to keep the conversation short and to the point and less than explicit. This is why the jail was recording these calls. Not because it was targeting Anthony Brown in particular, but because it recorded the calls as a matter of course. We're able to hear them because they were later introduced as court exhibits. Finally, on July 20, 2011, Agent Marks was buckled into a surveillance plane High above a parking lot in Torrance, where the bribe was supposed to take place. As the cameras rolled, the undercover agent gave Deputy Michelle $800 cash, along with a cell phone to give Brown.

Anthony Brown (8:42)

You have a collect call from Anthony brown, an inmate in men's central jail. Hello? You get my message? Yes. Yes. Okay. Yeah, just wanted to. I just wanted to know you got my message and everything. We're good to go. You'll be having your phone soon. Then you can call. All right. All right. Yeah, gotcha Bye. Cool.

Narrator Christopher Goffard (9:04)

Deputy Michelle soon brought the smuggled cell phone to Brown. It was a pivotal moment in the investigation.

FBI Agent Leah Marks (9:14)

At a minimum, we knew that we would be able to charge the bribery case on the deputy no matter what happened, moving forward on any of the civil rights stuff, you know, this was no longer a he said, she said. I think at this point, we just didn't know how far this was going to go.

Narrator Christopher Goffard (9:30)

By August 2011, the FBI was looking into 15 deputies for excessive force. And they had more than 25 inmates supplying them information. The investigation was mushrooming. What was supposed to happen next was a secret, highly sensitive operation. Agent Leah Marks will not talk about it, nor will anyone else at the FBI. We know about it only because my LA Times colleagues were able to view internal FBI documents. My colleague Cindy Chang broke the story. Building on the bribery case, the FBI was laying the groundwork for an elaborate sting. The codename Operation Blue Line. The plan was to confront Deputy Michelle with the evidence against him and threaten him with prosecution. To make him cooperate, the FBI would rent out a warehouse and make Michelle spread the word that it was full of drugs. He would be asked to recruit corrupt jail deputies to moonlight his guards. The FBI drew up a budget. $10,000 for bribes and kickbacks. $3,000 to rent the warehouse. Another 1500 to rent a bugged apartment to record beatings. The plan was to use the compromise deputies to get information on jail abuses. It was a scheme so large it required approval from the top. FBI headquarters in D.C. gave the go ahead, but the plan was dead before it could even get off the ground. Nor did Anthony Brown get anything useful with his contraband cell phone during the week and a half that he had it. On August 8, 2011, deputies found the phone in his cell, stashed in a Doritos bag.

FBI Agent Leah Marks (11:17)

So Anthony Brown is getting sent to have a heart procedure done. And so he put the phone into a chip bag, thinking when they search it, if they see the chip bag, maybe they won't pick it up and they won't notice it's in there.

Narrator Christopher Goffard (11:32)

The discovery of the phone did not immediately set off major alarms for the sheriff's commanders who ran the jails. It was not especially rare to find a contraband phone, and there was no reason to suspect the feds were behind it. And so at first, Agent Marks thought it was possible to continue her secret work at the jail. But sheriff's investigators were grilling Brown about where he got the phone. He lied and said it had been a nurse. They pulled the recorded calls. He'd made from the payphone and heard an unknown voice at the other end.

Anthony Brown (12:06)

You'll be having your phone soon. Then you can call. All right? All right.

Narrator Christopher Goffard (12:10)

Who was this mysterious woman promising Anthony Brown a phone? What was her name? What did she want with a convicted bank robber? The Sheriff's department quickly tracked the number that Brown had been calling. It was the FBI's West LA office, the Civil Rights Division. By August 18, 2011, word had reached Sheriff Lee Baca that the feds were behind the contraband cell phone in his jail. Agent Leah Marks was on vacation in Green Bay in a park, pushing her niece on a swing.

FBI Agent Leah Marks (13:06)

My supervisor called me. He said, they know it's ours. That's when I knew things would change. Obviously, I didn't realize it was going to change to the extent it did. We need to get in and talk to Anthony Brown and let him know that we're aware of all these things, that he's okay, that it's on our radar, and that everything will be fine.

Narrator Christopher Goffard (13:27)

Brown, meanwhile, was still trying to deflect the questions from sheriff's investigators. He told them there were many ways he could have gotten the phone.

Anthony Brown (13:37)

You guys want to know who did this s. Or who didn't do this or not? Yes. Okay. I didn't get it here by myself. I know that. Did not get it here. Somebody's bringing it in. So there's a window somewhere.

