Deputy sentenced for jail drug run

Former Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy Michael Meiser was sentenced to 67 months in federal prison on Thursday. U.S. District Judge Fernando M. Olgui handed down the sentence for attempting to smuggle heroin into the North County Correctional Facility in Castaic. The jail complex is part of the larger Peter J. Pitchess Detention Center, located about 40 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles.

Meiser pleaded guilty in July of last year to one count of possession with intent to distribute heroin. Federal prosecutors said he smuggled approximately 1.1 pounds of the drug inside two Pringles potato chips cans. Sheriff's officials estimated the narcotics were worth about $226,000 when sold in small smears called papers. The case involved payments totaling $16,500, including $1,500 sent via Cash App to a relative and $15,000 in cash delivered in envelopes.

Meiser, 40, worked in an intelligence and investigative unit that monitored gang activity. Prosecutors stated that inmates paid him for the heroin. After receiving the digital payment, Meiser drove his 2018 BMW 530i from his home in Lancaster to a Chevron station in Valencia. There, he picked up a grocery bag from a woman related to an inmate. The bag contained the two Pringles canisters and the two envelopes of cash. He placed the items in a green backpack and carpooled to work with his partner, Deputy Jose Mungui.

While leaving the jail grounds, sheriff's investigators stopped the vehicle. They found the cash in the backpack and retrieved the Pringles cans from the trunk of the sheriff's patrol car. No other deputies were formally implicated in the smuggling scheme, but the incident drew scrutiny to the unit's relationships with inmates. An internal report by the Sheriff's Department's Internal Criminal Investigations Bureau noted that the unit acknowledged gang leaders wielded more authority over inmates than the deputies did.

In an internal affairs review, Mungui described being on the same page with inmate shot callers regarding overdoses and violence. He said the approach was intended to minimize chaos in the jail system and that Meiser had developed a rapport with many inmates. Investigators learned the extent of these ties in February 2024 through a series of phone calls. Jose Rodriguez, a reputed gang member and shot caller, and his alleged right-hand man, Jackie Triplett, made the calls.

Triplett spoke with a woman using coded language for drugs, mentioning white Jordans and black Jordans. The next day, surveillance cameras showed Meiser handing Triplett a bag and bedroll. In a later recorded call, an inmate in Rodriguez's module read off a string of numbers that decoded to a request for Pringles. Detectives obtained a warrant to place a tracking device on Meiser's BMW. They were tailing him when he drove to the Valencia gas station to retrieve the package from the woman.