A former jail deputy at the North County Correctional Facility in Castaic received a sentence of five and a half years for his role in smuggling heroin into one of the nation’s largest jails.
U.S. District Judge Fernando M. Olguin sentenced Michael Meiser, 40, of Lancaster, to 67 months in prison, just three months shy of the Department of Justice’s recommendation and seven months more than the mandatory minimum, which Meiser had requested.
The ex-deputy had asked for leniency in a filing earlier this month, writing a letter to the judge to indicate that while he takes responsibility for his actions, he’s now a caretaker for his father, who has a progressing fatal disease.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office wrote in its sentencing recommendation that Meiser, who was considered by officials to be a trusted officer in Operation Safe Jails for the Sheriff’s Department, had a “front-row seat” to an overdose epidemic in the lockup.
While Operation Safe Jails was tasked with eradicating narcotics in county jails, federal prosecutors shared texts between Meiser and other deputies who mocked the inmates who overdosed.
His arrest was part of a joint widespread prosecution of drug smuggling in Los Angeles jails by the L.A. County District Attorney’s Office and the Department of Justice, which named dozens of defendants.
State charges are still proceeding against Meiser in L.A. County Superior Court, although a recent minute order from that trial indicated a “disposition,” or plea agreement might also be forthcoming. Meiser asked for and received Olguin’s permission to serve his federal time concurrent to any state time, according to a DOJ spokesman.
Meiser pleaded guilty last year to one count of possession with intent to distribute, according to his plea agreement.
While he was working as a deputy inside the Pitchess Detention Center, a 2,600-acre Sheriff’s Department property in Castaic, he befriended “shotcallers,” who jail higherups occasionally worked with in their efforts to tamp down violence inside the facility, according to Meiser’s sentencing memo.
As those relationships developed, he began to do the inmates favors, and then consented to smuggling for them, when he found himself in financial trouble with a recently purchased home, according to Meiser.
He agreed to smuggle narcotics in exchange for cash and payments through Cash App, which went to a relative of Meiser’s.
On April 30, 2024, he also was given a bag of cash and two Pringles cans full of heroin at a Valencia gas station, from two women affiliated with the drug-smuggling operation, according to his admission.
The Pringles cans had more than 500 grams, or a little over 1 pound, of heroin. The cash totaled $15,000 in envelopes — Meiser’s payment from the inmates. Meiser put the items in a green backpack, according to Meiser’s own admission.
“Meiser then closed the trunk, carried the green backpack to the other deputy’s truck, placed it inside that vehicle, and went to the jail’s gym with the other deputy. Later that day, Meiser met with an inmate participating in the smuggling scheme and spoke to him for several minutes,” according to the DOJ news release announcing Meiser’s sentence. “At the end of that day, Meiser got in the passenger seat of the other deputy’s truck. LASD investigators stopped them as the other deputy began driving the truck outside the jail.”
