#MeTooBehindBars

Another Victim of Former LA Sheriff’s Deputy Giancarlo Scotti Gets Payout

Celeste Fremon
Written by Celeste Fremon

Last Tuesday, October 29, The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to authorize a $325,000 payout for another victim of former LA County Sheriff’s Deputy Giancarlo Scotti.

The victim, Pauline Smith, was one of the six women, ranging in age from 24 to 42 years old, whom Scotti was charged with sexually assaulting when each of the six was confined to the county’s primary women’s jail, Century Regional Detention Center, located in Lynwood, California.

At the end of September 2019, Scotti received what critics saw as a sh0ckingly low two-year prison sentence after his attorney, Anthony Falangetti, negotiated a plea deal in which the now-fired deputy pleaded no contest to engaging in unlawful sexual activity with the six different women, while continuing to insist that any sexual interaction between Scotti and the various women had been “consensual.”

Nevermind that, the majority of states, including California, have criminal statutes stating that inmates are not capable of consenting to sexual contact with detention facility employees, due to the obvious power differential. In other words, the guards have all the control in a locked facility.

Furthermore, apart from the criminal charges, at least eight, or possibly nine women, have filed federal civil rights lawsuits against the county alleging sexual assaults by the former deputy.

Most of these lawsuits feature discomfortingly detailed allegations of predatory and highly assaultive sexual behavior by Mr. Scotti, including at least one alleged rape.

Smith’s account and was also among the six included by the LA District Attorney’s office in the criminal case.


Pauline Smith’s case

According to her legal complaint, Pauline Smith was sexually victimized by Giancarlo Scotti in the following way.

Smith wound up in CRDF on February 3, 2017, due to a driving-under-the-influence conviction.

(As WitnessLA has noted in other reporting, the five most common charges women that bring women into an LA County jail are drug possession, driving on a suspended license, petty theft, failure to appear in court and driving under the influence.)

In the sequence of events described in Smith’s complaint, in the module to which she was assigned, she was under direct supervision by then-Deputy Scotti. Yet, he did not give her any real trouble until August of 2017, when Smith was already eight months into her sentence.

The problems began, according to the lawsuit, when Smith was in the jail’s outdoor recreation area, specifically in a spot that was “dark and had minimal lighting.” During her time outside, Scotti approached her asked to see her breasts. According to Smith, she froze at the bizarre request and simply didn’t reply, causing Scotti to repeat the instruction.

“I said, show me your tits!” he said. Scotti allegedly threatened to make life hard for Smith if she didn’t do as he said, or words to that effect.

Spooked, Smith said she eventually complied, at which point Scotti began groping her breasts, according to the complaint.

A few days later, Deputy Scotti reportedly escalated his sexual advances, approaching Smith and telling her to stroke his penis for “sexual arousal,” and when she didn’t respond, he allegedly grabbed her hand to get things started.

When Smith resisted, according to her complaint, Scotti threatened to “remove her from the school module” if she did not comply with his sexual demands. So, again, she finally did as the deputy asked her to do.

Sometime during September 2017, some of the department’s internal affairs investigators reportedly approached Smith, and interviewed her about “the sexual abuse and exploitation that took place by Deputy Scotti.”

After answering the investigators’ questions, Smith became fearful that other sheriff’s department employees and Deputy Scotti himself would retaliate against her.

Despite her fears, Smith details no actual retaliation in her complaint, yet some of Scotti’s other victims describe being subjected to very punitive forms of retaliation, once they either complained or were interviewed by members of the LASD’s Internal affairs Bureau.


A growing pile of Scotti payouts

The new $325,000 settlement with Pauline Smith is one of several settlements the county has made thus far with women whom Scotti allegedly assaulted, with all of the other settlements featuring far higher dollar amounts.

In February of 2019, for example, the Board of Supervisors settled with another Scotti victim who reported being sexually assaulted during her time at CRDF. In this case, the board settled for $950,000.

And, in early November of last year, the board agreed to pay a total of $3.9 million to settle the civil rights lawsuits brought by three different women who described sexual assaults by Mr. Scotti.

Two of those women who, between them, received $2.25 million of the $3.9 million settlement, described how Scotti had separately forced each of them to have oral sex with him and, in a separate incident, raped one of the two women in the jail’s shower area.

