Documents detail misconduct by L.A. sheriff’s deputies

By Maya Lau, Ben Poston and Corina Knoll

The Los Angeles County Sher­iff’s De­part­ment keeps a secret list of about 300 depu­ties with his­tor­ies of dis­hon­esty and sim­il­ar mis­con­duct that could un­der­mine their cred­ib­il­ity when testi­fy­ing in court. The list is so tightly con­trolled that it can only be seen by a hand­ful of high-rank­ing sher­iff’s of­fi­cials. Not even pro­sec­utors can ac­cess it.

Times re­port­ers re­viewed a ver­sion of the roster from 2014 and scoured court and law en­force­ment re­cords for de­tails of how depu­ties landed on it

The Sher­iff’s De­part­ment found that An­drea Ce­cere made false state­ments and wrote a false re­port about a vi­ol­ent en­counter with an in­mate. Ce­cere re­por­ted that she was try­ing to hand­cuff an in­mate when he threatened her and swung an arm at her. The ac­tions, she said, led a male deputy to come to her aid and use force against the in­mate. But three oth­er depu­ties said the in­mate was already ...

Chris­ti­an Cham­ness was sus­pen­ded 25 days for writ­ing a false re­port and un­reas­on­able force, county re­cords show. The dis­cip­line stemmed from a 2007 in­cid­ent in which Cham­ness pep­per-sprayed an eld­erly Army vet­er­an in the face and ar­res­ted him, claim­ing the man had blocked the path of depu­ties and then ad­vanced on Cham­ness. The ac­count was con­tra­dicted by a se­cur­ity re­cord­ing that shows the 73-year-old man nev­er blocked the depu­ties or ...

Chris­ti­an Cham­ness was sus­pen­ded 25 days for writ­ing a false re­port and un­reas­on­able force, county re­cords show. The dis­cip­line stemmed from a 2007 in­cid­ent in which Cham­ness pep­per-sprayed an eld­erly man in the face and ar­res­ted him, claim­ing he the man had blocked the path of depu­ties and then ad­vanced on Cham­ness. The ac­count was con­tra­dicted by a se­cur­ity re­cord­ing that showed Cham­ness pep­per-spray­ing the 73-year-old man, who is not ...

Chris­ti­an Cham­ness was sus­pen­ded 25 days for writ­ing a false re­port and un­reas­on­able force, county re­cords show. The dis­cip­line stemmed from a 2007 in­cid­ent in which Cham­ness pep­per-sprayed an eld­erly man in the face and ar­res­ted him, claim­ing he the man had blocked the path of depu­ties and then ad­vanced on Cham­ness. The ac­count was con­tra­dicted by a se­cur­ity re­cord­ing that showed Cham­ness pep­per-spray­ing the 73-year-old man, who is not ...

While as­signed to Catalina Is­land in 2011, Wil­li­am Cor­d­ero wrote a false re­port that failed to men­tion a ci­vil­ian rid­ing in his patrol vehicle who wit­nessed a crime, ac­cord­ing to a sher­iff’s dis­cip­lin­ary let­ter. Cor­d­ero was sus­pen­ded 15 days. Cor­d­ero has al­leged in a law­suit that he was dis­cip­lined in re­tali­ation for com­plain­ing about a su­per­visor. His suit is pending.

In 1995, Ca­sey Dowl­ing was ac­cused of touch­ing the breast of a 14-year-old in his patrol car and in her bed­room, ac­cord­ing to a dis­trict at­tor­ney’s memo. Pro­sec­utors found there was in­suf­fi­cient evid­ence to charge him with a crime, but raised con­cerns about his cred­ib­il­ity, the memo shows. County re­cords say he was dis­charged for “im­mor­al con­duct” in 1997 but was re­in­stated after fil­ing an ap­peal with the county’s Civil ...

Jose Gonza­lez’s con­flict­ing ac­counts of a 2006 drug case led the Los Angeles County dis­trict at­tor­ney’s of­fice to drop drug charges against a wo­man ar­res­ted in Bell­flower, ac­cord­ing to a dis­trict at­tor­ney’s memo. Pro­sec­utors con­sidered fil­ing charges against Gonza­lez, but de­term­ined they had no cor­rob­or­at­ing evid­ence to prove he in­ten­tion­ally fals­i­fied a re­port.

