LOS ANGELES – (INT) - Paul Tanaka, who was the second-in-command of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, was sentenced Monday to 5-years in federal prison.

Tanaka was convicted of obstruction of justice by derailing the LASD’s efforts to derail a federal investigation into corruption and civil rights violations by sheriff’s deputies at two downtown jail complexes.

Tanaka, 57, left the LASD in 2013 when he was the undersheriff.

In addition to the five-year prison term, Judge Percy Anderson ordered Tanaka to pay a $7,500 fine.

In sentencing Tanaka, Judge Anderson recounted Tanaka’s career at the LASD, his role in the scheme to obstruct justice, and “the incalculable harm you have caused this community.”

While he was the assistant sheriff in charge of the jails, Tanaka “perpetrated an environment of excessive deputy conduct,” according to Judge Anderson, who said Tanaka’s actions led directly to an increased number of use-of-force incidents against inmates at the jails. The obstruction of justice scheme was designed “to derail the federal grand jury investigation” and constituted “a gross abuse of the public trust.”

Last April, a federal jury found Tanaka guilty of two felony offenses – conspiring to obstruct justice and a substantive count of obstructing justice.

Story Date: June 29, 2016