Sheriff Hires Son With Sketchy Background, Plus Nephew: LA Times
Written by 991KBU on July 22, 2019
More whiffs of scandal from the L A sherifs headquarters.
The son of sheriff Alex Villanueva has been hired as a deputy trainee … despite having a record that overseers say should raise questions.
The Los Angeles Tines has a front page story on this today … it was published on the web over the weekend.
Alex Villanueva’s 33-year-old son Johannes Jared Villanueva is working for the department as a deputy sheriff trainee.
He was hired last June … despite a record that department watchdogs said would generate scrutiny.
A decade ago … the younger Villanueva was the subject of two bench warrants for failing to comply with a court-ordered treatment program.
He had been arrested for misdemeanor drunken driving in San Diego … and after he screwed up on honoring terms of his probation … the probation was extended until 2015 … according to court files obtained by the L A Times.
And … the younger Villanueva until last week had an Instagram account that has a post making light of the Holocaust.
Minutes after he received a call last week from an L A Times reporter … the man’s Instagram account suddenly went private.
The L A Times quotes law enforcement sources who say all this would not necessarily prohibit Johannes Jared Villanueva from becoming a deputy … but would likely have drawn scrutiny from evaluators.
And there is no nepotism policy in the sheriff’s department.
The department’s new spokeswoman is former TV reporter Elizabeth Espinosa … She tells the L A Times that candidates are generally eliminated if they have misdemeanor convictions of violent crimes or sex crimes, but lesser misdemeanors are not necessarily disqualifying.
Johannes Jared Villanueva was cleared to be hired in March … after his dad was elected.
Johannes Jared Villanueva told the L A Times he could not speak about any aspect of his hiring.
Lael Rubin … a member of the Sheriff’s Oversight Commission … told the L A Times that the Internet posts by Villanueva’s son “raise a question as to the fitness of somebody to be a deputy in the Sheriff’s Department.”
That’s the same objection that some officials have to the sheriff’s rehiring of a political crony … a deputy who had been fired for lying about a domestic abuse case.
And there is more.
The L A Times also reports that Villanueva’s nephew has recently been hired as a student worker … focusing on social media … in the Sheriff’s Information Bureau.
This story was reported on the front page of the Los Angeles Times.
We have a link to that story … posted at the KBUU Newswire.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-07-19/sheriff-alex-villanueva-hires-son-as-deputy
