A sheriff’s deputy who was a part of a job drive centered on maintaining Los Angeles County’s jails free of medicine and gang exercise was arrested final week and accused of smuggling medication right into a county jail, in accordance with reserving data and a number of regulation enforcement sources.
Michael Meiser, 39, was arrested April 30. Jail data present he was booked on suspicion of an unspecified felony on Might 1. L.A. County Sheriff’s Division data present Meiser labored at North County Correctional Facility as an investigator. He labored with the jail’s anti-gang unit, often called Operation Secure Jails, in accordance with two regulation enforcement sources who requested anonymity as a result of they weren’t licensed to debate the continuing investigation.
A kind of sources and one other regulation enforcement official, who additionally was not cleared to talk publicly concerning the case and requested anonymity, advised The Occasions that Meiser was arrested for allegedly smuggling heroin into the the jail advanced in Castaic.
Jail data present Meiser was cited and launched with out bail final week. He didn’t instantly reply to an emailed request for touch upon Tuesday and it was not clear if he has retained an legal professional.
In an emailed assertion Tuesday afternoon, Richard Pippin, president of the Assn. of Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, acknowledged the investigation however supplied little extra info.
“We’re conscious that there’s a felony investigation underway relating to a number of staff working in our jails,” the assertion stated. “All regulation enforcement professionals are rightfully held to a excessive normal each on and off obligation. ALADS will wait till now we have entry to all the data yielded by the investigation earlier than commenting additional.”
One supply stated Meiser had been below surveillance for a very long time and was allegedly noticed shopping for heroin in Los Angeles earlier than returning to the jail facility the place he was arrested final week. The supply described Meiser’s arrest as a part of a “bigger operation” to fight drug use within the jail.
A jail official stated final week that the case was being dealt with by the division’s Inside Prison Investigations Bureau, which seems into alleged crimes by division staff. On Tuesday, the Sheriff’s Division confirmed solely that investigators had arrested an worker for “felony fees” and that “the worker is relieved of obligation pending the result of the case.”
Officers stated the investigation is ongoing, including that it is going to be offered to prosecutors “as soon as the case is accomplished.”
A spokeswoman for the L.A. County district legal professional’s workplace confirmed that the company is conscious of Meiser’s arrest and has not but been offered the case for charging consideration.
Operation Secure Jails’ important aim is to fight “the felony actions of inmate gang members” and discourage gang exercise, in accordance with Sheriff’s Division data.
In 2013, deputies within the Operation Secure Jails program have been amongst these indicted for making an attempt to cover a jailhouse informant from FBI officers who have been utilizing him to analyze jail abuses and corruption. The deception and the cover-up that adopted in the end landed former Sheriff Lee Baca and several other others in federal jail.
L.A. County is battling a surge of deaths within the jails, a lot of them linked to drug use. Final yr, division officers stated that out of 45 inmate deaths within the jails, a dozen have been drug-related — greater than twice as many as a decade earlier when the jail inhabitants was a lot bigger.
Lately, a number of of these deaths have been on the county’s northern jail advanced. Final yr, a quarterly oversight report confirmed that jailers there skipped a number of required security checks earlier than discovering an inmate who had overdosed. Information present jailers solely realized of the medical emergency after different inmates summoned them for assist.
When a 29-year-old collapsed on the North County Correctional Facility in 2022, different inmates tried to save lots of him by administering the overdose-reversing drug naloxone. After he died, officers found surveillance footage had captured him loading a makeshift syringe at his bunk and asking one other inmate to assist him inject it into his neck, in accordance with post-mortem data.
Deputies additionally later reported seeing him inject medication on digital camera a couple of weeks earlier than his loss of life — however data don’t clarify how he may need obtained the medication.
To fight the issue, officers below the prior administration made naloxone available by mounting the nasal spray onto jail partitions. In latest months, division officers have repeatedly touted the necessity for higher physique scanners to look inmates for medication — an answer that will not essentially handle the issue of drug smuggling amongst sworn workers.
Melissa Camacho, a senior workers legal professional with the ACLU of Southern California advised The Occasions on Tuesday that the arrest highlighted gaps within the jail’s efforts to cease contraband.
“It’s actually regarding that sheriff’s deputies are smuggling heroin in, and that the sheriff’s response to in-custody deaths has not included requiring LASD workers to be searched earlier than getting into the office,” Camacho stated. “The arrest simply goes to point out how important that form of search is to defending the well being and lives of people who find themselves in custody.”
Occasions workers author Richard Winton contributed to this report.
