Former LA County Undersheriff Paul Tanaka sentenced to 5 years in prison

Paul Tanaka, the former second-in-command in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, was sentenced Monday to five years in prison after he was found guilty of conspiracy and obstruction of justice in a jail abuse and corruption scandal.

Prosecutors with the U.S. attoey’s office had recommended that a federal court judge sentence Tanaka to 60 months in prison, saying he fostered a culture that led to significant problems in the Los Angeles County jails.

But in court documents filed earlier, Tanaka’s defense attoeys called the charges “patently ridiculous” and asked the judge to consider giving Tanaka probation time instead.

“Mr. Tanaka was a fearless executive in the department who fought to weed out problem deputies, not encourage them,” attoeys H. Dean Steward and Jerome Haig wrote in their memo to the court, filed on June 16.

“The only culture he fostered was excellence, and he made daily efforts to accomplish it. Mr. Tanaka coddled no one in the Department.”

Tanaka’s attoeys added that their client was taking the fall for former Sheriff Lee Baca, who they said was calling the shots during an FBI investigation into county jail abuse.

Baca pleaded guilty in federal court in February to one count of lying to govement investigators probing corruption and civil rights abuses by deputies in the county’s downtown jails and an attempt by the Sheriff’s Department to obstruct that investigation. The former sheriff had repeatedly denied his involvement.

Prosecutors are seeking a six-month sentence for Baca. Court documents confirmed last week that Baca is suffering from the early stage of Alzheimer’s disease.

Tanaka joins nine other Sheriff’s Department officials who have pleaded guilty or been convicted in the corruption scheme to thwart a federal investigation into civil rights violations in county jail.