Paul Tanaka

On October 18, 2011, at a Board meeting, Supervisors Zev Yaroslavsky and Mark Ridley-Thomas held a motion to create a Citizens’ Commission on Jail Violence with the mandate of reviewing the nature, depth and cause of Sheriff’s deputies’ inappropriate use of excessive force in County jails and to recommend corrective actions.[15] In early 2011, the FBI launched an undercover probe at the Men's Central Jail, to investigate allegations of corruption and abuse.[16][17] The U.S. Department of Justice's civil rights division also launched a wide-scale pattern and practice investigation into allegations that Antelope Valley deputies discriminated against minority residents who receive government housing assistance.[18]

During Tanaka's tenure as Undersheriff, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a federal class-action lawsuit against Sheriff Lee Baca and top commanders, including Tanaka, for perpetuating a long-standing, widespread pattern of violence by deputies against inmates in the county jails.[19]

In September 2012, the Citizens’ Commission on Jail Violence issued a final report that is very critical of the Sheriff Department’s management, including Baca, Tanaka and other executive-level staff, accusing them of fostering a culture in which deputies beat and humiliated inmates, covered up misconduct and formed aggressive deputy cliques in the county jails. Tanaka was in charge of the Department's Patrol Division and its budget.[20][21][22] The report also called for the removal of Tanaka from the chain of command supervising the jail system, for statements that Tanaka had delivered, indicating that deputies could use excessive force against prisoners and that aggressive behavior would not result in discipline.[22] The report also noted that Tanaka had accepted campaign contributions from many department employees, furthering perceptions of patronage and favoritism in promotion and assignment decisions.[22]

On March 6, 2013, Tanaka announced that he would retire as the Undersheriff, effective August 1, 2013, during an ongoing federal probe conducted by the FBI into widespread allegations of abuse, misconduct and mismanagement in County jails.[23] Although his decision to resign was portrayed as being under his volition, Baca told Tanaka to step down because Tanaka had become a political liability.[24]

The plot to derail the federal investigation of the LASD supposedly began in August 2011, when Sheriff deputies retrieved a mobile phone from an inmate at Men’s Central Jail and were able to connect the phone to the FBI. Discovering that the inmate-turned-FBI informant was Anthony Brown, deputies had purposely hidden Brown from his FBI handlers, by moving him around different jails and changing Brown's name.[25]

On May 13, 2015, Tanaka was indicted on federal conspiracy and obstruction charges in the ongoing Los Angeles County Men's Jail corruptions investigation.[25][26] Tanaka was the eighth LASD official to be criminally charged based on actions taken in the summer of 2011.[25]

On April 6, 2016, Tanaka was convicted on conspiracy and obstruction of justice charges by a federal jury in a case presided over by U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson.[27] "The criminal charges centered on allegations that in 2011 Tanaka orchestrated a scheme to derail the FBI's jail investigation by intimidating the lead agent in the case, pressuring deputies not to cooperate and concealing the whereabouts of an inmate who was working as a federal informant."[28] As a result, Councilman Mark E. Henderson was appointed Mayor Pro Tem and served as acting Mayor of Gardena until the March 2017 election.[29]

On June 27, 2016, Tanaka was sentenced to five years in prison, for civil rights abuses inside the nation's largest urban jail system. He was also sentenced to serve two years of supervised release after he is discharged from prison and pay a $7,500 fine. He faced a maximum of 15 years in federal prison.[30] Tanaka planned to file a motion to sidestep his August 1 jail surrender deadline, and remain out on bail while he appealed his conviction. He surrendered Monday, January 16, 2017, to federal authorities in Colorado, to begin serving the prison sentence at a minimum-security camp in Englewood, Colorado.[31] He was released on April 19, 2021.