A Los Angeles County Jail Anti-Gang Task Force deputy was arrested for heroin trafficking, sources said

A sheriff’s deputy who was part of a task force focused on keeping L.A. County jails free of drugs and gang activity was arrested last week and charged with smuggling drugs into a county jail, according to booking records and several Law enforcement sources show.

Michael Meiser, 39, was arrested April 30. Jail records show he was booked May 1 on suspicion of an unspecified crime. Sheriff’s Department records show Meiser worked as an investigator at the North County Correctional Facility. He worked with the prison’s anti-gang unit, Operation Safe Jails, according to two law enforcement sources who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation.

One of those sources and another law enforcement official, who also was not authorized to speak publicly about the case, told the Times that Meiser was arrested for smuggling heroin into the prison complex in Castaic.

Jail records show Meiser was arraigned last week and released without bail. He did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment Tuesday and it was not clear whether he had retained an attorney.

In an emailed statement Tuesday afternoon, Richard Pippin, president of the Assn. of a Los Angeles sheriff’s deputy confirmed the investigation but offered little other information.

“We are aware that one or more employees working in our prisons are under criminal investigation,” the statement said. “All law enforcement personnel are rightly held to high standards, both on and off duty. ALADS will wait until we have access to all information obtained through the investigation before making further comment.”

A source said Meiser had long been under surveillance and was allegedly seen buying heroin in Los Angeles before returning to the prison facility where he was arrested last week. The source described Meiser’s arrest as part of a “larger operation” to combat drug use in prison.

A prison official said last week that the case was being handled by the department’s internal criminal investigation unit, which investigates alleged crimes by department employees. On Tuesday, the sheriff’s department only confirmed that investigators had arrested an employee on “felony charges” and that “the employee is relieved of duty pending the outcome of the case.”

Officials said the investigation was ongoing, adding that it would be presented to the prosecutor’s office “once the case is completed.”

A spokeswoman for the public prosecutor’s office confirmed that the authority was aware of Meiser’s arrest and that the case had not yet been presented for charges.

The main goal of Operation Safe Jail is to combat “the criminal activity of incarcerated gang members” and to disrupt gang activity, according to Sheriff’s Department records.

In 2013, employees of the Operation Safe Jails program were indicted for, among other things, attempting to hide a prison informant from FBI agents who were using him to investigate prison abuse and corruption. The ensuing deception and cover-up ultimately landed former Sheriff Lee Baca and several others in federal prison.

L.A. County is grappling with a surge in prison deaths, many linked to drug use. Last year, department officials said that of the 45 prison deaths of inmates, a dozen were drug-related – more than double the number a decade earlier, when prison populations were much larger.

In recent years, several of these deaths have occurred at the county’s northern prison complex. Last year, a quarterly oversight report showed that prison guards there skipped several required security checks before discovering an inmate who had overdosed. Records show prison guards only learned of the medical emergency after other inmates called them for help.

When a 29-year-old collapsed at the North County Correctional Facility in 2022, other inmates tried to save him by giving him the overdose-reversing drug naloxone. After his death, officials discovered that surveillance footage showed him stashing a makeshift syringe in his bunk and asking another inmate to help him inject it into his throat, autopsy records show.

Officials also later reported that they had seen him injecting drugs on camera several weeks before his death – but it is not clear from the recordings how he might have gotten the drugs in the first place.

To combat the problem, officials under the previous administration made naloxone readily available by posting the nasal spray on prison walls. In recent months, department officials have repeatedly cited the need for better body scanners to screen inmates for drugs — a solution that wouldn’t necessarily solve the problem of drug smuggling among sworn personnel.

Times staff writer Richard Winton contributed to this report.