Two Former California Sheriff’s Deputies Charged With Planting Guns At Cannabis Dispensary
Two former Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies have been charged with multiple
felonies, including conspiracy and altering evidence, in connection with planting guns inside a medical cannabis dispensary in 2011 to justify two arrests.
Julio Cesar Martinez and Anthony Manuel Paez were both booked Friday and released on $50,000 bail; they’re scheduled to be arraigned on June 17th. They’re being charged with one felony count each of conspiracy to obstruct justice as well as altering evidence as a peace officer. Martinez was also charged with two felony counts of perjury and one of filing a false report.
According to prosecutors the former deputies wrote a report claiming they observed a drug sale which involved an individual in open possession of a gun. Martinez followed the suspect into a medical cannabis dispensary, where he claimed to have found a gun near a trash bin and another on a desk.
As part of the incident, two men were arrested, one for possession of an unregistered gun and one for possession of a controlled substance while armed with a gun. Charges against the men were later dropped after the sheriff’s Internal Criminal Investigation Bureau investigated the incident a year later and discovered video that was inconsistent with the report.
If the former officers are convicted, they face could face more than 7 years in prison
– TheJointBlog