Six months after his predecessor announced a criminal investigation into an alleged fraud scheme involving some of the agents responsible for issuing concealed carry licenses, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna confirmed this week that he had turned the matter over. to state prosecutors.
Two deputies were relieved of duty last year, and the sheriff’s department raided a Monterey Park gun store as part of an investigation that officials say stemmed from the discovery of “irregularities” in the licensing process for carry concealed weapons, also known as CCW. permissions
News of the investigation sparked controversy on the campaign trail, in part because then-Sheriff Alex Villanueva put his often-criticized Public Corruption Unit in charge of handling the case. That move raised concerns about the department investigating itself rather than referring the matter elsewhere.
“When I got here, we turned it over to the state attorney general’s office,” Luna told The Times in an interview Monday at the Hall of Justice. “That didn’t have to be in this building.”
A spokesman for the California attorney general said the office was “aware of the matter” but deferred comment to local authorities.
In an emailed statement this week, Villanueva took issue with the suggestion that the sheriff’s department should not handle the investigation directly.
“If Sheriff Luna claims that the fraud/CCW investigation ‘had no business in this building,’ then that just shows that he himself has no business in the building,” Villanueva said.
Former Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva in February 2022.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Although the former sheriff said the investigation began in late 2021, the case was not made public until September, when the department issued a short press release.
The statement said that detectives had served arrest warrants at “multiple locations regarding gun law violations” and that “evidence involving individuals who appear to have been involved in a possible long-term scheme to defraud the citizens of Los Angeles County.
The statement included few details about the specific allegations, other than saying that Villanueva was “disappointed” by the alleged wrongdoing and that the investigation arose as the “result of irregularities discovered in the CCW application process.”
The statement did not specify what those irregularities were, but, a few weeks later, the The Los Angeles Times published an investigation in the management of the concealed carry permits department.
Although Villanueva had repeatedly boasted of his success in increasing the number of people allowed to carry guns in public, The Times found that among the thousands who received such permits were dozens of Villanueva donors and others with special ties to the then bailiff.
These permit recipients often gave questionable reasons why they needed to be armed, received their permits faster than average, or were assisted by two deputies who worked directly for Villanueva.
Those deputies, Gisel Del Real and Carrie Robles, were relieved of duty in September, with detectives showing up at Del Real’s home to question him and seize evidence.
Los Angeles County Sheriffs Carrie Robles-Plascencia, left, and Gisel Del Real, right.
(Sheriff’s Department Memorial)
Three months later, Del Real and Robles filed a lawsuit in state court, alleging that they had been sexually harassed at work since 2020 and had only been criminally investigated in retaliation for reporting the harassment.
“The investigation relates to the department issuing CCWs to numerous individuals, some of whom do not meet the legal requirements to receive a CCW,” they wrote in their lawsuit. “Both plaintiffs worked in the CCW Unit but had ministerial roles and made no determinations about which individuals should receive a CCW.”
In court documents, county attorneys denied the allegations and offered a number of defenses, including that the county’s actions were “taken for legitimate, non-discriminatory, non-pretextual, non-harassment, and non-retaliatory reasons.”
Lawyers for the women offered no additional comment for this story.
There has long been a lack of clarity as to which entities are handling the case. Initially, the department said in its September statement that the arrest warrants were executed “in conjunction with state and federal agencies.”
Caps Armory, a Monterey Park gun store that was raided by sheriff’s investigators, shown in 2022.
(Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times)
But at the time, officials from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives told The Times they were not involved, and an FBI spokesman told a local television station the same thing. This week, Villanueva said his Public Corruption Unit had previously contacted “state and federal law enforcement agencies for help” but that “the Internal Criminal Investigation Office ultimately took over the criminal investigation. , which is standard practice and literally the core.” mission of that unit.
On the campaign trail, Luna criticized the former sheriff for his handling of the investigation.
“The sheriff quickly tried to cover his tracks and searched the gun store and relieved two deputies who may be involved in the scheme.” he said in October. “But of course, and this is critical, the sheriff should not and cannot investigate himself.”
This week he reiterated that point.
“How can you legitimately tell the public that your people are investigating you, even if you claim that you have recused yourself from those cases?” he told The Times. “That is an absolute conflict of interest.”
Times staff writer Alene Tchekmedyian contributed to this report.
