Former Deputy Given 5-Month Sentence

A former Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy who pleaded guilty to assaulting a patient at Antelope Valley Hospital while on duty was sentenced Monday to five months in federal prison.

U.S. District Judge Dickran Tevrizian also ordered Henry Myers, 30, to serve another five months in a halfway house where he is expected to undergo mental health treatment, said Assistant U.S. Atty. Jeffrey Rawitz.

“The government did ask to have him sentenced to 12 months’ incarceration, but the court felt like the defense needed a certain portion of time in a community-type setting, but still in confinement, where he could receive psychological counseling and treatment to address his abusive-type behavior,” Rawitz said.

Under a federal grand jury’s original indictment, Myers could have received up to 10 years in federal prison.

Myers was accused of pointing a revolver at a hospital patient and punching him last March. He was relieved of duty after a Sheriff’s Department investigation into the incident.

Myers pleaded guilty in October to a misdemeanor charge of violating federal civil rights laws. He has also agreed not to seek employment with any other law enforcement agency or security company during his incarceration or supervised release, expected to continue for a year after he serves time.

The plea agreement, signed Sept. 26, said that Myers, while on duty and in uniform, went to the Antelope Valley hospital on his own. He entered the treatment room of Guillermo Soto, who at the time was being treated by members of the hospital staff.

Soto’s hands and legs were bound by leather restraints while a nurse was trying to draw blood from him, the agreement states. Myers, without provocation, drew his service revolver and pointed it at Soto’s head.

Myers then punched Soto “three to four times,” the agreement says, on the upper left thigh.

A seven-year veteran assigned to the Antelope Valley sheriff’s station, Myers is in San Bernardino County Jail. Tevrizian revoked the former deputy’s bail last week at the government’s request in light of two restraining orders--one by Myers’ ex-girlfriend, the other by a sheriff’s deputy--against him.

In court Friday, Myers’ ex-wife asked the judge for leniency because she needs Myers’ financial help to support the couple’s three daughters, Rawitz said.