Deputy Pleads No Contest to Felony Charges

A Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy accused of harassing minorities on his beat has pleaded no contest to felony charges of falsifying police reports. Prosecutors have agreed to drop one firearms count that could have landed the veteran officer in state prison.

Instead, Jeffrey L. Jones faces no more than a year in County Jail under the plea agreement. A former deputy who was the chief witness against him said she believes Jones is getting a “sweet deal” because authorities want to avoid a barrage of bad publicity.

“It’s a shame that his victims are being victimized again. Justice was not served here,” said former Deputy Aurora Mellado, who was trained by Jones last year before leveling a string of sensational allegations against him. “The Sheriff’s Department again is protecting their own.”

But Jones’ defense attorney, Richard G. Hirsch of Santa Monica, said the deal was a fair way of resolving “technical” violations of the law. “This was the case of a police officer bending the rules to do what he thought was right,” Hirsch said.

In a broadside attack against Jones and perceived patterns of racism in the department, Mellado testified last month that Jones had altered, destroyed and even fabricated evidence as a way of harassing Latinos and blacks in a South Los Angeles patrol area.

She maintained that Jones, 32, had falsely entered six bags of marijuana as evidence against one suspect. In another case, Mellado testified, Jones justified a questionable stop of a group of blacks by falsely claiming they had an open beer bottle and by having a dispatcher change the description of the group to match that of other people being sought.

Mellado resigned from the department in the wake of controversy over her allegations. But her testimony provoked a scathing attack from the municipal judge who heard Jones’ preliminary hearing July 10. Judge Glenette Blackwell said she found his conduct so “reprehensible” that she revoked his no-bond release and ordered him back to jail pending bail.

In the month since that hearing, however, Hirsch and prosecutors quietly worked out a deal that allowed Jones to enter four no-contest pleas in court Thursday to felony counts of falsifying police reports.

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In exchange, prosecutors dropped four other counts against him, including a gun-theft charge that can require a state prison term of up to three years. Mellado said Jones had taken a gun and dumped it in a drain near a day-care center and school.

Jones is to be sentenced Sept. 11 in Superior Court.

As part of the plea agreement, Hirsch said, his client will face a maximum of one year in County Jail--which, because of overcrowding in the local system, normally amounts to no more than three months of actual jail time. Jones also will face three years probation but would be not be subject to an often-imposed ban on traveling out of the county during that time, Hirsch said.

Prosecutors could not be reached for comment late Friday on the deal, and a Sheriff’s Department spokesman said he was unaware of the developments. Hirsch said that under the agreement, Jones--who was unavailable for comment--will resign from the force.

“He plans to start his life over again, find a new career and hopefully find something he can do that will be meaningful to himself and society,” Hirsch said.

“These were righteous arrests,” the attorney said. “There was absolutely no evidence Jeffrey did this for his own benefit or did anything other than act a little overzealously at times to keep the community safe. He’s learned the hard way you can’t cut corners.”