In what some called the end of a chapter in local civil rights abuse and jailhouse corruption, former Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, who once led the largest department of its kind in the nation, was sentenced to three years in federal prison Friday.

Dressed in a blue suit, Baca showed little emotion as U.S. District Court Judge Percy Anderson handed down the sentence at the federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles. His wife, Carol Chiang, sat nearby inside the packed courtroom where Baca stood trial twice and where he was found guilty two months ago by a jury on charges of obstruction of justice, conspiracy to obstruct justice and giving false statements in connection to an FBI probe into inmate abuse at Men’s Central Jail back in 2011.

The judge hammers Baca

Anderson handed down the sentence after offering a lengthy prologue that was both an acknowledgement of Baca’s years of public service and his many accomplishments, as well as a lecture on how he betrayed the public’s trust while leading the department. To that end, Anderson hammered away at Baca, calling the circumstances surrounding the sentence a sad day for the community and a tragedy for the former sheriff. Anderson listed Baca’s sins one by one: Looking away while deputies abused inmates. Letting supervisors take the fall. Allowing his former Undersheriff Paul Tanaka, who is serving a five-year prison sentence for the same charges, to take control of an FBI investigation into the jails. Encouraging high-ranking officers to hide inmate-turned-informant Anthony Brown from the FBI. Agreeing to a suggestion that deputies threaten an FBI agent with arrest at her home. Doing whatever it would take to protect his legacy.

“Mr. Baca, you said all the right things, but very rarely did you do the right things,” Anderson told him. “You were all too happy to let Mr. Tanaka do the dirty work for you. This allowed you to make public appearances, to keep your hands clean, but it doesn’t make you less culpable.”

Baca is the 10th member of the department to be convicted of such charges.

Baca’s accomplishments recalled

The sentence came after Baca’s attorney, Nathan Hochman, offered an impassioned 45-minute plea for the judge to consider all sides of the former sheriff, from his nearly 50 years in law enforcement, to helping inmates with education, and even steering the homeless toward social services. Baca was raised by his grandparents, earned an associate’s degree at East Los Angeles College and served as a U.S. Marine. He worked his way up the ranks in the Sheriff’s Department and eventually earned a doctoral degree. More than 200 letters, whose writers include both lawmakers and former inmates, were submitted in support of the former sheriff, Hochman noted. In his sentencing recommendation filed last month, Hochman sought house arrest, probation and community services for his client, saying that his diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, his age, and his rank in the Sheriff’s Department all place him in danger inside any kind of correctional facility.

Baca will turn 75 later this month.

“This diagnosis is a sentence of its own,” Hochman wrote and reiterated in court. “It is a sentence that will leave him a mere shell of his former self and one that will rob him of the memories of his life.”

But in his five-minute rebuttal, Assistant U.S. Attorney Brandon Fox disputed the plea, saying that Baca abused his power and basically threw his deputies “under the bus.”

“If you take away the Alzheimer’s disease, he would be looking at four years,” Fox said.

Anderson agreed, saying that had it not been for Baca’s diagnosis, he would have handed down a longer sentence. The judge also took issue with Hochman portraying Alzheimer’s disease as a criminal punishment.

“Alzheimer’s disease is not a get-out-of-jail card,” Anderson said.

Baca is expected to surrender on July 25 and serve out his time at a prison either at a federal facility at Terminal Island in San Pedro or in Sheridan, Oregon. Per state law, Baca will still receive his monthly pension and benefits of $20,233 for the time worked before the date the felony occurred, county officials said.

Baca reacts to verdict

An intent to appeal already has been filed, but outside the courthouse, Baca remained defiant and admitted to no wrongdoing. He also said he felt blessed and grateful for his wife, his attorneys, and public support and he recited the core values that he developed while sheriff, which include fighting racism, sexism and bigotry.

“It was an interesting day in a chapter of my life,” he told a throng of reporters. “I would like to say for me, it was an honor to serve the county of Los Angeles for over 48 years. It is an honor for me to see the performance of such wonderful people that are deputy sheriffs in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and for the people who put their lives on the line without hesitation.”

Former federal prosecutor Miriam Krinsky said she wasn’t surprised by the sentence, given Anderson’s history with the case from the very beginning. Krinsky added that the sentence offers some redemption to the community and those who suffered civil rights abuses.

“They are the winners,” she said, but it wasn’t a happy day for the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, which was tarnished by the whole scandal.

The fallout

Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell, who won the seat in an election after Baca retired in 2014, acknowledged what the trial and convictions marred the department he inherited.

“The trials and the resulting convictions have been difficult for the men and women of the Sheriff’s Department who have always worked with integrity and continue to serve the public with honor,” McDonnell said.

Baca’s sentence came after a nearly yearlong series of events that began last July, when Anderson rejected a plea deal between the former sheriff and prosecutors of a six-month sentence. Anderson told Baca the sentence trivialized his role in the events that led to deputies covering up abuses, looking the other way and altering records.

The former sheriff then was ordered to enter a plea and stand trial on three counts: obstruction of justice, conspiracy to obstruct justice and giving false statements to federal investigators in the inmate abuse case.

Baca pleaded not guilty to all three counts. But after his attorney planned to introduce a specialist to talk about Baca’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis, Anderson split the trial in two. In December, Baca stood trial on two counts: obstruction and conspiracy to obstruct. The jury deadlocked, with 11 out of 12 saying he was not guilty, and a mistrial was declared.

Prosecutors tried Baca again in March on the original trio of charges. That jury found him guilty of all three.

Ron Hernandez, president of the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, said the jury understood that the Sheriff’s Department suffered a failure in leadership under Baca and Tanaka. But he also said deputies were blamed for supervisors’ misdeeds.

“We were disappointed by the sentences that were handed down to deputies in the past year for crimes relating to the scandal, and Mr. Baca’s three-year sentence does not ease the pain felt by those deputies,” Hernandez said. “Justice requires that those who directed criminal conduct should not be the least punished, nor should it parallel those who simply followed the directions they were given.”

Ronda Hampton, a vocal critic of the department and the way deputies handled the case of Mitrice Richardson, said Baca’s sentence does bring hope for change. Richardson was a 24-year-old woman who went missing from the Malibu/Lost Hills sheriff’s station in September 2009 and was found dead 11 months later.

“Former LASD Sheriff Lee Baca was the head of the department that engaged in multiple acts of violation of law and policy as related to the case of Mitrice Richardson and I am sure many other cases of injustice that have been swept under the rug and unnoticed,” Hampton said. “While he is not directly going to jail for what he allowed to occur to Mitrice Richardson, the fact that justice has been served in this current legal situation brings about some faith in the justice system.”