Deputy James Sexton (13:47)

That's what I call it, a window.

Anthony Brown (13:48)

Who were you calling on the 1819-21st? Damn. The 1819, 21st. Who works for the feds, man? I know you're working with feds, dude. Who works for the feds. Yeah. 18, 19, 20.

Narrator Christopher Goffard (13:59)

Yeah.

Anthony Brown (14:00)

No more beating around, man.

Narrator Christopher Goffard (14:03)

The investigator began reading a transcript of his conversations with Marks, though her identity was not yet certain.

Anthony Brown (14:10)

Yeah. Don't worry. You'll have your phone soon. All right? Okay. I need to see somebody. Yeah, we're working on that on our end. Okay, so what that means, as is a conversation, what do you depict that it's made of? The FBI made it what? It's made of? The FBI. You tell me what that means. I know you're working with the feds, but you know I'm working with the feds. What's the deal with the feds? Huh? What's the deal with the Feds, man? You want me to talk? I only. I need a couple things. What do you need? A cup of coffee? Cheeseburger? Give me a cigarette and a soda.

Narrator Christopher Goffard (14:41)

A cigarette and a soda at both the LA Sheriff's Department and the FBI. There was a scramble to figure out exactly what was going on. Marks got back to California and made plans to see Brown. When she got to the jail with two other agents to interview him, there was no immediate sign that anything was amiss.

FBI Agent Leah Marks (15:05)

We go in the same way we always do. We show him our credentials, we have him called down, brought into the interview room. At the time, nothing seemed all that abnormal.

Narrator Christopher Goffard (15:19)

What agent Marks did not know was that the sheriff's department was in a state of panic and confusion. She did not know that department leaders wanted to keep her away from Brown. She did not know that there had been a sign hung on Brown's cell saying visitors needed to be approved, which jailers had either missed or misunderstood that day.

FBI Agent Leah Marks (15:42)

We have no idea that that sign is up. We have no idea what's going on in the background of the jails. And at that point, it was about 50, 55 minutes into the interview, and the door swings open, and there's a very large sergeant standing at the door. And he screams at us, this interview is over. And grabs Anthony Brown and rips him out of the room. And we all stood, mouths open, staring, wondering why, what on earth was going on? The sergeant screamed at us, who gave you authorization to be here? And our response is, we went through the entrance like we always do. We didn't anticipate any type of aggressive sort of response. As they were pulling Anthony out of the room, I quickly said to him, we'll get you out of here. Because all I could think in that moment is, what are they going to do with him? This is a guy who they know has been providing us inside information on things the deputies are doing, and he is now solely in their custody. So we went to the watch commander's office, and we were closed in a room and told to stay there. We're behind a sally port. We have no phones. We have nothing. We have, you know, no ability to contact anyone. And we just thought, something is not good here. So we said, no, we're going to go outside to our cars to make our phone calls. And finally someone said, okay, you can leave.

Narrator Christopher Goffard (17:10)

Sheriff's investigators pressed Brown to reveal what he'd been telling the feds. Now, he admitted that jail deputy Gilbert Michelle had brought him the phone.

Anthony Brown (17:21)

I wasn't going to tell the deputy that a deputy gave me a phone. How stupid is that? I mean, I understand, dude. That's why I said, I'm going after the truth, man. Who's in charge that can give me cigarettes?

Narrator Christopher Goffard (17:33)

It was dawning on the sheriff's department that the FBI had been secretly investigating their jails for a long time. Gilbert Michelle confessed to his department that he'd taken the bribe to bring in the phone and had rationalized it by saying, quote, a phone's not going to hurt anyone. He said the FBI had threatened him with prison if he didn't cooperate. He was supposed to elicit information from colleagues about uses of force and possible drug smuggling.

Anthony Brown (18:03)

You think you're getting manipulated by the FBI here at all? Possibly. Possibly. Yes, sir. Now they control you. The problem is these Einstein didn't realize that the group of them conspired to do this, which is a felony.

Narrator Christopher Goffard (18:18)

The conversation, which later came out in court, is a glimpse into how the sheriff's department regarded the FBI's efforts. These Einsteins, the sergeant says these Einsteins had committed a felony by smuggling in the phone.

Anthony Brown (18:34)

It's about the. They're trying to bring down the department. What they wanted me to do is go to guys that I hardly know.

Narrator Christopher Goffard (18:42)

Like, I know who they are, like.

