Accusations of Sheriff’s Deputies Allegedly Involved in Murder-for-Hire Plot Called “Frivolous” & “Untrue” by LASD

The whole thing reportedly began around eighteen months ago when an LA County jail informant, who had been providing information on another criminal case, told his deputy handler that he knew of two Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies working patrol in one of the farther flung stations in the department, who had done contract killings for a Mexican drug cartel.

Say, what???

The allegations were specific. The informant described the dollar amounts that the deputies were allegedly paid for the hits, with some contracts paying more than others, depending upon what was required. Descriptions of how and where bodies were buried were mentioned, as were the kind of cars allegedly used for each murder-for-hire operation.

The deputies doing the initial investigation and their supervisor, a lieutenant, were flabberghasted at the string of allegations but, after some checking, reportedly began to fear that the seemingly outlandish tales might be credible.

However, according to Sheriff’s Department spokesman Steve Whitmore, the LASD’s criminal investigative division is around a week from finishing its lengthy probe into the murder-for-hire accusations (“They’re 98 percent finished”), and investigators have found the allegations to be “totally untrue.”

In fact, said Whitmore, the two patrol deputies who were accused were not relieved of duty when the investigation began, “because it was all so frivolous.”

Yet, others in the department say they fear a cover-up and a rush to clear the deputies rather than investigate properly—a charge that Whitmore dismisses as “ridiculous.”

The LA Times’ Robert Faturechi broke the story of the allegations and the LASD’s investigative conclusions on Monday night.

Here’s a clip from Faturechi’s story:

“We investigated it and found out it was completely unfounded,” spokesman Steve Whitmore said. “People make allegations all the time that are just completely ridiculous.”

A sheriff’s lieutenant, however, contends that the allegations are being covered up by the department and has gone to the FBI to get the matter investigated thoroughly, her attorney said.

An FBI spokeswoman declined comment. The attorney, Bradley Gage, said federal agents interviewed Lt. Katherine Voyer and were recently given investigative documents.

Voyer is in the midst of a lawsuit against the Sheriff’s Department in which she alleges she was retaliated against for being a whistle-blower. In a recent sworn deposition, Voyer said the allegations originated from a reliable inmate informant, according to Gage.

Gage did not provide The Times with a transcript of the deposition.

He said the inmate informant’s allegations were brought to Voyer because she was a supervisor at the Inmate Reception Center, one of the sheriff’s jail facilities. The inmate’s allegations of a murder-for-hire scheme first gained credibility, Gage said, because he was implicating himself in the matter and providing a slew of specific details.

Attorney Brad Gage told Faturechi that many of those details checked out.

Another jail investigator confirmed for WLA that the informant was “validated” in previous cases.

Whitmore, however, said that the informant made repeated false claims and listed details of the allegations that, he said, did not check out at all. “None of what the informant said checked out,” he said.

Whitmore also told WLA that the LASD brass will turn their investigation over to the FBI when they are finished.

According to other LASD sources, several in the department have already spoken to the FBI about the case.