One of the women in the settlement was pregnant during the time she was assaulted by Scotti. According to her complaint, she was interviewed by two internal affairs officers sometime after Scotti’s multiple assaults.  But after the IA officers spoke with her, she reported was later retaliated against by other non-internal affairs deputies, who curtailed her needed counseling and drug treatment sessions, and removed her from the diet reserved for pregnant women that she had previously received. Additionally, she was moved, allegedly without justification, to a high-security unit, where she would routinely be “inappropriately shackled and restrained in chains” during transport to her court hearings, despite the fact she was pregnant.

Pauline Smith’s recent settlement, brings the total Scotti payouts to $5,175,000 — with more potentially high-ticket lawsuits still making their way through the Scotti-assault pipeline — all of which seems at odds with the perplexing perspective put forth by the DA’s office that prosecutors were not sure they could prove that Scotti’s sexual interactions with his locked-up victims were “under duress.”


The top photo is a shot from Giancarlo Scotti’s YouTube

38 Comments

  • Any person having contact with a Sheriff Deputy in Los Angeles has a better chance of hitting the jackpot than playing the lottery. LOL

  • I just noticed a tattoo on his right arm – NOTW (Not of This World) – a saying from the Bible and a Christian rock band. Not much of a Christian, are you Mr. Scotti?

  • Here we go again. When is this hemorrhage to the Department stop because of un-supervised personnel who have no disregard for polices or laws. I know that the defenders of this mentality will tirelessly and relentlessly defend and weaponize their actions. Their barometric arc, like so many can only end up in one way: hot, angry, tears an a morning after their shifts in jail binge of chain smoking Marlboro Reds, hammering back indifferent theories and devouring the souls of GOOD DEPUTIES who want to bring honor and respect to the Department we had pride working for . We must sincerely ask ourselves ..have we stooped so low as a Department – and can we have a robust discussion about the public’s perception of the Department.

    I know that from the Top of the Department ( Yes i am talking about AV) we are on a downward spiral given the lurid and misdirection, one which is tricking gullible line Deputies into confusion about having their backs when they work in the gray. We cannot have shadow Deputy cliques within our Department ( Yes they existed before AV ). Why is AV willing to nail himself on the cross for Carl Mandoyan ( Give up Carl you have no legal standing left in Court ) just think it – The Sheriff wants to hire a woman beater. Really!!!!!. What about hiring his son as a Deputy. How did this guy pass backgrounds. Was the personnel Captain promised AS position to move him through. How can he enforce and follow the law given that he himself was convicted of a DUI – to make matters worse this guy has total disregard for the Court by not attending Court ordered classes. This guy is going to be a real knucklehead – posting stuff on his Instagram about Jews and Blacks. Why not bring him in as Under Sheriff. How is he going to follow Departmental guidelines an policies when he did not even want to wear the recommended uniforms for PT ( which we all wore ). He complained to Daddy and at the direction of Daddy the Captain at the Academy got transferred overnight. This is where we are as a Department.

    Does AV even have the moral legitimacy to effectively engage the community and explain the steps necessary to build good Deputy relations with the community when his advisers are Bandidos, Reapers and Vikings and not to forget Tall Paul’s coin carriers.

  • Boy did this guy get lucky on his extremely light sentence. He should have a good time during his 2 years though. I am not sure the other GP inmates will take lightly to the fact that he WAS a deputy and a rapist.

    What a costly endeavor for the tax payers and the department. Just another POS bring down my once great department.

    The direction of the department is AV’s responsibility. He hand picked his leadership staff, who amazingly enough, can’t lead.

  • 415 Enigma,

    Dear fellow deputy, calm down on the anti-AV stuff. If you’ve been on as long as I have been, you’d know damn well that people with DUI convictions have been on the job for ever. Remember when the dept used to publish the background standards? DQ was 2 DUI convictions (lifetime DQ), 3 or more tickets in the last 2 years, use of hallucinogenic drugs (lifetime DQ), use of cocaine (judgement call on DQ based on use), marijuana (habitual use), etc.

