The Ghost: An Inmate Disappears in L.A. County Jail

Crimes of the Times

L.A. Times Studios

Christopher Goffard, Los Angeles, La Times, Los Angeles Times, True Crime, Chris Goffard, News, Society & Culture

4.6 • 42.8K Ratings

🗓️ 16 September 2025

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

After an inmate sucker-punches James Sexton, he defies the jail’s unwritten rules by failing to exact violent retribution, and finds himself ostracized by his peers. But he becomes an expert in the antiquated jail computer system and eventually wins promotion to an elite jail-intelligence unit. Leah Marx has a cell phone smuggled to inmate-informant Anthony Brown, part of the FBI’s increasingly ambitious scheme to catch dirty jailers. Jailers quickly discover the phone, however, and trace it to the FBI. Scrambling to hide Brown from the feds, the department enlists Sexton, who helps change Brown’s name in the computer system and dubs the plan Operation Pandora’s Box. For 18 days, from August-Sept. 2011, Marx struggles to find her informant. The effort to erase Anthony Brown from jail records showed how far leaders would go to shield themselves. A young deputy became central to the cover-up, and what began as a contraband phone case quickly spiraled into an obstruction probe. Reporter Chris Goffard, who previously told the story of Dirty John, guides listeners through this extraordinary clash between the Sheriff’s Department and the FBI.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You have a collect call from Anthony Brown.
0:05.1	An inmate in Men's Central Jail.
0:08.2	We wanted to confirm whether or not these allegations of bribery were even true.
0:13.1	If you're in the game, if you will, in L.A., you're going to ultimately end up at the L.A.
0:17.6	County Jail.
0:18.2	This was no longer a he said, she said.
0:20.2	Who were you calling on the 18, 19, 21st?
0:22.8	Damn, the 18, 1921st.
0:24.6	Who works for the feds, man?
0:25.6	I know you're working with the feds, dude.
0:27.3	We just didn't know how far this was going to go.
0:47.8	James Sexton was only a few months into his job as a custody deputy at the downtown L.A. jail when he learned the price of nonconformity.
0:55.5	The son of an Alabama sheriff, he had come to L.A. to make his name at the country's biggest sheriff's department.
1:04.1	He was cocky and ambitious and stubborn, but along with his badge and uniform, had come a series of unwritten, non-negotiable rules. His new tribe had a code, and when a robbery suspect sucker punched him in Easter 2009,
1:13.3	the code demanded retaliation.
1:16.0	And not that nothing happened, but not what the culture believes should have happened.
1:25.8	Jailers feared that allowing an inmate to assault one of them without serious consequences
1:30.4	would make such attacks contagious.
1:33.3	I was completely caught off guard, so I'll be honest, I was 10 pounds of shit in a five-pound
1:37.8	bag as far as I just got punched in the release area.
1:41.0	The guy did punch me, and I did not enforce the rules.
1:47.5	You mean the unwritten rules? I didn't enforce the unwritten rules. And that was the last,
	...

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