LOS ANGELES _ A federal grand jury Friday indicted former Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca on charges of obstructing justice and lying to federal investigators concerning operations at the troubled county jail system.
The charges come days after Baca withdrew an earlier guilty plea to a charge of lying during an FBI investigation into the county's jails, opting instead to take his chances at a high-stakes trial.
Under the new indictment, Baca faces one count of conspiracy to obstruct a federal grand jury investigation, one count of obstruction of justice and one count of making false statements. If convicted on all counts, he could face 20 years in prison.
In deciding to walk away from the agreement he struck with federal prosecutors Monday, Baca opened the door to the government bringing a broader and more serious case against him.
Michael Zweiback, one of Baca's attorneys, said Monday he expected prosecutors to level the more serious charges, which mirror those brought against Baca's former second-in-command, Paul Tanaka, who was convicted earlier this year of obstruction of justice in the same FBI investigation.
Baca's decision came after U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson said last month that he would reject the plea deal, which had limited the former sheriff's prison time to a maximum of six months. Anderson had sentenced Tanaka to five years in prison.
After withdrawing his plea, Baca told a horde of reporters on the steps of the downtown courthouse that he had done so because of "untruthful statements" made by the judge and prosecutors about his involvement in a scheme by sheriff's officials to thwart the FBI's jail probe.
He did not specify what was untruthful. Instead, reading from a prepared statement, Baca referenced his recent diagnosis with Alzheimer's disease and said the inevitable progression of the illness had injected an element of urgency into the case.
"I need to set the record straight about me and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department on the misleading aspects of the federal investigation while I am capable of doing so," said Baca, who retired in 2014.
Baca could not immediately be reached for comment Friday.
