The attorney who uncovered the Orange County jailhouse informant scandal is arguing in new court filings that an investigation into the Long Beach Police Department shows “shocking deficiencies” with the oversight of paid civilian jailhouse informants that could implicate hundreds of criminal cases in Los Angeles County.
The internal investigation found a veteran homicide detective allowed a civilian jailhouse informant to remove his GPS tracking ankle monitor, in violation of a court order, during the 2015 Christmas holiday and then lied about it to authorities. According to internal investigators, that raised questions about why he was allowed to remove the monitor. And defense attorney Scott Sanders says the decision to not follow through with a wider inquiry casts doubt on the informant system as a whole.
Sanders would know; he’s the attorney who uncovered the Orange County jailhouse informant scandal in 2014. A subsequent Department of Justice investigation into the practice found the Orange County District Attorney’s Office and Sheriff’s Department violated the 14th Amendment by not disclosing information that could have benefited criminal defendants…