Progressive One

When cops turned drug traffickers

Two corrupt Bakersfield police officers stole from dealers and tampered with evidence. Now, dozens of criminal cases could be in jeopardy.

By Richard Winton
BAKERSFIELD — Four years ago on a sweltering afternoon, Bakersfield Police Det. Damacio Diaz was sitting in his car alongside informant Guillermo “Memo” Magallanes.
About $15,000 stuck out of Magallanes’ shorts. When the informant left, the narcotics detective found just under $1,000 in the passenger-side door pocket.
“He told me to take my wife out on a date or buy my kids something,” Diaz would later recall in court papers. “It is a day I truly regret and a decision that has changed my entire life.”
That decision also rocked the Kern County criminal justice system, marking the beginning of an ugly police corruption scandal involving cash, drugs and protection. Diaz and his partner, Patrick Mara, later admitted to robbing drug dealers of their methamphetamine during traffic stops. Diaz then began cooperating with federal investigators and named other cops he said were corrupt.
Now, local prosecutors say the scandal jeopardizes other criminal cases.
Kern County Dist. Atty. Lisa Green is sending letters to defendants in 64 potentially tainted criminal convictions after her office examined scores of convictions involving the work of the disgraced pair.
“The disgraceful and criminal behavior of Diaz and Mara has gravely impacted the Bakersfield Police Department as well as our community as a whole,” she said.
Prosecutors are specifically reexamining cases from 2011 to 2014, when the partners were committing crimes.
“If they took statements, seized evidence or wrote reports, we will be sending letters to defense attorneys or defendants that represented themselves,” she said.
Two misdemeanor prostitution cases in which Diaz as an undercover detective was the only witness have already been dismissed.
It was a huge fall from grace for Diaz, who was well known in the Central Valley as being a member of the high school cross-country running team portrayed in the 2015 Disney movie “McFarland, USA.”
Green’s office reviewed 87 cases of the detectives involving 123 defendants before deciding to send the letters. Diaz, a 17-year Bakersfield cop, worked on 32 cases involving 53 defendants, with 20 requiring letters, Green said. Mara, a 13-year veteran, had 55 cases involving 70 defendants. Forty-four of his cases will result in letters.
Defendants could seek motions for a new trial or to withdraw pleas in some cases. The district attorney’s office is prepared to retry the cases if necessary, Assistant Dist. Atty. Scott Spielman said.
The ramifications of the corruption scandal could be large.
“How is the district attorney going to oppose any motion for a new trial when these investigators have admitted to such rogue behavior?” said Ben Meiselas, who is representing several families suing the Bakersfield police, included a man shot while allegedly an informant for Mara.
Defense attorneys compared the Bakersfield situation to the Los Angeles Police Department’s Rampart scandal in the late 1990s, in which corrupt officers tainted cases. More than 100 convictions were overturned as a result.
“What is going on here is really outrageous,” said criminal defense attorney Mark Geragos.
Acting U.S. Atty. Phillip A. Talbert said the two detectives were specially selected for a joint drug task force in a region plagued by methamphetamine.
“They became the drug traffickers themselves,” he said. “Their actions risked their fellow officers’ safety for greed.”
Both officers have expressed remorse.
Diaz said that his time as a narcotics detective drove him to a life of drinking and that Magallanes, a drug dealer and a prominent member of the Mexican Mafia, became more friend than informant.
Mara said that when he partnered up with Diaz in spring 2012, Diaz walked out of a bedroom and handed him “a few hundred dollars, while he stuck a large amount of money into his own pockets,” according to court papers.
That year, Mara filed for bankruptcy and said he was drinking heavily.
Soon Diaz and Mara were getting into other illegal activities, authorities said. Federal prosecutors in court sentencing documents said Mara had two patrol officers stop a vehicle the detectives knew was carrying 5 pounds of methamphetamine. They pocketed 4 pounds and turned in just a pound as evidence, officials said. This behavior became common, prosecutors said.
Diaz’s loyalty to Magallanes would be his downfall. The detective tipped Magallanes off about a Drug Enforcement Administration wiretap that captured him chatting, advising him “to lay low,” according to documents. Magallanes then told another drug dealer to dump his phone.
Assistant U.S. Atty. Brian Delaney said Magallanes was arrested in a separate case and told officials about Diaz.
Diaz would quickly implicate Mara and suggest others were making money too.
“He gave them information to clean up the department,” said his lawyer, David Torres, in an interview. But U.S. Atty. Talbert said that “we concluded no officers were complicit in joining Diaz and Mara,” and that no further prosecutions were planned at this time.
During the investigation, five other officers were placed on administrative leave related to the investigation and one recently resigned.
But Bakersfield Police Chief Greg Williamson said the federal and internal inquiries after 18 months cleared them all.
“They investigated every name that came up, uncovered every rock, and no one else’s name came to light in their scandal,” the chief said. “We have also done internal investigations on many allegations that were made, and once again they have been unable to uncover” anything.
Still, Williamson said, the corrupt detectives had eroded trust with the community.
Diaz this summer pleaded guilty to bribery, drug trafficking and tax evasion, and Mara admitted to selling methamphetamine. Both are about to begin five-year federal prison sentences for their crimes. richard.winton
@ latimes.com  


Inform

PATRICK MARA admitted that he and his partner robbed dealers during traffic stops.



DANIEL CASAREZ McClatchy News
DAMACIO DIAZ, Mara’s partner, was on a teen track team that inspired a Disney film.



Inform
KERN COUNTY Dist. Atty. Lisa Green is looking at 64 potentially tainted criminal convictions.

