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Crimes of the Times

The Other Side of the Door: The Case Against Lee Baca

Crimes of the Times

L.A. Times Studios

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

4.642.8K Ratings

🗓️ 14 October 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

James Sexton endures weeks of solitary confinement in federal prison, as prosecutors finally gear up to take Lee Baca to trial. Baca’s lawyers claim he has Alzheimer’s Disease. It’s late 2016, and the recent presidential race has made the FBI unpopular in liberal Los Angeles. Sexton testifies for the government and is released early, a humbled man, to begin rebuilding his life. The jury deadlocks at Baca’s trial, only one wants to convict him, but prosecutor Brandon Fox presents a more fleshed-out case and wins a conviction in March 2017. A judge gives Baca a three-year sentence. In his late 70s, he goes to prison. Anthony Brown, in prison for life, wins a $1 million settlement against the county, while Leah Marx is promoted to the FBI’s behavioral science unit. The conviction of Sheriff Lee Baca marked a rare prosecution of a lawman at his level and closed a turbulent chapter in Los Angeles history. What began with a smuggled phone ended with the county’s top law-enforcement officer in prison. The series is told by Chris Goffard, whose reporting on Dirty John reached millions around the world. Topics in this episode include: Sheriff Lee Baca trial, Los Angeles jail corruption, James Sexton prison, FBI investigation, Anthony Brown settlement.

Transcript

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0:00.0

We later learned about the obsession that both Mr. Baca and Mr. Tanaka had.

0:08.0

Isolation is just really one of the worst things that you can do to a person.

0:12.0

I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.

0:15.0

Mr. Baca was a popular figure. He definitely had some cults of personality.

0:20.0

This was an existential threat

0:23.9

to the Sheriff's Department, but it was up their own making because of what they did.

0:36.1

I was under shotgun escort. Like, it was the first time that somebody, like, I was around a gun that I knew could be used against me.

0:45.4

It was the first time that I was around people that were doing life without parole, like, as an inmate.

0:51.3

I'd been around lifers and stuff like that, but that's an entirely different setting.

0:57.6

That's like going to the zoo and getting in the cage with the tiger.

1:01.5

They know who you are.

1:02.7

You're a cop.

1:04.5

James Sexton, the son of a southern sheriff,

1:07.1

had come to Los Angeles looking to make a name for himself as a cop and had won a spot

1:12.8

in an elite jail intelligence unit. Now at age 29, his law enforcement career was over

1:19.8

in a particularly humiliating and final way. A federal judge had sentenced him to 18 months

1:26.8

in federal prison for blocking the FBI's probe into the L.A. County jails,

1:31.8

the saying Sexton had lacked the courage, quote, to stand up when he knew things were wrong.

1:37.5

When he turned himself in, Sexton was shuttle between different jails.

1:41.5

In one of them, a black jail guard gave him the autobiography of Malcolm X.

1:46.5

And look, it was somebody clearly telling me something, right? This is what happened.

1:50.4

That you're experiencing what marginalized communities are experiencing in America every day.

...

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