(Reuters) - Three Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies were found guilty on Wednesday of beating a visitor at a downtown jail and then falsifying reports about the incident, federal officials said.

The visitor, who was beaten and sprayed with a substance similar to pepper spray, had gone to the Men's Central Jail with his girlfriend to visit her brother, who was incarcerated there, the U.S. Attorney's officer for the Central District of California said in a statement.

After he was found carrying a cellphone, which is against jail rules, he was handcuffed and taken to an employee break room where he was beaten, Acting U.S. Attorney Stephanie Yonekura said.

The case against the three deputies was brought as part of a broader investigation by the FBI into corruption and civil rights abuses at county jails in downtown Los Angeles, Yonekura said.

Deputies Fernando Luviano and Sussie Ayala and former Sergeant Eric Gonzalez were convicted of violating the civil rights of the visitor, Gabriel Carrillo, and falsifying evidence in the 2011 incident.

Ayala and Gonzalez were also convicted of conspiring to violate Carrillo's civil rights by using unreasonable force.

Ayala and Gonzalez, who are awaiting sentencing, face up to 40 years in federal prison, and Luviano faces up to 30 years.

Two other sheriff's department employees who were also named in the indictment pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing.

Carrillo, who filed a lawsuit after the incident, settled last year with Los Angeles County for $1.2 million, the Los Angeles Times reported.





(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Eric Walsh)