For years I have been talking about
corruption in law enforcement except within the Los Angeles Police Department. This is a very
uncomfortable subject for everyone. As the sister of an LAPD Officer, Frank Jerry Seviane (Serial No. 32809), I was severely
harassed, verbally abused and terrorized by my own brother for many years over jealously,
greed and revenge. The revenge started when I reported the attacks and his past personal
and financial relationship with Federal Prisoner Colin Nathanson. And it
escalated to a very dangerous degree in 2018 because the LAPD repeatedly remained
complicit and even covered up for him by ignoring evidence, falsifying documentation and manipulating investigation results. When I felt that my safety, security, freedom
and very life were in jeopardy, I started openly writing about it in the public domain.
Unfortunately, here is another story of
corruption in law enforcement except within the Los Angeles County
Sheriff’s Department.
Jacqueline Sebiane
FBI INVESTIGATING TATTOOED DEPUTY GANGS IN LOS
ANGELES COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT
JulY 11, 2019 | 10:00 AM
The FBI is investigating a secret society of tattooed deputies
in East Los Angeles as well as similar gang-like groups elsewhere within the
Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, multiple people familiar with the
inquiry said.
The federal probe follows allegations of beatings and harassment by members of the
Banditos, a group of deputies assigned to the Sheriff’s Department’s East L.A.
station who brand themselves with matching tattoos of a skeleton outfitted with
a sombrero, bandolier and pistol. The clique’s members are accused by other
deputies of using gang-like tactics to recruit young Latino deputies into their
fold and retaliating against those who rebuff them.
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In interviews with several deputies, FBI agents have asked about
the inner workings of the Banditos and the group’s hierarchy, according to
three people with close knowledge of the matter who spoke to The Times on the
condition that their names not be used because the investigation is ongoing.
In particular, the sources said, agents have been trying to
determine whether leaders of the Banditos require or encourage aspiring members
to commit criminal acts, such as planting evidence or writing false incident
reports, to secure membership in the group.
The agents also have inquired about other groups known to exist
in the department, which has nearly 10,000 deputies and polices large swaths of
the sprawling county. They have asked for information about the tattoos and
practices of the Spartans and Regulators in the department’s Century station,
and the Reapers, who operate out of a station in South Los Angeles, according
to the sources.
Sheriff Alex Villanueva said he could not comment when asked
about the FBI probe Wednesday. An FBI spokeswoman also declined to provide any
information.
The inquiry marks the return of federal law enforcement
authorities tasked with digging around in the Sheriff’s Department, which has
been beset by episodes of corruption and mismanagement in the last several
years.
In 2011, the FBI secretly opened an investigation into reports
of inmate abuse by deputies working in the county jails. The sweeping probe
involving an inmate who served as an undercover informant upended the insular
department, sending several deputies to prison for beatings and cover-ups. Former Sheriff Lee Baca, his second-in-command and other
senior staff were convicted of conspiring to obstruct the FBI.
The current investigation appears to have been spurred by a
group of deputies who in March filed a legal claim against the county accusing Sheriff’s
Department officials of failing to address a hostile work environment in the
East L.A. station. The deputies say Bandito leaders, who are alleged to control
key elements of station operations, put others’ lives at risk by not sending
backup to help on dangerous calls, enforced illegal arrest quotas and carried
out other forms of harassment.
The claim, a precursor to a lawsuit, focuses on what deputies
say was an unprovoked attack by members of the Banditos during an off-duty party in the early morning hours of Sept. 28 at
Kennedy Hall, an event space near the station.
The altercation started when four Banditos began harassing a
rookie, according to the claim. Two other deputies said they intervened; one
was struck repeatedly in the face, while the other was punched and kicked
multiple times before being choked and losing consciousness, the claim says.
The lawmen accused in the claim — Deputies David Silverio,
Gregory Rodriguez and Rafael Munoz, and Sgt. Mike Hernandez — were placed on
paid administrative leave after the incident. The Sheriff’s Department
presented a criminal case involving the four men to the district attorney’s
office on June 19.
Greg Risling, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office,
said Wednesday that charges have not been filed and that the case remains under
review. He declined to comment when asked whether federal officials have asked
his office to hold off on the prosecution.
Villanueva has repeatedly downplayed the significance of tattooed
deputy groups in his ranks, calling them a “cultural norm” and a source of
intergenerational hazing among lawmen. He said there is nothing wrong with the
clubs as long as they don’t promote misconduct.
