Ex-Deputy’s Wife Denies Guilt at Trial

The wife of a convicted former Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy testified Thursday that she never suspected that her husband was skimming drug money even though prosecutors said she helped deposit and spend more than $200,000 in cash over a four-year period.

Yhvona Garner, accused by federal prosecutors of tax fraud and laundering stolen drug money, said she believed that all the cash the couple had accumulated in the mid- to late-1980s had come from legitimate sources including their salaries, the sale of property the couple owned and her husband’s outside business renovating and selling cars.

Her husband, Daniel, was convicted in 1990 of skimming cash while working as a sheriff’s deputy investigating major narcotics traffickers and money launderers. But Yhvona Garner told jurors that she knew nothing about the thefts until midway through his trial when she confronted her husband, and he denied wrongdoing.

“In a way, I wanted to believe him,” she said, “but thinking back to the condos and trips, I realized he probably had taken money.”

According to prosecutors, the Garners used stolen drug cash to pay for vacations to New York, Hawaii and Alaska and also helped finance several automobiles and condominiums. Yhvona Garner testified that she was unaware of any stolen money because her husband handled the couple’s finances.

She also denied the testimony of a prosecution witness who said Yhvona Garner once complained to other wives of deputies that she “was tired of living like a Mafia wife.”

Yhvona Garner was the final witness in a money-skimming trial that includes former Deputies Robert Juarez and Tyrone Powe as co-defendants. The former narcotics officers are accused of skimming drug money, laundering stolen cash and filing false income tax returns.