Second Man Is Arrested in Cocaine Case

Los Angeles County sheriff’s detectives on Friday arrested a man suspected of being involved with a former sheriff’s deputy in buying more than two pounds of cocaine from an undercover detective.

Anthony Kirk Williams, 30, of Los Angeles was arrested shortly after 7 a.m. at a house in the 8100 block of Zamora Avenue in Walnut Park, said Sheriff’s Sgt. Larry Lincoln, a department spokesman.

Authorities would not say what they believed was the connection between Williams and former Deputy William Barr, who left the Sheriff’s Department on March 3. He was arrested the previous day for allegedly buying 2.2 pounds of cocaine in a sting operation, Lincoln said.

“There is a connection,” Lincoln said. “We are just not releasing what it is.”

Both men were arrested by detectives from the Sheriff’s Department’s Internal Criminal Investigations Bureau, which investigates crimes committed by department members.

After his arrest, Williams was taken to the Carson Sheriff’s Station and later booked for possession of cocaine for sale, transportation of cocaine to sell and criminal conspiracy, Lincoln said. He was being held on $50,000 bail and was expected to be arraigned Monday in the downtown Criminal Courts Building.

Barr, with four years’ service as a deputy, had been assigned to the North County Correctional Facility near Castaic at the time of his arrest. The facility is part of the sprawling Peter J. Pitchess Honor Rancho jail complex, which holds as many as half of the inmates in the Los Angeles County jail system at any given time.

Authorities say an informant told them that Barr had been seeking to buy cocaine, which prompted a monthlong investigation and the sting operation. He was arrested after taking possession of the kilogram of cocaine on a downtown street and giving money to the undercover detective, authorities said.

At Barr’s bail hearing, Deputy Dist. Atty. Alan Yochelson said the deputy planned to take the drugs to Tennessee and become a drug dealer. Barr, 25, of Bellflower has pleaded not guilty to felony drug charges stemming from the undercover operation.

Lincoln said the arrest of Williams has ended the investigation. “We have no other suspects in this case,” he said.