Still, he acknowledged the pervasive influence of the Banditos
at the East L.A. station, saying they “ran roughshod” over the previous captain
and dictated where deputies would be assigned, enabled by the weak leadership
of past administrations.
He said that his first act upon taking office Dec. 3 was to
bring in a new captain, Ernie Chavez, to quell the Banditos situation.
“Chavez identified the problem and the problem players, and he’s
been doing a commendable job of sifting through them to get the station up and
running to serve the community,” Villanueva said.
Last month, Villanueva announced a new policy that specifically
bars department members from participating in any groups that promote conduct
that violates the rights of other employees or the public. The policy says such
groups often organize under a symbol or tattoo and increase the risk of civil
liability to the agency.
He said the 1st Amendment prevents him from barring deputies
from getting tattooed, but he said having matching ink is a “dumb idea” because
of potential lawsuits in “today’s litigious society.” He advises those with the
coordinated tattoos to get them removed, if they can.
The sheriff claims he transferred from the station 36 people who
were associated with the Banditos or were otherwise identified as problematic. But Chavez, in an interview Wednesday, said that the 36
transfers simply reflect the general group of deputies who left the station
since January and that the departures were voluntary, some because of
promotions. He said he did not know how many people allegedly tied to the
Banditos were transferred.
Villanueva said he thinks there is no longer a hostile work
environment at the East L.A. station.
“Now that it’s been broken up and scattered, I’d say yeah, it’s
over,” he said.
Vincent Miller, an attorney for the deputies who filed the claim
about the Banditos, said any changes at the station have been cosmetic and have
failed to abolish the toxic work environment there. He said the department has
not held the problematic deputies accountable and that some of his clients have
suffered ongoing emotional stress because of the situation, prompting him to
file additional grievances in the case.
“The captain and everyone else at East L.A. station knows they
haven’t transferred 36 deputies, and the real number is just six,” Miller said.
“We specifically filed the supplemental claims very recently because the cop
gang problem has not been fixed.”
Though reports about cliques of law enforcement officers
occasionally surface across the country, no agency has received more public
scrutiny for them than the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
The secretive groups have been entrenched in the department for
decades. Defenders say the cliques are harmless fraternities, likening them to
close-knit groups in the military. But time and again, the deputy clubs have
come under fire for promoting aggressive tactics and an us-versus-everyone
mentality.
A watchdog panel in 1992 pressed the Sheriff’s Department to
address the problem. Two decades later, a blue-ribbon commission sharply
criticized the department for turning a blind eye and allowing the groups to
use excessive force against people in the county jails and on the streets.
The Times reported last year that a new tattooed club of
lawmen surfaced at the Compton station after a deputy there admitted under oath
to having ink of a skeleton holding a rifle. The deputy — who was accused of
excessive force in the fatal shooting of an unarmed man — said as many as 20 of
his colleagues have the same tattoo.
The county recently reached a $7-million settlement in a lawsuit after attorneys
for the slain man’s family said the shooting was driven by the hard-charging
policing of inked deputies.
In a separate case last year, a
Palmdale station deputy admitted in a deposition to having a tattoo of a skull in a
cowboy hat that matched the ink of several other lawmen at his station.
More recently, internal
documents showed that Deputy Caren Carl Mandoyan — who was fired for domestic
violence and dishonesty and later was rehired by Villanueva — acknowledged having a tattoo as a member of the Reapers.
Villanueva said Wednesday he
does not believe there are problems with deputy groups at any other stations.
The alleged attack by Banditos
on fellow deputies echoed a 2010 incident in which a clique of deputies from a
high-security floor in Men’s Central Jail brawled with other deputies at a
Christmas party. Sheriff’s Department officials accused the group of using
gang-like hand signs and said jailers tried to “earn their ink” by breaking
inmates’ bones.
The recent allegations are not
the first against the Banditos. In 2014, the county paid a female deputy assigned
to the East L.A. station $1.5 million to settle a lawsuit in which she claimed
she had been physically and mentally harassed by some of the clique’s 80
members after refusing to go along with their “traditions and initiation
rituals.”
At the time, then-interim
Sheriff John Scott announced that he would share the results of an
investigation into claims of bullying by the Banditos. The probe, however, has
remained confidential.
Source: Los Angeles Times.
