A former Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy says he was fired after refusing to participate in legislation enforcement gang exercise, in keeping with a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles County Superior Courtroom.
Federico Carlo, the ex-lawman behind the swimsuit, alleges he was wrongly accused of giving a Nazi salute and sharing a sexually specific photograph, then “abruptly terminated” by a “tattooed Regulator deputy gang member” who’s now the appearing commander overseeing coaching and personnel.
The appearing commander, Capt. John Pat Macdonald, didn’t reply to a request for remark, and the division didn’t reply questions on whether or not he has or had a Regulator tattoo.
“The division has not formally obtained this declare however strives to offer a good and equitable working atmosphere for all workers,” officers wrote in an emailed assertion to The Instances. “Any act of retaliation, harassment, and discrimination is not going to be tolerated and is a violation of the division’s coverage and values.”
Neither Carlo nor his legal professional supplied remark for this story. Carlo sued the county and is asking for unspecified damages.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Division has lengthy been stricken by allegations that a few of its highest-ranking officers sport tattoos representing exclusionary deputy subgroups. Final month, former Undersheriff Tim Murakami admitted beneath oath that he as soon as had a tattoo related with an East Los Angeles Station group generally known as the Cavemen.
Final 12 months, the information website Capital & Fundamental reported that present Undersheriff April Tardy admitted to having a station tattoo that some within the division mentioned signified the V Boys deputy gang. And in 2022, Larry Del Mese, chief of workers to former Sheriff Alex Villanueva, publicly admitted membership within the Grim Reapers.
But final week sheriff’s officers informed The Instances the difficulty is “not reflective of your complete division” and identified that there are “a number of investigations associated to deputy gangs” presently underway, and {that a} new anti-gang coverage is being negotiated with the deputy labor unions.
For many years, the Sheriff’s Division has been bedeviled by allegations about gangs of deputies working roughshod over sure stations and flooring of the jail. The teams are recognized by monikers such because the Executioners, the Vikings and the Regulators, and their members usually bear the identical sequentially numbered tattoos.
The group on the middle of Carlo’s lawsuit, the Regulators, is often affiliated with the Century Sheriff’s Station in Lynwood. It is among the older deputy subgroups within the division, and it’s generally represented by the image of a skeleton in a cowboy hat. Lately there have been some indications — together with in a Rand Corp. research commissioned by county legal professionals — that the group is now not actively including new members. Late final 12 months, although, oversight officers noticed a Regulators sticker outdoors the Century Regional Detention Facility subsequent door to the station.
The swimsuit filed in late February traces Carlo’s issues again to 2005, when, he alleges, a deputy who was then the chief of the Regulators labeled him a “rat” as a result of he refused to lie on possible trigger reviews.
Just a few years later, the swimsuit says, two different alleged Regulators flunked Carlo out of coaching for the airborne division, which, he alleges, “had all the things to do” with the truth that he “was not a member of a deputy gang and refused to violate the legislation.”
By mid-2019, Carlo was working on the division’s Emergency Automobile Operations Middle in Pomona as an teacher. He clashed with among the different instructors who he mentioned have been risking security by chopping corners to avoid wasting time. After he complained and requested to be moved to a different shift, pressure began constructing between him and among the different instructors — certainly one of whom challenged him to a battle, in keeping with the lawsuit. Later, that very same deputy allegedly created disturbances, as soon as by disrupting a category Carlo was instructing and one other time by almost crashing a patrol automobile into one other deputy.
Ultimately, Carlo reported the issues to his superiors. Throughout a gathering along with his lieutenant in 2022, Carlo allegedly informed him that there had been “quite a few car collisions” brought on by instructors, and that he’d even been harm in a single such crash himself. Based on the lawsuit, when Carlo questioned why the lieutenant hadn’t accomplished extra to oversee the coaching, the lieutenant ordered him to rewrite the unit’s security pointers and provides a briefing to the entire unit on them.
That March, in keeping with the lawsuit, Carlo came upon {that a} grievance had been filed in opposition to him alleging he’d made a Nazi salute when talking a few sergeant with a German-sounding identify.
Just a few weeks later, the swimsuit says, Carlo was quickly transferred out of the unit, as officers investigated the grievance. Close to the top of summer season, Carlo’s lieutenant known as to inform him he’d be coming again to the coaching middle — solely to reverse course a number of days later as a result of one other grievance had been filed in opposition to him, this time for sexual harassment.
It emerged that after the unit briefing that Carlo’s lieutenant instructed him to do earlier that 12 months, two of the deputies who attended began speaking and allegedly realized Carlo had proven them each an specific image on his cellphone. They mentioned he’d implied it was a picture of him and a feminine sergeant, in keeping with the lawsuit. One of many deputies was the trainer who’d beforehand challenged Carlo to a battle.
“This was false,” the swimsuit mentioned. “No such photograph ever existed.”
Although in 2022 officers closed the grievance in regards to the Nazi salute — an accusation Carlo additionally denied — they saved investigating the sexual harassment grievance, in keeping with the swimsuit. In 2023, after what the lawsuit described as “years of retaliation, harassment [and] discrimination,” Carlo was fired.
“On April 13, 2023, plaintiff was terminated beneath false pretenses,” the swimsuit says. “Captain Pat [Macdonald], the supervisor who made the choice on plaintiff’s termination, is a tattooed Regulator deputy gang member.”
Division officers confirmed to The Instances that Carlo “separated from the division” final April after an inner investigation. However they didn’t touch upon the accusations about Macdonald’s alleged Regulators tattoo, and they didn’t reply questions as as to whether he’s nonetheless believed to have it.
The Regulators have lengthy been the topic of misconduct allegations. Practically twenty years in the past, The Instances reported on allegations that members of the group extorted cash from different deputies, acted like gang members and managed shift scheduling and administration on the station.
On the time, some within the division in contrast the Regulators to the sooner Lynwood Vikings, a now-defunct group as soon as described by a federal choose as a “neo-Nazi white supremacist gang.”
Deputies with Regulators tattoos informed The Instances then that they didn’t do something inappropriate and had been unfairly maligned. They mentioned their ink represented a close-knit group of deputies who labored exhausting.
“It’s just like the all-stars of a baseball workforce,” one tattooed deputy mentioned on the time. “You get the most effective.”