    I’m with you about keeping the dregs out of the dept. Look at the MANY criminal convictions for everything ranging from murder, burglaries, credit card scams, ARCO Narco, to DV. But the national trend is to hire people with issues like drug use in their backgrounds. Even hallucinogenics are no longer an absolute DQ (eek!).

    Anyway, the sky isn’t falling because AV is trying to rehire Mandoyan. That issue will play out in court and be done with soon enough. He’s at least done one extremely good thing for deputies: he fired Diana Teran, the Badge Collector. She was NOT in the chain of command as it pertained to discipline, but she somehow inserted herself and ran roughshod over division chiefs. I’ve been privy to what happened at case reviews, and believe me she hated deputies and was out to get rid of as many as possible. She routinely threatened division chiefs that she would go over their heads if they didn’t knuckle under to her discipline demands.

    I don’t know anything about the academy allegations or the social media allegations. But suffice it to say that no matter who we choose to be our next generation of cops, fewer and fewer will want to do it due to insane California legislation that erodes personnel record protections and the media/ACLU/leftists (but I repeat myself) willing to throw another copper on the BBQ at the drop of a hat.

  • LASD are just a bunch of Clowns and of course Partime Gangmembers!

    The BOS and we as Taxpayers are sick of tire of this nonsense.

    That’s why Pico Rivera where I Grow up it’s a Completely mess now it’s like living in Montebello another Shithole by the way, I better open my next restaurant in a different County.

  • 415 Enigma – I agree. I would add that the issue for me is not so much that AV’s son had a DUI but his failure to comply with court orders thereafter. There may be some sort of logical explanation that we are not entitled to know but it looks bad – like other decisions the new Sheriff has made. Public perception is based on behavior – good and bad. There are many, many good personnel on the department that are glad to see the fools identified and fired regardless of rank, ethnicity or gender.

  • 415 Enema, do you have any facts to support your drivel? A lot of broad, baseless claims with zero evidence to prove your case. I take it you got one of those “services no longer needed” emails, which means it went to the right person.

  • KD – I still work for the Department and, no I did not work in the Ivory Tower ( you know the one AV has the privilege to work in ) – yes I know it must sting him that it was a legacy of his predecessor. Furthermore, I must wholeheartedly reveal to you that I was not one of those LT’s who wanted to ascend to Sheriff without the necessary command level experience and hence dyslexic outcomes and frustrations. I take pride working the streets, and was lucky to work at fast stations.

  • 415 Enema you dont fool anyone. You were definately one of those McDonnell boys who was canned by AV. At minimum youve exposed your undying love for McDonnell.. give it up.

  • Still Laughing, the deputies make it easy – they rape women, fondle little girls, drive drunk, assault people, and so on and so on. You used to be able to get away with this in the past, but no more. What a fine department. Why not just stick an ATM up the deputies’ assess so that people can get paid on the spot next time a deputy commits a crime.

    Sidelines, your boy will not be the general population. He will be in protective custody. You gentlemen are bad asses with a badge and gun, but without it you are merely prey to the gangsters you try to emulate. And, what do you mean, your “once great” department. When was it great? Do you mean when it was white? This shit always happened. No one came forward and if they did it went nowhere. I remember Johnny (of if the glove dont fit you must acquit fame) talking about when he started suing the department there was no one else doing it, you would get mostly white jurors who wouldn’t convict a good ‘ole withe boy and when he begin getting verdicts it was only a few thousand dollars. Now, no one buys the “hero” nonsense you spew. Don’t fool yourself, the department was never great – same hell, different devil.

  • Been There aka KD – Just because someone has a different opinion, they are not a “McDonnell” boy, a communist, lazy, incompetent, etc. You are fooling no one and you do not represent the many good people on the job.

  • @ Ms Been there – @ MsUm – @ MsKeep Dreaming – I do know you are the same Person. Hell I do know who you are. You can fool yourself all that you want and defend and defend and defend. But the reality is you can’t defend the indefensible.

    Like I said before I was never a McDonnell boy, nor a Baca Boy nor a Scott boy.. and absolutely not one of the Bandido or Reaper Boy’s of AV. I pity your flirtation by deflection real issues facing the Department by promoting reduction in crime, Deputy moral and all the other alignments like the Deputies love AV. This is like the dog’s breakfast of conspiracy- driven, hyperventilating B.S being spewed by AV and no one else. His own executive staff talk about him being unfit to lead.