Anthony Brown (18:43)

And I work with them and be like, hey bro, what's up? You know, hey, did you hear about the guy that just got beat up on, on 2000 who was involved in that? Like, it's all okay. They're trying to scare you.

Sponsor Representative (19:16)

Cooler temperatures are rolling in and as always, Quint is where I'm turning for fall staples that actually last from cashmere to denim to boots. The quality holds up and their prices are impossible to beat. Quince has the kind of fall staples you'll wear non stop, like super soft, 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters starting at just $60. I have their Mongolian cashmere cardigan in navy and it goes with everything. And it's one of the softest items in my closet. I highly recommend it. I also really enjoy getting clothes for my baby from Quince because the items are such high quality and I know they're going to last him through all his active days. Keep it classic and cool this fall with long lasting staples from quince. Go to quince.com crimesofthetimes for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com crimesofthetimes free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com crimesofthetimes.

Narrator Christopher Goffard (20:17)

Sheriff's Deputy James Sexton, a wizard with the jailhouse computer system, was out of state for training when he got word that he was needed in la.

Deputy James Sexton (20:26)

And they told us, hey, the lieutenant Wants you to come back. We've got. It's hvt, High Value Target, Sensitive case.

Narrator Christopher Goffard (20:36)

He jumped on a plane. He got to the jail and was ordered to attend what became known as the Saturday meeting, which took place at an outdoor courtyard called Heroes park. It was August 20, 2011. Sexton told me all of Operation Safe Jail's, the elite intelligence team was there, 30 or so people plus supervisors. He was told that word had come down from the top that a particular inmate needed to be transferred out of the downtown jail to another county facility.

Deputy James Sexton (21:08)

And we're going to move him to other stations in the county, which we've done before. Our unit was always responsible for that.

Narrator Christopher Goffard (21:16)

Sexton says he was regarded as the guru of the Automated Jail Information System, or aegis. He'd used it extensively to move inmates around on undercover operations, so that part of the assignment wasn't unusual. What was unusual was why this particular inmate, Anthony Brown, needed to be moved. The FBI wanted to talk to him.

Deputy James Sexton (21:41)

And that we were going to make it difficult for other law enforcement agencies to find him on the computer. And then they all looked at me, you know, we don't want him to be easily found. Okay, yeah, let's do this. You are not to let anybody speak to this guy. Nobody's to see him, nobody's to talk to him. We're doing this until we can narrow down what has happened. But this is a very big deal to the sheriff. This is a very big deal to the under sheriff. I got a big giant policy procedure book that says if somebody with a lower employee number and a higher rank tells you to do something, you're going to do it. And moving an inmate and changing his name was not something that I hadn't done before. Prior to that meeting.

Narrator Christopher Goffard (22:33)

Sexton says a supervisor came right out and said, we're just keeping him away from the feds. Though the official line would be that they were hiding Brown for his own safety. Sexton tells me how he got Anthony Brown lost in the system, effectively turning him into a ghost.

Deputy James Sexton (22:54)

I got called to the lieutenant's office and they asked me about how we would go about doing this. And I laid out the AEGIS codes. So out to court, out to hospital, but you can't overutilize those particular codes because they have timers on them and they also stick out. There would be a deviation from normal, and then you have to keep up with the inmate, what the computer says and where the folder is. And ultimately I knew how to bring all of them together temporally and Physically, so that it would be hard to find somebody.

Narrator Christopher Goffard (23:28)

Sexton changed Anthony Brown's name in the system. Then he changed it again and again. Brown's aliases included John Rodriguez, Kevin King, Chris Johnson, Robin Banks. Did you choose the aliases?

Deputy James Sexton (23:46)

I chose a couple of them. You know, so the famous one, Robin Banks, that was kind of the unit thing.

Narrator Christopher Goffard (23:54)

Agent Leah Marks was desperately trying to find Brown. Even a federal writ had failed to reveal where he was.

FBI Agent Leah Marks (24:01)

Hey, just FYI, this is what they're saying, that they can't find him or that he's not here, he's been released. And I said, how is that possible? He was just sentenced to a couple hundred years in prison. There's no way that he's not there. Something is up here. This is not normal. So we start calling around to the state prisons, thinking maybe he got moved there. They have no record of him. I started to get very concerned because this was my source, he was my responsibility. And so I really. I got pretty upset because I felt like we needed to be doing a million things to go and find him. And I just didn't know what they were doing with him. And every day I would go to my supervisor and say, okay, now, now it's been four days. Now it's been five days. What are we doing?

