Two days after an unusually mixed verdict was handed down on Tuesday afternoon, following the two-week federal trial of two Los Angeles Sheriff’s deputies, Joey Aguiar and Mariano Ramirez, on Thursday afternoon, U.S. Attorney Eileen Decker and federal prosecutors Jennifer Williams and Mack Jenkins announced they would retry Aguiar and Ramirez on Count Two of the four original charges.
If you’ll remember, the deputies were acquitted of Count One which was the conspiracy charge.
But Ramirez was convicted on Count Three and Aguiar on Count Four, both pertaining to charges of falsifying reports to portray Bret Phillips, the inmate the deputies allegedly assaulted, as the aggressor.
On Count Two, which charged the deputies with assaulting Mr. Phillips, the jury was “hopelessly deadlocked,” with 10 jurors voting to convict, two voting to acquit.
Aguiar and Ramirez are to be retried on Count Two.
The Feds are not playing.
I wish the Feds were as relentless going after career criminals, as they are going after Cops who made mistakes or strayed.
And, I don’t want John Q. Citizen chiming in about Cops being held to a higher stander, because all that tells me is, don’t do this job because there is “absolutely” no room for mistakes.
True there are some crimes perpetrated by “bad” Cops, for who I have no sympathy, but I don’t think this is one of them.
@ 2. No worse than ICIB. They Feds are just sending a message to LASD for screwing with their investigation, beginning with hiding inmate Anthony Brown, then trying to punk and intimidate FBI Agent Leah Marx. You may think that it’s overkill but it is what it is. LASD ran their show as they saw fit and the Feds are running their show as they see fit. I do agree that LASD Supervisors are getting away unscathed.
I believe Tanaka goes on trail in March. Good place to start. Hopefully a few more indictments are forth coming to rid the Department of the unscrupulous overlords that ran the Department into the ground. I had the displeasure to meet with one such overlord several years ago. The Chief (overlord)was discussing a civil suit with counsel representing the Department. Counsel advised the Chief that some deputies had lied during an Internal Affairs investigation and subsequent civil trial. His response “we aren’t going to admit that”. Evidently, truth takes a back seat to political expediency.