Pubdate: Thu, 24 Apr 2014
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2014 Los Angeles Times
Contact:  http://www.latimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Author: Kate Mather
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/corrupt.htm (Corruption - United States)

EX-DEPUTIES FACE CHARGES

Two Are Accused of Planting Guns at a Medical Marijuana Dispensary to 
Falsely Arrest Two Men.

Two former Los Angeles County sheriff 's deputies have been charged 
with planting guns at a medical marijuana dispensary to arrest two 
men, one of whom prosecutors said was sentenced to a year in jail 
before the bad evidence was discovered.

Julio Cesar Martinez, 39, and Anthony Manuel Paez, 32, face two 
felony counts of conspiracy to obstruct justice and altering 
evidence, the Los Angeles County district attorney's office announced 
Wednesday. Martinez was charged with two additional felony counts of 
perjury and one count of filing a false report.

If convicted of the charges, the former deputies face more than seven 
years in prison.

In court documents filed last week, prosecutors said that on Aug. 24, 
2011, the pair shut off electricity and a video surveillance system 
inside the dispensary, then planted the weapons. Martinez and Paez 
were patrolling West 87th Place that day when Martinez said he saw a 
man with a gun in his shorts pocket take part in a drug deal, the 
felony complaint states.

Martinez said he followed the man to the dispensary and watched him 
discard the gun near a trash can, the complaint says. The deputies 
said they found a second gun sitting on a desk near some Ecstasy pills.

But prosecutors said that Martinez had kicked a wall outlet to shut 
off the electricity, and that Paez then opened a drawer, pulled out a 
gun and put it on a chair.

Prosecutors said Paez planted another gun on top of the desk, which 
he had crawled under to disable the security system.

The deputies then arrested two men: one on suspicion of having an 
unregistered firearm, another for possessing Ecstasy in the presence 
of a firearm.

It wasn't until the next year that the sheriff 's Internal Criminal 
Investigation Bureau began investigating the incident, the district 
attorney's office said. During that inquiry, officials discovered a 
video recording from inside the dispensary that they say was 
"inconsistent" with the deputies' reports.

Charges against one of the men falsely arrested were dropped, said 
Jane Robison, a spokeswoman for the district attorney's office. But 
the second man had pleaded no contest to the drug charge before 
investigators determined the evidence was planted, she said.

That man was sentenced to a year in jail as a result, Robison said, 
but it was unclear how much time he served. Prosecutors were in the 
process of contacting his attorney on Wednesday.

Martinez and Paez were arrested Friday. Each was released later that 
day after posting $50,000 bail.

They are scheduled to be arraigned in June.

In a brief statement, sheriff 's officials said Martinez and Paez 
"separated" from the department on Feb. 27, 2013. Martinez had been 
with the department for 15 years; Paez for seven.

"There was an administrative investigation where the appropriate 
administrative action was taken," the statement said.

Sheriff 's spokeswoman Nicole Nishida declined to elaborate further, 
but said the investigation mentioned was separate from the 
marijuana-dispensary inquiry.
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