Opening statements begin in Tanaka corruption trial

It was a tale of two Paul Tanakas. Prosecutors on Thursday painted the former Los Angeles County undersheriff as a criminal in the opening arguments of his corruption trial, while the defense said Tanaka was simply following orders.

A jury of seven women and five men was seated in a downtown L.A. federal courtroom after a day and a half of jury selection.

During his opening statements, Assistant U.S. Attoey Brandon Fox said when Tanaka found out that the FBI was investigating deputy abuse and corruption in the county jails, he made a decision to conceal his deputies’ crimes but, in doing so, he committed crimes himself.

“Instead of squashing the scandal, Mr. Tanaka created a greater one than he ever imagined,” Fox said.

Tanaka, the former second-in-command of the Sheriff’s Department, 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 during the summer of 2011 obstructed justice when they hid an inmate from the FBI, after they leaed the inmate was a federal informant. Prosecutors also allege that members of the Sheriff’s Department tampered with potential witnesses by telling them not to cooperate with federal investigators and threatening to arrest an FBI agent at her home.

The courtroom was filled with spectators, reporters, Tanaka’s family and friends and others, including U.S. Attoey Eileen Decker. Tanaka is the longtime mayor of the city of Gardena.

Fox told the jury that when commanders and captains within the jail system brought conces about excessive use of force by deputies against inmates to Tanaka’s attention, he ignored the problems.

Fox said Tanaka and others were worried about the federal investigation because they knew that problems of abuse and corruption were going on in the jails and if the FBI investigation was successful, then those problems would be revealed.

Fox said that during a special meeting held on a Saturday after Sheriff’s Department officials leaed about the FBI investigation, Tanaka repeatedly said “F--- the FBI” and explained that this was “one of the most important investigations in the Sheriff’s Department in its 160-year history.”

Tanaka’s attoey, Jerome Haig, painted a different picture. He told the jurors that Tanaka lived by the creed of the Sheriff’s Department and its core values.

Haig told the jury that former Sheriff Lee Baca was the one who was angry about the FBI’s investigation. Baca was “going crazy,” Haig said.

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Haig claimed Baca gave Tanaka two broad instructions: protect the federal informant and investigate how the cellphone got into the jail.

“(Tanaka) showed up every day doing exactly what the sheriff asked him to do,” Haig said.

The trial, which continues today, is expected to last about three weeks.