SSGT

So whats your point? All cops are crooked, just because these two jerks broke the law?

lpnmajor Loc: Arkansas

Right. So, that means, that if a person in your neighborhood is accused of being a pedophile, you and everyone else in the neighborhood is also a pedophile. Makes sense. Come to think of it, it is obvious that politicians are corrupt and evil - yet I bet you'll vote them back in won't you. Sending mixed signals aren't you?

SSGT

Good response!

Progressive One

Is that the kind of logic you use? wow.........

lpnmajor Loc: Arkansas

No dummy, that was the kind of logic YOU used - I just threw it back in your face. Doesn't taste good huh.

Progressive One

You used those words and cannot show where I said as much......so don't assign me your dumbass logic....you dishonest dumbass..........

Progressive One

LAPD gang tactic is focus of lawsuit

Injunctions used to curb crime violate due process and are too broad, the ACLU says.

BY JAMES QUEALLY
The Los Angeles Police Department has violated the due process rights of thousands of city residents by serving them with gang injunctions without first allowing them to challenge those orders in court, according to a federal lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union.
The suit, filed in federal court Tuesday, seeks to stop the department from enforcing injunctions against people who have not been given a chance to show they aren’t gang members.
The city is currently enforcing 46 injunctions against approximately 10,000 people in Los Angeles, according to the lawsuit. The enforcement areas combined make up 75 square miles, or 15% of the city, according to the suit.
“They’re basically subject to parole-like restrictions without any hearing on whether or not they are actually a gang member,” said Peter Bibring, director of police practices for the ACLU of Southern California. “That violates any notion of due process.”
Spokesmen for the LAPD and the city attorney’s office declined to comment on the lawsuit.
The city has used the injunctions as a tool to stifle gang crime since the late 1980s, when Los Angeles gained infamy as a breeding ground for street gangs that would go on to gain national notoriety. The injunctions are civil court orders that bar suspected gang members from engaging in certain activities in areas where the gang is known to congregate, which the city terms “safety zones.” People subject to injunctions are generally barred from wearing clothing that police believe highlights gang affiliation within the safety zones, and from socializing with other alleged gang members in public, including family members.
Those who violate injunctions can be charged with contempt and face up to six months in jail. About 79 gangs are subject to injunctions, according to the city attorney’s office, accounting for approximately 20% of Los Angeles’ known gang population.
Gang activity has waned across Los Angeles in conjunction with declines in other kinds of violent crime over the last decade. City officials have often credited the injunctions as playing a role in the crime decline, but critics often contend a large swath of people subject to injunctions are not affiliated with any kind of criminal organization .
The ACLU lawsuit does not question the effectiveness of the injunctions, but it does harshly criticize the way the city obtains them. City officials rarely name individual gang members as defendants when they seek to obtain an injunction, instead choosing to name the gang itself, according to the ACLU lawsuit. This creates a situation in which the city typically wins the orders during an uncontested court proceeding, the lawsuit alleges.
Once the order is obtained , city and police officials can serve injunctions against anyone they suspect to be a member of the gang in question. Until 2007, LAPD officers made those distinctions on their own. Since then, officers have needed to obtain the approval of a deputy city attorney before serving an injunction. Either way, the ACLU contends, police and city prosecutors don’t have to meet any reasonable burden of proof to serve an injunction.
In its suit, the ACLU is asking the court to bar the LAPD from enforcing injunctions unless the department can prove that a person subject to an injunction is actually a gang member. The city attorney’s office established an administrative process in 2007 that allows those who believe they have been wrongly labeled as gang members to seek to vacate the orders, but the ACLU suit contends that process is “painstakingly slow” and relies on criteria that have nothing to do with a person’s active gang status.
A person seeking to be removed from an injunction can be denied if he or she fails to maintain employment or is arrested for any misdemeanor crime. Neither of those criteria proves gang affiliation, the ACLU argues.
“The criteria are incredibly burdensome and very restrictive and absolutely not all related to whether or not you are an active participant in a gang,” said Carmen Iguina, an ACLU staff attorney. “Even people that fit the criteria perfectly, it can take them over a year.”
Peter Arellano, 21, said he has never been involved with a gang, but the Echo Park native and his father were served with injunctions aimed at curbing the activities of six street gangs in 2013. As a result of the court order, Arellano can’t go out to dinner with several of his relatives without risking arrest .
“It’s pretty cruel. I don’t see how the LAPD can enforce the law saying that you can’t be with your family,” he said. “I think it’s like inhumane. It’s like when a dog has puppies, and you take the puppies away from the dog. It’s just sad.”
The lawsuit marks the latest challenge to tactics used by the LAPD and other California law enforcement agencies to track gang activity. An appellate court found Orange County law enforcement agencies had violated some residents’ due process rights in a similar case in 2013, and the Los Angeles City Council agreed to pay $30 million to fund job training for alleged gang members this year to settle a lawsuit stemming from allegations that the curfew provision of previous LAPD gang injunctions was unlawful.
An audit of a state law enforcement gang database in August also showed that many people had been erroneously entered into the system as documented gang members. The study focused on information provided by four separate agencies, including the LAPD.
Iguina said the recent lawsuits and audits show how police attempts to stymie gang crime often cast too wide a net.
“It’s basically part of the follow-through of a lot of the war-on-gangs, war-on-drugs tactics that were really historically over-broad policies,” she said. “When you’re talking about gang injunction policies in particular, you’re talking about entire communities being affected.” james.queally@latimes.com  


RICK LOOMIS Los Angeles Times
POLICE OFFICERS from the Harbor Division prepare to serve a gang injunction in 2007, a tactic used since the 1980s to stifle gang activity in L.A.