  • “Why not just stick an ATM up the deputies’ assess so that people can get paid on the spot next time a deputy commits a crime.” I’ve never agreed with anything cf had to say but even I was laughing at this line. It’s hard to argue with the man after reading an article where a guard is demanding to see a prisoner’s tits. I’m about as pro-law enforcement as you can get, but this Scotti cat needs to be locked down for life. I’m a larger than average man and even I get creeped out seeing this guy’s picture, especially after knowing what he’s done.

    I’m sure there’s some power and control issues deep in this guy’s psyche which brings me to another question: Don’t cops need to go through some type of psychological vetting before being hired? If they do, whomever let this freak slip through the cracks needs to give up their license and become a journalist–check that–opinion writer for WitnessLA.

    I like how this article portrays these prisoners as light weight offenders. By reading this, one would get the impression these fine incarcerated ladies were business executives who had one too many screwdrivers at the office cocktail party and have now found themselves doing hard time. Hoodrats, crack whores, murder accomplices, and then (multiple) repeat drunk drivers are no doubt the inhabitants of this joint. If LA County could house as many low level offenders as this piece would have you believe, there would be no female homelessness.

    But a sincere thanks to former Deputy Scotti. Thanks to you, every gang banger from Florencia 13 to Hoover Street will be driving new Escalades. Two years isn’t nearly enough time for you to fully comprehend the damage you’ve done. Shitbag.

  • @ Keep Dreaming – I do know you love facts . You know ” Truth and reconciliation”

    So here we go.

    In one case — the department served an unidentified deputy with a letter of intent to discharge him for threatening his wife, assaulting her in front of their child and choking his wife to the point of unconsciousness, according to the report. The deputy was also said to have lied to investigators about the assault, the report said.

    The deputy had previously been disciplined on four different occasions, including for unreasonable use of force against an inmate, and had been suspended for a total of 23 days.
    In March of this year, after a hearing allowing the deputy to respond to the accusations, the department agreed to remove the findings related to lying and child endangerment. The findings of domestic violence remained, and the deputy was suspended for 25 days — NOT TERMINATED.

    Do you need more proof – Or is this a case where there was exculpatory evidence missing just like your close associates.

    And the Circus continues. It puts all of us who work hard – have morals – live to higher standards as we are expected to and these shit bags are protected by Brass.

  • @ KD – Here is another one to support my facts. At this point we need to tell AV that his services are no longer needed.

    Deputy was served a letter of intent to discharge after being arrested for driving at more than 100 miles per hour while under the influence of alcohol. This deputy, who had previously been disciplined three times and suspended for a total of 32 days, was criminally convicted of misdemeanor DUI. After his hearing, he was suspended for 30 days — NOT TERMINATED — with an agreement that he would be randomly tested for alcohol.

    Guess he will be getting shitfaced and choking his girlfriend – and if he has a Captain like U.S ,he will falsify evidence. It will hit the front pages of LA Times. The County will pay the woman and on and on. Do you really need more.

    I am not here to fool anyone, nor like you call out childish names like McDonnell’s boy – This is real under AV’s leadership. This has to be taken seriously. It affects the morale for hardworking Deputies ( although you like to say morale is high ).

    You can keep feeding the monster, or save the cash flow. We cannot normalize this shit.

  • Facts are never your friend, 415 Enema. Would that be the same case where the “victim” was arrested for burglary and stalking, and has a rare skin condition that mimics bruising, hence the DA reject? Your case fell apart, and there was no viable case to move forward with. Try again.

  • Perhaps you can explain the FOURTEEN cases that McDonnell rescued from the clutches of the civil service commission, including one where there was not one but THREE victims of domestic violence? Not a peep out of the OIG or anyone for that matter. McBuckles brought back 5 separate DV suspects if my math is correct, and none of them would withstand scrutiny today. Just admit it, you want to apply a different standard to Villanueva then you did to your hero Jimmy.

    Hardworking deputies appreciate the fact that their sheriff is holding them to a high standard based on facts and evidence, something his predecessor had a hard time grasping. Sheriff V has fired over two dozen employees to date, and I don’t think any are coming back on his watch because he did things the right way – investigate thoroughly, impartially first and then make a decision.

