Even after deciphering, the coded message from the prison seemed strange.
In a recorded phone call, Los Angeles County inmates recited a series of numbers to a woman on the other side of the line: “84, 89, 17, 17, 31…”
Sheriff’s deputies had allowed them to seize and decipher handwritten keys seized from within the prison. “You’ll need to buy two big Pringles chips,” according to law enforcement records reviewed by The Times.
The exchange from April 2024 will be at the heart of arrests by sheriff’s investigators by their own investigators. Deputy Michael Meiser Bureau was assigned to a specialized unit that monitored gang activity in the country’s largest prison complex. He is currently accused of conspiring with gangster “shotcarers” to smuggle heroin into lockup.
The lawmakers arrested Meiser on April 30, 2024. In a bag that Miser allegedly brought to the prison site, investigators discovered that more than a pound of heroin was hidden in two Pringle tubes.
In a prison where prisoners sell heroin in small smears called “papers,” the amount is worth $226,000, sheriff’s insider li wrote in the report.
Miser pleaded not guilty to conspiring to distribute drugs inside the prison and joining the gang conspiracy. His attorney did not reply to requests for comment.
Other agents assigned to safe prisons are not involved in the drug trafficking scheme. However, a report filed by the Sheriff’s Department’s Internal Criminal Investigation Bureau portrayed the troops that accepted gang leaders.
Myser’s partners have said they are “on the same page,” “shot character,” and “on the same page” regarding issues such as overdose and violence. Deputy Jose Munguia said in an interview with his interior affairs that he and Maiser asked gang leaders to avoid killing someone or hurting deputies when distributing their brand of discipline.
The sheriff’s director did not directly address questions about how Maiser’s troops were involved with gang leaders. “We hope that employees will be kept to the highest standards and that they will protect individuals within our custody,” the department said in an unsigned email statement. “If they violate the law, they will be held liable.”
Records show Meiser’s partners say their approach is intended to minimize disruption in the prison system. Miser became friendly with inmates who wanted the aide’s ears, but it also brought him closer to a hardened criminal who used violence to make the rackets of drugs and fear tor run smoothly.
By the time of his partner’s arrest, Munguia said: “We walk through the building. Miser. Miser. Miser.” Every inmate is like trying to talk to him. They’re all screaming his name from the bar. ”
Meiser, 39, was assigned to the North County County County Facility, one of eight county jails with more than 12,000 inmates.
About half of those prisoners are Latino, and Munguia told internal investigators that the Mexican mafia was ordering their lives behind the bar. The Mexican Mafia, a prison-based syndicate of around 140 senior Latino gang members, has designated inmates to oversee drug and terror schemes for certain prisons or modules.
It was Maiser and Munguia’s job to investigate these “shot characters” by listening to phone calls, monitoring surveillance cameras within the prison, and interviewing informants.
The “Shot Cara” at North County Correctional Facility was Josero Driguez, a well-reputed member of the Pacoima Project Boys Gang, known as “Benji.”
Rodriguez, 47, issued “driving licenses” to inmates – handwritten notes granted them permission to sell drugs – and imposed discipline in the form of be-hitting, the aide said.
North County Correctional Facility in Castatic.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
“If they had smashed out, drugs, everything had to go through him,” Munguia said.
While the prisoners and their guards may be expected to become enemies, Munguia explained to Rodriguez that she would take a non-side-job approach.
“Suppose there are riots, Hispanic and Black prisoners in the dorm,” Munguia explained to an internal investigator. “Of course we’ll go to him and ask him to make sure it doesn’t continue.”
According to Mungia, Rodriguez often sent his right-handed Jackie Triplett to speak on his behalf. Mungia said Triplet, 40, and Maiser had a “relationship” because they had mutual friends in Antelope Valley.
The main issue they discussed was minimizing overdose and racial tensions, Munguia said. Gang leaders seem to take consultations seriously. According to the Interior Report, lawmakers seized a list of “rules and expectations” from Rodriguez’s sleeper addressed to Latino prisoners.
