4 Sheriff’s Deputies, 7 Workers Accused of Credit Card Scams

Eleven Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department employees, including four deputies, were relieved of duty Wednesday pending the outcome of an internal criminal investigation into two credit card scams, one of which involved millions of dollars.

Sheriff’s investigators, who began an undercover sting operation seven months ago, say the deputies and custody assistants--civilians who work in the jails--used credit cards the suspects believed were stolen to obtain cash from automated teller machines.

Simultaneously, investigators discovered that the alleged ringleader of the scheme also was involved in a far larger and wider credit card fraud scam operating outside the department. Sheriff’s Department officials say they expect to make arrests in connection with that larger ring in the days ahead.

About 150 deputies fanned out across three counties early Wednesday morning, serving search warrants at 17 locations. Most were the homes of employees, but some were the residences of associates believed linked to the scheme. All of the employees were surprised by the undercover operation, department officials said.

Dubbed “Operation Easy Money” by sheriff’s officials, the investigation involves the largest number of employees since the department’s narcotics unit scandal in the late 1980s, when more than two dozen deputies were accused of stealing and laundering cash, among other crimes.

Sheriff Lee Baca, who plans to hold a news conference today on the case, said he considers the allegations against the employees extremely serious and noted that the worst corruption scandals typically begin with seemingly minor incidents.

“The whole idea that people would hire on to the department amid the pretext that they wanted to uphold the law and then violate it is just totally disgusting,” Baca said in an interview. “This suggests to me that I need to continue to weed out employees who think they can engage in apparent illegal acts.”

The case will be turned over to the district attorney’s office, which probably will convene the grand jury to consider indictments against the sheriff’s employees, sources said. The deputies and all but one of the custody assistants are likely to face multiple felony charges, according to the Sheriff’s Department.

The deputies who were relieved of duty--and who Baca says will be fired--are David Osorio, Richard English, Jessie Zuniga and Monica Planty. The custody assistants are Christopher Coleman, Josephine Phillips, Michael Habib, Tirrell Thomas, Meko Goodley, Timothy Miller and Hilary Ayers. All of the employees except Osorio are assigned to the Twin Towers Jail; Osorio worked at the North County Correctional Facility in Castaic.

Antuan Turner, an ex-convict who is not a Sheriff’s Department employee but is believed to be an associate of Osorio in the larger ring, was arrested Wednesday and held in lieu of $1 million bail on suspicion of possessing a weapon.

Investigators sorted through a large volume of evidence recovered Wednesday that they believe will further implicate the employees.

The investigation began when the department was contacted by an informant. From that point on, sheriff’s investigators uncovered lead after lead, which they allege suggested that Osorio was not only the ringleader of the scam involving departmental employees, but also appeared to have been involved in a wider, more complicated credit card scheme before joining the department four years ago. Officials allege that Osorio was involved with another partner who ran the larger ring, said Sgt. Michael Pippin and Lt. Mark Milburn, the lead investigators in the case.

The department is continuing its investigation into the wider credit card fraud ring to which Osorio allegedly belonged when he joined the department and is seeking Osorio’s alleged partner, among others.

“This investigation goes in a thousand different directions,” Pippin said. “We have the tip of the iceberg.”

Osorio allegedly amassed between $500,000 and $1 million--using hundreds of stolen credit cards--while operating as part of the larger ring before the Sheriff’s Department’s internal sting operation, investigators believe. Osorio and his suspected partner apparently received the stolen credit cards from several Postal Service employees with access to security bags, investigators said. Sheriff’s officials have alerted the Postal Service to their investigation.

Others in the wider ring outside the department apparently gained access to personal identification and Social Security numbers, as well as other information, such as mothers’ maiden names, by posing as credit card company employees or by pretending to be the person named on a stolen card. They also would seek increases in the stolen cards’ credit limits, mostly to withdraw cash, investigators said.

For the past couple of years, Osorio lived mostly at an inexpensive hotel and failed to pay the registration on his car, the investigators said. Still unclear is how Osorio spent the money he allegedly stole, the investigators said.

Baca, who received numerous briefings on the unfolding crisis, said he ordered the department’s Internal Criminal Investigations Bureau to aggressively pursue the employees, particularly Osorio. “The cop side of who I am said he had to be pursued until we had all the information we needed,” Baca said.

Background Checks Come Under Fire

With the sheriff’s permission, the investigators set up dummy credit card accounts. Using surveillance equipment, the department made videotapes of the employees receiving what they allegedly believed were stolen credit cards. Baca personally approved using more than $35,000 to carry out the sting operation.

Investigators say they monitored the recruitment of employee after employee into the scheme, then watched them receive the cards and later withdraw cash. Phillips was the only employee who apparently did not participate in the card-for-cash scam, but she assisted ring members by running a license plate check on sheriff’s computers, a misdemeanor, the investigators said.

Coleman, the custody assistant, became the link in Twin Towers between Osorio and the other employees, the investigators allege. He apparently arranged for the deliveries of the credit cards and the personal identification numbers needed to obtain cash from bank machines, among other things. The employees would then give Coleman a percentage of the money they received from the cards, investigators say. Coleman, the investigators allege, also would turn over a cut to Osorio.

Since most of the bank cards had a $300-a-day cash limit, the investigators say the employees went several times to withdraw cash with their cards, sometimes in disguise. The cards provided as part of the investigators’ sting were flagged by the bank so that whenever one was used, the department was notified. The Sheriff’s Department has numerous videotapes, some taken by the machines’ security cameras, allegedly showing the employees withdrawing money.

“This whole thing is a den of thieves,” Pippin said.

The internal investigation renews questions about the background checks conducted not only on the sheriff’s deputies, but also on the custody assistants. Baca announced earlier this year that he wants to substantially increase the number of civilians working in the jails, a proposal that concerns even some of those in his own department, given this crisis.

Planty, for example, was just several months out of the sheriff’s training academy when she allegedly took part in the credit card scam.

The investigation comes against the backdrop of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Rampart corruption scandal, in which more than 30 LAPD officers have been relieved of duty, suspended or fired or have quit. More than 70 are under investigation for a variety of offenses, including covering up unjustified shootings, intimidating witnesses, planting evidence and perjury. In addition, prosecutors have overturned more than 75 felony convictions because of the involvement of allegedly corrupt officers.

Baca said it is “rather bizarre” that the deputies became involved in wrongdoing that mostly netted paltry sums.