  • KD- Here you go again – your rants with that acidic tongue of yours. You definitely emote the oppositional – defiant- disorder type, so let me enlighten that blackened crust of a soul of yours.

    I was never a fan of McDonnell. When he hired guys back with issues, I protested and did not like it. I said my peace, however what you are doing is deflect, deflect and spew constant hate. So what you are saying is – McD did it so why can’t AV. However, if you call our AV you’re a McD boy. So tell me O wise one, would we hire someone who has all these issues in their background ? Well the way things are going under AV, I bet we are… you know all the ELA cholos and vatos with wife and girlfriend assaults. I mean the class act guys, the one’s who beat the shit out of their women…. and the girl declines to press charges, because she knows el-chava will beat the shit out her when he gets out of the penn.

    But we will know this in time. These guys will screw up again, why because they are shitbags, and they will take the Department down further down the doldrums.

  • The problem for the District Attorney was not the supposed difficulty of proving that Deputy Scotti’s female inmate victims were “under duress” when they capitulated to his sexual advances.

    The real problem was how to charge Scotti with serious criminal offenses committed on duty at CRDC and then try him alone and in isolation from those that aided and abetted his actions.

    Not simply fellow LASD deputies and supervisors guilty of acts of omission – failing to report the violations of policy and procedure by Scotti which they witnessed or had reason to suspect, which is cause for termination of Scotti’s coworkers and supervisors and may be prosecuted as criminal negligence contributing to the sexual assaults at CRDC.

    Not simply that.

    Rather, something infinitely more sinister — that is to say, calculated, deliberate and repeated acts of commission for the purpose of instigating, aiding and abetting Deputy Scotti.

    Such acts of commission would involve a level of culpability equal to or greater than borne by Deputy Scotti.

    Should we blindly accept an assumption that Deputy Scotti spent 10 years working at LASD while practicing an acceptable level of self-control.

    Should we have no concern Deputy Scotti kept it zipped during the first few months of 2017, as stated by inmate Ms. Smith in this report, until he began acting out in a burst of assaultive sexual advances upon multiple targets.

    Let’s not fool ourselves into assuming that a deputy at CRDC can abuse his authority to achieve sexual satisfaction with any female inmate who strikes his fancy.
    The deputy must carefully select an inmate who will endure his improper advances or else he may end up requiring reconstructive surgery on his penny whistle.

    Deputy Scotti is capable of stating brazen sexual demands to a solo captive audience.
    The psychological profiling to select appropriately vulnerable targets was probably the contribution of someone else.
    It may also be someone else who recognized the latent sexual victimizer inside Scotti, ready for activation through manipulative provocation.

    It becomes even more troubling to realize Sheriff McDonnel’s investigation of Deputy Scotti and subsequent press event announcing Scotti’s arrest could not have occurred any more rapidly if it had been scripted and rehearsed.
    And that Scottie’s arrest announcement would dovetail seamlessly with McDonnel’s reelection campaign tactical messaging.

    And now this report above, which mentions IA questioning of Scotti’s inmate victims within a time frame suggesting the Sheriff knew what was going on earlier than he has admitted.

    Finally. That D.A. Jackie Lacey and former Sheriff Jim McDonnell were close political allies may help explain the imperative to afford Deputy Scotti a plea sufficiently lenient to avoid the revelations of trial.

  • Enema, do I detect a whiff of racism mixed with a healthy dose of elitism? Has it ever occurred to you that the only one who has seen all the evidence is AV? If he vetted the case and the outcome was a reinstatement, I have no reason to believe otherwise. You don’t either, so your opposition is centered on who AV is, or in your warped worldview, who he could never be. Villanueva would have succeeded in any organization that was not mired in cronyism and corruption, thank God he found a way to succeed with the LASD. Deal with it.

  • @ Uncle Aldo – You must be one hell of a thrashfire psychologist. You have really shaped this narrative pretty well I must say. I have judgements though!!. So tell me O bright shrink, did you test Johannes Jared Villanueva- you know AV’s son. Oh isn’t today graduation day for new recruits. There is a new convict joining our ranks. Deputy Johannes Jared Villanueva. Another star who is going to join Deputy Scotti. Welcome to the circus led by your ringmaster AV.

