For 18 days in the summer of 2011, members of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD) reportedly went to elaborate lengths to hide a federal informant from the FBI.
The operation, dubbed “Operation Pandora's Box,” was allegedly approved at the highest levels of the department. Los Angeles Sheriff Lee Baca and other officials maintain the informant was hidden for his own safety.
A grand jury is investigating the matter. So is the FBI. But the disclosures come at a time when the feds are investigating widespread brutality, abuse and corruption inside Los Angeles County jails. As part of that investigation, the informant, Anthony Brown, was embedded as a spy in Men's Central Jail, the county's largest and most troubled facility.
WitnessLA.com has been following the story from the beginning. For a full version of what they found, and its potential legal implications for the nation's largest contract policing agency, please click HERE.