Dav­id Hernan­dez was charged with per­jury and fil­ing a false re­port after he was ac­cused of fab­ric­at­ing the reas­on for a de­tain­ing a man he ar­res­ted for pos­sess­ing drugs. He pleaded no con­test to a mis­de­mean­or charge of fil­ing a false re­port. The Sher­iff’s De­part­ment handed down a 15-day sus­pen­sion, sher­iff’s re­cords show.

Dav­id Hernan­dez was charged with per­jury and fil­ing a false re­port after he was ac­cused of fab­ric­at­ing the reas­on for a de­tain­ing a man he ar­res­ted for pos­sess­ing drugs. He pleaded no con­test to a mis­de­mean­or charge of fil­ing a false re­port. The Sher­iff’s De­part­ment handed down a 15-day sus­pen­sion, sher­iff’s re­cords show.

After deny­ing he had any phys­ic­al con­tact with a wo­man he had been as­signed to pro­tect, Thomas Jensen brought along his pas­tor for a 2000 meet­ing with a sher­iff’s in­tern­al in­vest­ig­at­or and ad­mit­ted he had kissed the wo­man and al­ways wanted to see her breasts, ac­cord­ing to a dis­trict at­tor­ney’s memo. Jensen told The Times he was sus­pen­ded 30 days and de­moted from a patrol ser­geant to a jail deputy.

Timothy Ji­me­nez was in­vest­ig­ated for al­legedly tip­ping off the girl­friend of a drug deal­er about an in­vest­ig­a­tion in­volving an in­form­ant, ac­cord­ing to a dis­trict at­tor­ney’s memo. A pro­sec­utor de­clined to file charges, but sharply cri­ti­cized the deputy’s ac­tions as “po­ten­tially dan­ger­ous and life threat­en­ing” as well as “a blatant be­tray­al of his fel­low law en­force­ment per­son­nel,” the memo shows.

Dav­id Jouzi in­sisted he had con­duc­ted a routine traffic stop when he pulled over a wo­man in Rose­mead and found a large quant­ity of methamphet­am­ine in­side her vehicle, ac­cord­ing to a dis­trict at­tor­ney’s memo. Only later, when he was about to testi­fy again in the case, did he ad­mit that he’d been work­ing with an in­form­ant to identi­fy the sus­pect and that the traffic stop was part of a set-up ...

Or­lando Ma­cias was off duty in 2010 when he called the lis­ted num­ber on a Back­page.com ad that prom­ised “FREAKY fun.” After speak­ing with “Krys­tal,” he entered a motel room only to be ar­res­ted in an Ontario Po­lice pros­ti­tu­tion sting, court re­cords show. Charged with so­li­cit­ing a pros­ti­tute and dis­turb­ing the peace, he pleaded no con­test to the lat­ter. He was sus­pen­ded 15 days for im­mor­al con­duct.

Scott Maus was ac­cused of grop­ing a wo­man and en­ga­ging in sex acts with her in his patrol vehicle in the park­ing lot of the Puente Hills Mall, ac­cord­ing to a dis­trict at­tor­ney memo. The deputy ad­mit­ted to the en­counter in 2000 but said it was con­sen­su­al, the memo said. Pro­sec­utors de­clined to charge Maus with sexu­al as­sault, con­clud­ing that jur­ors would likely find that the wo­man’s ac­tions were vol­un­tary. ...

Scott Maus was ac­cused of grop­ing a wo­man and en­ga­ging in sex acts with her in his patrol vehicle in the park­ing lot of the Puente Hills Mall, ac­cord­ing to a dis­trict at­tor­ney memo. The deputy ad­mit­ted to the en­counter in 2000 but said it was con­sen­su­al, the memo said. Pro­sec­utors de­clined to charge Maus with sexu­al as­sault, con­clud­ing that jur­ors would likely find that the wo­man’s ac­tions were vol­un­tary. ...