Narrator Christopher Goffard (24:56)

Sheriff's investigators gave Brown the impression that his FBI handlers had abandoned him. One of them said, they haven't come back for you. If the plan was to undermine his cooperation with the Feds, it was working. About a week after he vanished from view, he sat down to write a long letter to the sheriff's department. The deputies who work here give me dirty looks as if I killed somebody. He wrote, I'm really afraid here. And everybody seems to know or think that I am the FBI informant. And right now, all the deputies that I know are outside of this door looking at me. My nerves are really bad. He continued, I am afraid the FBI has left me for dead. Brown seemed to be catching on that something was not right, and keeping him hidden was logistically complicated and risky.

Deputy James Sexton (25:52)

He's an escape risk just on sentencing alone. The biggest risk factor would be Anthony Brown escaping, you know, and then have him escape under an alias. Yeah, that would have been messy, but he was becoming agitated, hostile. He was becoming difficult to house, and LA county did not want to house him. Clearly, the reason that everybody was on this high alert or that we were even dealing with Anthony Brown was the investigation of use of force. And the last thing that the sheriff's party wanted was A use of force with a hidden FBI informant. So time to go. Anthony Brown.

Narrator Christopher Goffard (26:36)

After hiding him for 18 days, they decided to unload him on the state prison system where he was supposed to be heading anyway.

Deputy James Sexton (26:43)

We had to bring Anthony Brown back into the computers and back into the LA county jail so that we could release him, Anthony Brown proper into state prison custody.

Narrator Christopher Goffard (26:56)

On September 12, 2011, Sexton wrote an email notifying his bosses and CCing higher ups. The email would become a crucial piece of evidence. In it, Sexton coined the term that would become inseparable from the whole scheme. The subject line was Operation Pandora's Box. Gents, Sexton wrote, I'm going to handle booking our friend back under his true alias. I'm going to try to reinstate his old booking number as we speak.

Deputy James Sexton (27:32)

That was the email that had everybody's name on it that we were pulling Anthony Brown out of the ghost names and the ghost folders and putting him back into Anthony Brown because Anthony Brown was serving 400 plus years and had to go to state prison. So we had to merge all the folders back together and piece all the computer stuff back together. And so I did all of that on that day to make him Anthony Brown again.

Narrator Christopher Goffard (27:56)

Pandora's Box is a myth about a box that is open to release all the evils of the world. All that remains inside is hope. When I asked Sexton why he chose that name, he said hope is what he had in mind. The hope that something good would emerge from the experience.

Deputy James Sexton (28:17)

This was weird and I knew that this was uncouth. For two law enforcement agencies to be acting like this with each other. I thought that was an eloquent way to kind of surmise all the chaos and the confusion. But at the same time, maybe we can get something right out of this.

Narrator Christopher Goffard (28:40)

Federal authorities would later look skeptically at the spin Sexton put on it and characterize the operation's name as an acknowledgement of the job. All along, they would say, was to conceal the evils roiling inside the sheriff's department that Anthony Brown might unlock. Sexton says he wrote the email as a kind of insurance policy.

Deputy James Sexton (29:04)

It was a bit of a time stamping, like you guys told us to do this. I believed that the department would protect me and that I had the insurance of following orders, having emails, all of those things. And that quickly unravels.

Narrator Christopher Goffard (29:18)

In the fall of 2011, Sexton returned to his normal job in Operation Safe Jails. He says he did not think much would come of the Anthony Brown episode. He had no idea what it would cost him.

Deputy James Sexton (29:36)

I never thought I'd deal with that one again, ever. Maybe to the department's hubris, maybe to my own. Never thought, my wildest imagination, that it would turn out the way it did.

Narrator Christopher Goffard (29:57)

On the next episode of Pandora's Box, the Fall of LA Sheriff As I.

FBI Agent Leah Marks (30:01)

Start walking to the door of my apartment, I see two individuals standing in the front. They both have sheriff's badges on. He had his gun showing. He had his badge showing. It appeared very intentional to me that this was meant to be a intimidation tactic.

Narrator Christopher Goffard (30:23)

Pandora's Box, the fall of LA's sheriff was written and reported by me, your host, Christopher Goffard for the Los Angeles Times. Mix and sound design by Emily Jankowski. Our editor is Steve Clow. 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 Fadorecci, Jack Leonard, Joel Rubin, Cindy Chang, Ben Poston, Aline Chekmetyn, Connor Sheets and Kerry Blakener.

Anthony Brown (31:00)

SA.