    You must think that everyone is as dumb, ignorant of the Department, venal as hell, and totally over our heads. There is so much chaos in the Ivory tower, it is not even fake news anymore! You can talk and thrash McDonnell like you like to ( scapegoating is the correct term ) but this current AV administration, combines astounding incompetence and consistent failure with pungent combination of arrogance, bullish stupidly , and a relentless, juvenile desire to run the Department dedicated not to serve the people but to serve AV. Hell they may get demoted to LT’s again or better transferred to Palmdale or Alta Dena – after all they are a collection of dead end LT’s ( who worked field training with AV), and Captains who are dead enders who are part of AV’s constellation.

  • “…A plea sufficiently lenient to avoid the revelations of trial.”

    THAT reading of the tea leaves is probably correct–trials have come to be the preferred venue where nasty things get revealed.

  • @ KD- You and dose of R – Circling the wagons again. A whiff of racism mixed with a healthy dose of elitism you detect huh?

    Now this is going to shock you. I was born and raised in Whittier in a Latino household. So get that stuff out of your pudge -gutted head. All you do is deflect and promote immature theories to support your dear leader AV. These antics are like the North Koreans and their ” Dear Leader ” stuff. You are just driving click-bait edge-case lunacy.

    Truth must hurt huh. All you guys need right now are flying monkey minions to resurrect the incompetence.

  • Well, Uncle Aldo, you’re certainly no insider if you refer to CRDF as CRDC. Your diatribe seems to be full of speculation, based on conspiratorial beliefs. Having dealt with JSID, I can tell you that they are loathe to file charges against law enforcement personnel, especially when they know the official will be seriously suspended or fired. And they hate to lose.

    In a case like Scotti’s, the decision to file a lesser charge was likely due to the balancing of the victims’ credibility against the negotiated prison term. How much longer would he have served if they had gone to trial, especially in light of the current trend to release prisoners early? Would they have prevailed on enough charges to make a difference? And yes, I know the law in this regard and understand that an inmate can’t consent to sex.

    I don’t really care to look into the timeline of the department’s knowledge of the allegations and how quickly McBuckles made an announcement. Realize he was a political animal and acted as such out of self-preservation.

    Some of Scotti’s sex acts were right in front of cameras. He must have known they could be discovered, but he didn’t care. Instead of some grand conspiracy involving Scotti’s coworkers or supervisors, I’d be more inclined to believe Scotti suffered from some sort of mental defect and got away with it until he got snitched off.

  • Enema, I asked for facts to support your wild-eyed claims, and you gave me two cases that fell flat. Got anything better? You say the crime rate drop is bogus, yet you fail to realize the department keeps those UCR numbers accurately and updates regularly. Sorry it’s not the fodder you were looking for. Same with hiring, which went into the toilet with your hero, the department is reporting a net plus of 370 DST’s hired for 2019, far better than the net loss of 200+ from 2018.

    Facts are not your friend, and the more you make me break out the dictionary confirms you are an elitist, and probably a self-hater as well.

  • The more insults you hurl at the sheriff and his son reveals your pathetic inner core of hatred and envy. For your own sake get a life. Given your obsession with the sheriff’s son you probably participated in the illegal release of confidential files perpetuated by the outgoing administration and board loyalists. Don’t get caught if I were you. Just a small piece of advice, trying to equate the sheriff’s son with a convicted rapist will not improve your fan base.

  • @ KD – Let me be clear as you are tone deaf. I have no obsession with AV’s son & no I am not a McD loyalist. What I do have an obsession with is hiring candidates who cannot help themselves from multiple run in’s with the law, or in the case of AV’s son disregard a Court order to attend a first-offender program. Hell 2 bench warrants were issued for failing to comply with the program. Do we have any hiring standards anymore. Your baroque and ludicrously convoluted facts – Hiring is Up 370+ you say. I bet they all came from ELA @ the recommendation of Big Cisto.

    So let me guess this right- you get all your information right from the top – from the horses mouth itself. However, I do know that you a.k.a Dose of R a.k.a Um are one and the same person. Your ” Dear Leader ” must be pretty lonely in the Ivory Tower.

    No Fanbase I would say.

