By Danny Fenster
ticklethewire.com
Lee Baca was not happy about a cell phone that turned up in a Los Angeles County jail. Baca is the LA County Sheriff, and the cell phone was smuggled to an inmate — an FBI informant — by agents of the FBI, according to the LA Times.
The Feds are investigating allegations of inmate beatings–including an incident in which deputies broke one inmate’s jaw and facial bones and beat another for two minutes while he was unconscious.
Baca had not been notified about the investigation. His spokesman, Steve Whitmore, says the investigation is unnecessary, and that sneaking a phone into the jail “is a serious breach of security that could put inmates, deputies and the public at risk,” according to the Times.
“Inmates that complain and say they’ve been brutalized … most of them turn out to be not what the inmate said occurred,” Whitman told the Times. “The ones that turn out to be valid are dealt with appropriately.”
Baca is expected to meet with Los Angeles U.S. Atty. André Birotte Jr soon to discuss the incident and the growing tensions between the department and the FBI, the LA Times reported. The police department has launched an investigation into the FBI’s role in “colluding with an inmate.”
This is the third federal investigation of the department in recent months, according to the Times, and the jails have faced a number of complaints over the past decade.
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