Ex-Sheriff’s Deputy Gets 3 Years in Drug Money Laundering Case

Former sheriff’s deputy Ely Bryant was sentenced to more than three years in federal prison Monday for helping Pacoima’s notorious Bryant Family crack cocaine syndicate launder nearly $800,000 in drug profits.

Also sentenced were Jeff Andrew Bryant, 45, Ely’s brother and a reputed leader of his family’s drug empire, who received nine years and two months in prison and was ordered to pay a $100,000 fine for tax evasion and conspiring to hide his drug ring income from the Internal Revenue Service.

The brothers’ mother, 75-year-old Florence Bryant, was sentenced to two years’ probation for her role in the conspiracy. During her first year, U.S. District Court Judge William D. Keller said she will be confined to her home. She could have received five years in prison.