  • Unfortunately the department will continue to be on the news for all the wrong reasons as the result of the departments lowering hiring standards. The captain of personnel bureau is simply a “yes man” and trying to make his next promotion by hiring enough people to appease the sheriff. Ask some the background investigators regarding the quality of candidates getting hired. The problems for the dept will double in the near future, as a result of these asinine changes in the hiring process.

    The captain and sheriff will reach their hiring goals, but at what price??

    C: you need to investigate the departments hiring practices.

  • I’ve talked to background investigators and I have yet to hear anyone claim that standards are being lowered. Under McDonnell academy standards were lowered to make up for the classes running half empty. Under Villanueva they don’t have that problem.

  • KD – I bet you have. So you are saying that the standards are higher under AV. Didn’t he just hire his son, who by the way would not have been hired by any other agency. How did he pass backgrounds.

    So the answer is NO. Standards are lowered. Just be honest. We are trying to fill bodies.

  • I have worked backgrounds -The statement by Keep Dreaming is categorically false. I have friends who still work in backgrounds and they tell me it’s just incredible. Theft ok- push the candidate through – DUI – good – stalking – good. Getting into fights at bars – good. No wonder we have classes full of questionable recruits going into the Academy. Heard they have even lowered the Standards there.

  • Keep Dreaming – I am sure you have talked to the folks in backgrounds. However, your claim that standards of hiring have improved under AV are false.

  • Keep Dreaming – I worked in backgrounds when Mcbuckles was Sheriff and no we did not hire any deuce bags. I still have friends who work backgrounds are they are just flabbergasted with whats going on in backgrounds. They say if you have major theft issues – ok you are good, if you have had DUI’s in the last 5 years you are good. If you have multiple Domestic violence assault cases you are good to go. If you have had 5 speeding tickets in the last 6 years you are good to go. If you have poor credit and have other employment related discharges you are good to go. We even hired AV’s son. No other agency would hire this guy.

    Talk is that the standards even at the academy have been lowered. Requests are coming directly from AV.

  • 9 Adam, they are using the exact same standard today that they’ve used since around 2006. If you worked backgrounds during McIdiot, then you should have known that. He never changed the standard either. Nothing has changed but the egg on the face of those who can only throw rocks at success. One DUI ten years old has never been a disqualifier going back three decades.

  • Apparently, Mr. Scotti may have had some introverted issues as well as some other social interfacing concerns with members of the opposite sex, which may have led to this behavior.

    Do not know the actual facts of the case, however I find it a bit incredulous that some of these female inmates were coerced (maybe, maybe not) into performing sex acts with Mr. Scotti.

    I do know that when hot dogs are served at CRDF, the atmosphere within the facility takes on a whole new persona. If I recall correctly, I believe the descriptive term utilized is “ladies night.” Whatever that may signify?

    Nonetheless, Mr. Scotti has brought shame, disgrace, embarrassment and a further tinge of tarnish onto the badge and department. Thus, casting a much wider net of distrust within the communities which the department patrols, while also lending credence to anti-law enforcement groups (i.e., BLM, MSM, ACLU etc.).

    Can the department survive this ordeal, while also changing the perception of our stakeholders and department personnel? In my opinion, yes it can. Although the LASD is a public entity, it must be operated like a business. As such, LASD personnel across the board must be held accountable for their actions.

    If supervisors (Sgt.’s, Lt.’s, Capt.’s, Cmndr.’s etc.) fail to do what the title states (supervise) then this organization will continue on this downward spiral.

  • As someone who sadly has been on the inside. I am a smart, yet obviously dumb, college grad and still somehow landed behind the wrong side at CRDF. Scotti is not the only perv in the department. I kept hundreds of texts and pictures as proof and my lawyer did nothing with it. I never pursued it further but I had to take the nasty “bus” before I got bailed out and the deputy straight became infatuated with me. Got it to some nice Instagram messages and him telling me he loved me. I also met another one in there who I ended up talk to from the day I got out. Turns out he was married but I didn’t know. Basically what I’m saying. These guys are straight horny bastards. But at the same time, I ain’t about to try and throw names out there and make money. I have a job and life and don’t need that, but if anyone else was In my position. The city would be paying out a lot more..

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