Dur­ing an in­tern­al af­fairs in­vest­ig­a­tion, Jef­frey Moore ad­mit­ted to cut­ting up his wife’s blouse, wrest­ling with her over her cell­phone and threat­en­ing her with a steak knife, ac­cord­ing to a Sher­iff’s De­part­ment dis­cip­lin­ary let­ter filed in court. The de­part­ment handed down a 15-day sus­pen­sion in 2009 for fam­ily vi­ol­ence. Moore was tried twice and the second tri­al ended in a mis­tri­al. The charges were dis­missed.

When Jose Ovalle real­ized that a blood­ied in­mate’s shirt from a jail brawl had gone miss­ing, he came up with a solu­tion for the miss­ing evid­ence. He poured taco sauce on a sim­il­ar shirt and took a photo of it, which was booked in­to evid­ence, ac­cord­ing to law en­force­ment and court re­cords. The Sher­iff’s De­part­ment de­cided at first to fire Ovalle but later agreed to a set­tle­ment in which he ...

Jim­mie Pate com­plied when a ser­geant re­ques­ted to be writ­ten out of a 2001 ar­rest re­port about a couple caught smoking marijuana, ac­cord­ing to a dis­trict at­tor­ney’s memo. Pro­sec­utors de­nounced it as “an un­seasoned deputy’s fail­ure to stand up to the im­prop­er de­mands of his su­per­visor.” Pate was sus­pen­ded 10 days, dis­cip­lin­ary re­cords show.

The moth­er of Ant­o­nio Ramirez’s daugh­ters al­leged years of ab­use at the hands of the deputy, and in­ter­views with the chil­dren cor­rob­or­ated some of the claims, ac­cord­ing to a 2013 dis­trict at­tor­ney’s memo. Pro­sec­utors de­clined to file charges, cit­ing a lack of phys­ic­al evid­ence. The Sher­iff’s De­part­ment handed Ramirez a 15-day sus­pen­sion for fam­ily vi­ol­ence. The wo­man was later awar­ded $185,000 in a civil suit filed against Ramirez.

A fe­male jail vis­it­or said Abran Rodrig­uez asked her to show him her breasts. The deputy denied it, but in­vest­ig­at­ors cited mul­tiple wit­nesses and an au­dio re­cord­ing they said cor­rob­or­ated the claim, ac­cord­ing to court doc­u­ments. The Sher­iff’s De­part­ment no­ti­fied the deputy he would be sus­pen­ded for 15 days in 2011. He con­tested his dis­cip­line in court, but an ap­peals board has yet to de­cide wheth­er to re­duce the sus­pen­sion.

A lieu­ten­ant ordered John Sanc­hez to go back to a judge to ob­tain ap­prov­al to ex­ecute a search war­rant at night. In­stead, the deputy doctored a doc­u­ment that already had the judge’s sig­na­ture, ac­cord­ing to a dis­trict at­tor­ney’s memo. Sanc­hez was sus­pen­ded for false state­ments and false in­form­a­tion in re­cords, ac­cord­ing to sher­iff’s re­cords.

Je­sus Valen­zuela Jr. was charged in 2013 with mis­de­mean­or bat­tery on a wo­man he was dat­ing, but pleaded no con­test to a less­er charge of van­dal­ism, ac­cord­ing to court re­cords. He was sen­tenced to two years of pro­ba­tion and ordered to com­plete a 10-week an­ger man­age­ment pro­gram. Valen­zuela ac­know­ledged his crim­in­al case to The Times, but de­clined to an­swer ad­di­tion­al ques­tions.

Dav­id Vasquez was charged with 39 counts of il­leg­al gambling in 1999, court re­cords show. He pleaded guilty to six mis­de­mean­ors and was sen­tenced to four years’ pro­ba­tion. The case, along with a sep­ar­ate al­leg­a­tion that he wrote a false po­lice re­port, led to his fir­ing, the deputy said in a de­pos­ition. Vasquez also said he got his job back as part of a set­tle­ment that res­ul­ted in a 30-day sus­pen­sion.