Prospective jurors asked about police bias at Tanaka trial

The men and women who could decide the fate of former Undersheriff Paul Tanaka were asked Wednesday about police bias during jury selection.

Tanaka, the former second-in-command of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, is accused of obstructing a federal probe into brutality and corruption inside the county’s downtown jails.

He is charged with obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice. He has pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors allege Tanaka and others within the Sheriff’s Department obstructed justice when they hid an inmate from the FBI, after they leaed the inmate was a federal informant, tampered with potential witnesses by telling them not to cooperate with federal investigators and threatened to arrest an FBI agent at her home.

Jury selection began Wednesday moing in Tanaka’s criminal trial as more than 110 potential jurors gathered in two federal courtrooms in downtown Los Angeles.

Tanaka, who is out on bond, was dressed in a black suit. About six of his friends and family members, including his wife, were in the courtroom during the day-long proceedings.

U.S. District Court Judge Percy Anderson said he expects the trial to last about three weeks, plus more time for the jury to deliberate.

During the questioning of prospective jurors, a process known as voir dire, jurors were asked about their previous interactions with law enforcement, whether they had read or heard about the case and allegations of civil rights violations in the county jails. They were also asked if any of their family members were law enforcement officers and if any of these experiences would prevent them from being fair and impartial.

Some jurors were excused because they explained hardships that would be caused if they served on the jury. A handful of others were excused after questioning.

Prosecutors said Tanaka, as undersheriff, ignored waings by command staff within the jails and by outside agencies, including the American Civil Liberties Union, that deputies were acting like gang members and beating inmates.

According to the indictment, in August 2011, Sheriff’s Department officials leaed that a cellphone had been smuggled into the Men’s Central Jail and into the hands of an inmate, Anthony Brown, who was working with FBI investigators. A deputy accepted a bribe from an undercover FBI agent in exchange for smuggling the phone to Brown.

Sheriff’s Department officials immediately began investigating how the cellphone got into the jail. Once they discovered the phone came from the FBI, they made several attempts to block the FBI from accessing Brown, including rebooking him into the system under aliases, moving him to a medical ward and the San Dimas station jail, and standing guard outside his cell.

Seven former Sheriff’s Department officials have been convicted in this case.

Retired Sheriff Lee Baca pleaded guilty last month to lying to federal investigators during an April 2011 interview about his involvement. Baca had long said he knew little about the actions his officers took.

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Baca, who is not expected to testify, is scheduled to be sentenced this spring.

Tanaka was indicted in May along with a Sheriff’s Department captain, William “Tom” Carey, who pleaded guilty in August to lying on the stand during the trial of another deputy. Carey is expected to testify.

Jury selection is expected to continue this moing, and testimony could begin later in the day.