Probe of Parole Agents Dies After Deadline Missed

A yearlong investigation into alleged wrongdoing by Los Angeles parole agents ended with no discipline because corrections officials failed to act before the statute of limitations expired, the new chief of California’s prison system said Thursday.

Meanwhile, some of the parole agents suspected of wrongdoing were honored last week on the steps of the Capitol by the Department of Corrections, which awarded them Distinguished Service Medals for their “exemplary” work.

Corrections Director Jeanne Woodford said she had asked the inspector general’s office, an independent watchdog for prisons, to find out whether officials had intentionally delayed acting on evidence in the parole agents’ case until it was too late to discipline them.

Woodford said she believed “an honest mistake” had caused the case to “fall through the cracks.”

“But we want to be candid about this,” she added, “and I want the inspector general to come in and look at the entire process and see what went wrong.”

Brett Morgan, chief deputy inspector general, declined to spell out what was under investigation but said the inquiry’s findings would be presented to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Legislature and Roderick Q. Hickman, the governor’s secretary of youth and adult corrections.

The initial investigation into possible misconduct by four Los Angeles-based agents and supervisors on the Fugitive Apprehension Team also has raised allegations of a coverup in the prison system.

Begun in the spring of 2003, the investigation focused on two issues: Did agents improperly dispose of drugs and drug paraphernalia seized from parolees, and did they violate policy by cutting deals with ex-convicts, trading information for leniency on parole?

Investigators quickly determined that the agents -- Jason Marks and Aram Madenlian -- were not selling the drugs. What concerned them was that the agents appeared to be destroying the drugs and cutting deals with the parolees with the knowledge of supervisors, including some at headquarters in Sacramento.

As they sought to check out the extent of the alleged wrongdoing, investigators were hindered by two corrections officials in the capital, according to sources who requested anonymity for reasons of job security.

“People in authority, all the way up to Sacramento, were putting up roadblocks” to avoid calling attention to the practice of trading information for leniency, said one source. “They didn’t want [this] revealed.”

During the probe, for example, investigators sought permission to grant immunity to key witnesses in exchange for information. But such permission was denied by Richard Rimmer, the deputy director who oversees parole services, the sources said.

The internal investigators were also hampered in their ability to obtain certain documents relevant to the case, the sources said. They said Steve Moore, director of the department’s law enforcement investigations unit, insisted that his approval be obtained before any documents were released.

“He was trying to intercede and block the investigators from obtaining documents,” one source said. “In the end, the process was compromised.”

A spokesman for the department said that because of the inspector general’s investigation, Rimmer and Moore would have no comment.

Woodford said she was unaware that any officials had been accused of hindering the inquiry. Any such allegations, she said, would be included in the inspector general’s review.

The case comes as the state’s $6-billion-a-year prison system is experiencing a string of scandals, many of them involving its failure to adequately discipline employees who engage in misconduct. In January, a federal court expert reported that a “code of silence” tolerated by top managers had compromised internal investigations for years, protecting rogue employees from punishment.

Woodford, whose appointment as corrections director comes up for confirmation in the state Senate next month, said the department had launched numerous reforms to improve how it investigated and disciplined its own. Among them is a computerized case-tracking system that is expected to prevent investigations from going nowhere because a statute of limitations expires.

Under the law, the department must file administrative charges against an employee within a year after initiating an investigation.

In this episode, investigators sent a letter to Agent Marks in June 2003, notifying him that an investigation had been started, according to a copy of the letter provided to The Times.

This January, Marks was sent another letter informing him that one allegation against him had been sustained by the investigation -- namely, that he had failed to “collect, weigh, test, label and store methamphetamine evidence” according to department policy.

A second allegation -- of “using an informant without authorization” -- was not sustained, the letter said. Sources said that allegation was dropped because Marks’ supervisors had, in fact, sanctioned the practice of using parolees as informants.

Normally, after an internal investigation is concluded, the results are sent to a senior supervisor for disciplinary action -- in this case, Moore in Sacramento. Instead, the case file was wrongly routed in February to Internal Affairs chief Martin Hoshino’s office, where no action was taken.

“For some reason this case did not follow the normal process,” Woodford said. “I think it was an honest mistake, but the inspector general will determine that.”

Woodford said Hoshino called her Wednesday night and told her the deadline for pursuing disciplinary action against the parole agents had expired.

Hoshino declined to comment on the case. And neither Marks nor the others involved -- Agent Madenlian and supervisors John Widener and Mike Castro -- could be reached Thursday.

Last Friday, Marks and Widener were among a group of department employees honored at a Medal of Valor ceremony. Held just outside the Capitol building, the annual event was followed by a lunch for the honorees and their families.