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Attorney alleges LA County sheriff's deputies falsified evidence
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Attorney alleges LA County sheriff's deputies falsified evidence
Attorney alleges LA County sheriff's deputies falsified evidence
A lawyer who represents several L.A. County sheriff's deputies in discrimination lawsuits has called on officials to investigate misconduct allegations against officers in the department. Authorities say they're reviewing the matter.
At a Beverly Hills news conference, civil rights attorney Leo Terrell said officers recently testified in depositions that they'd witnessed fellow deputies at two LA County stations commit crimes in 2010. That misconduct, they said, includes falsifying and destroying evidence and filing phony police reports.
Terrell mentioned a letter the South L.A. Sheriff's station sent to one of the officers in the legal case a few days ago. The document asked the plaintiff to assist a lieutenant — Donnie Johnson — in a review of the allegations.
Terrell argues that Johnson knew of misconduct long before now.
"Let me be as clear as I can. Go to hell, Lt. Johnson," said Terrell. "These officers are not going to go into the lion's den because you're not going to do anything. Go to hell. These letters that they received just a couple days ago are meaningless."
When reached by phone, Johnson said he was unable to comment. But L.A. County Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore responded that the department has launched its own investigation.
"Don't forget what Sheriff Baca created 11 years ago. And that was the Office of Independent Review," Whitmore said.
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That office monitors the L.A. County Sheriff's Department. Whitmore said he's urging the officers who said they saw training deputies commit crimes to cooperate with authorities as they review the case.
"When a person makes allegations, we take it very seriously and we investigate and we are going to weed out what is actual and what is not... the community has a right to know what its sheriff's department is doing. But what it's actually doing," Whitmore maintained.
Terrell named at least eight deputies he says engaged in criminal misconduct. He's calling on L.A. County District Attorney Steve Cooley and the FBI to investigate.
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