Fentanyl, a powerful opioid that promoted a fatal overdose surge, was banned. They “disgraced” prison staff and purchased drugs from prisoners of other races.
“Anyone who chooses to object to this should deal with it accordingly,” the message warned.
Another note seized from Rodriguez’s living area listed the disciplines they encountered that week. The violation ranged from the use of fentanyl “rumorrows” and failed to repay the debt. The offender was punished for assault – a “smash out” in which, for the most severe persistence of 13 seconds, a prisoner’s delegate severely injured in order to take him out of the prison module.
Munguia told internal investigators that he and Maiser did not believe that gang leaders could prevent orders of violence. Instead, they inferred to “relax” it along with Rodriguez and the Triplet, he said.
“If you attack someone, we don’t want the agent to hurt them,” he recalls telling them. “We don’t want it. Obviously we don’t want the prisoners to die. So let’s try to do the least possible.
The internal investigators sounded confused.
“It seems that the practice will give almost the power to the prisoners,” he said. “Is it like you’re acknowledging their authority by doing that? Is that correct?”
Munguia said he disagreed with the approach. He claimed he learned from Miser, but “The way I was taught is that it had to do.”
Starting in February 2024, FBI Task Force investigators noticed a series of strange calls made by Triplet and Rodriguez, according to the interior report.
Triplet spoke to a woman who said she had bought “White Jordan” and “Black Jordan.”
The next day, Miser handed him a triplet on a prison surveillance camera and a bag and a bed roll, the report said. Later that night, Triplet called to thank the woman. The woman said it was his “time to shine.”
Men’s Central Prison.
(Al Seib/ Los Angeles Times)
Two months later, the inmates in Rodriguez’s module read a series of numbers that were later deciphered to become Pringles’s request.
“Whatever your girlfriend puts you half in the other half,” the remainder of the message said, according to the interior report. “Set some chips on top and surrender it like that brand new.”
Rodriguez was recorded on a prison phone requesting her sister to send “1 o’clock” and “5 o’clock” (the codes for $1,000 and $5,000,” investigators believed in Meiser’s stepbrother’s CashApp account, the report said.
The day after the call, the interior detective got a warrant to place the tracking device on the Meiser’s White 2018 BMW 530i.
Miser appeared to live to his partner beyond the means of deputy sheriff. In addition to BMW, Meiser was driving the Infinity and building custom Ford trucks, Munguia said.
“He said everything is trusting,” Munguia told internal investigators.
On the morning of April 30, 2024, interior detectives layed a tail of Miser from their home in Lancaster to their gas station in Valencia, the report states. He parked next to the red SUV. According to reports, someone in the driver’s seat handed him the bag.
Maiser drove to his apartment in Munguia and the two were curled into the prison of a truck in Munguia. In the parking lot, Miser unlocked the police car before entering prison and put something in the trunk, the report says.
The detective searched for a police car. The bud grocery bag had two tubes of pringle. Packed under the tip were blocks wrapped in black tar heroin plastic. £1.128, the report said.
The report said Miser, who was unaware of the search, asked his colleague to drive a police vehicle to a safe area in the prison. “If you were coming because I was lazy, I just wanted a radio car to be brought in. He wrote in the text message quoted in the report.
Munguia told internal investigators that it’s different to Meiser asking for favors from a lieutenant who “didn’t like him.” The aide told Meiser he was not in prison and could not do it.
After their shift, Munguia and Maiser had left the prison grounds in Munguia’s truck when the police car stopped them. Munguia recalled thinking it was a training exercise or a joke. The sheriff’s deputies then ordered them at the muzzle.
“Yes,” Meiser said. “Are they f-serious?”
According to the report, at Meiser’s Bag, an interior detective found two envelopes containing $15,000. The detective seized an additional $10,500 from his sock drawer after providing a warrant at his home.
Miser refused to speak to investigators.
In his Interior Interview, Munguia said there were signs in hindsight that Maiser had come too close to the man he was supposed to be investigating.
“How loud he was with the prisoners? Their relationship – well, what we thought was a relationship, said Munguia. “Obviously, [it] It was more than that. ”
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