John Abel Baca arrived at the meeting in a Ferrari with a gram of cocaine in a medical glove.
The man he met there was a customer, and Baca, an Inglewood police officer and union representative for the department at the time, said he had an extra kilogram of the product he could sell for $22,000.
But Baca wasn't working on an undercover case — the 2021 meeting was being recorded by the FBI.
On Tuesday, Baca, 48, was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to one count of cocaine distribution and ordered to pay a $40,000 fine.
In a plea agreement with federal prosecutors, Baca admitted he stole drugs from the Inglewood Police Department's evidence room and sold them on the side for profit.
“Former Officer Baca tarnished the badge and dishonored the many who serve and protect our communities with integrity,” said Akil Davis, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office.
U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada echoed that sentiment in a statement, saying Baca “abused his position as a law enforcement officer to further his drug trafficking activities.”
In September 2020, Baca bragged to a potential buyer that he had stolen narcotics and money during routine traffic stops, prosecutors said. He offered to sell “White China” heroin, an unlimited supply of black heroin and a kilogram of cocaine, according to his plea agreement. The buyer reported Baca’s claims to the FBI in February 2021.
The buyer, later identified as a confidential witness in court records, asked Baca what he should say if someone asked him where he got the cocaine.
According to court records, Baca allegedly told him: “Tell him he came from f… cking Mexico.”
Prosecutors focused on two meetings in their case against Baca.
In April 2021, Baca drove to a buyer’s home in his 2012 Ferrari FF with a small sample of cocaine in a medical glove. The meeting was recorded by federal agents, according to court records.
The buyer later turned the cocaine over to the FBI. The product turned out to be 75 percent pure, according to prosecutors.
In a subsequent call, Baca agreed to sell the confidential witness a kilogram of cocaine. He met with the buyer at his business on May 4, 2021. On that visit, he arrived in an unmarked Nissan Maxima.
According to court records, Baca delivered a package of cocaine wrapped in a plastic bag and duct tape, which he carried in a Target shopping bag. He demanded $22,000 from the buyer, which was provided to him by the FBI as part of his operation. Baca claimed he was only making $1,000 as part of the deal, but the government never recovered the money.
Baca told a federal informant that he often traveled to Las Vegas to gamble in casinos and launder his money, according to court records.
Baca was also accused of recruiting a second person to assist him in his drug trafficking. That person, Gerardo Ekonomo, 42, of South Los Angeles, was arrested in Las Vegas in June 2021 with 3 kilograms of heroin in his car, prosecutors said.
According to federal prosecutors, Baca called Las Vegas police and attempted to intervene in Ekonomo’s case. He claimed to be Ekonomo’s “handler” and suggested that he “solve the case” by helping them.
Ekonomo was eventually charged with intent to distribute heroin, and on Oct. 28, 2021, the FBI searched his yard and found large quantities of drugs wrapped in black plastic, including 1,258 grams of fentanyl and approximately 462 grams of heroin, court records show. FBI agents also found evidence of a drug trafficking operation at his home.
Ekonomo claimed he worked for Baca as an informant and was authorized to transport the drugs to Las Vegas as part of a police operation, prosecutors said, but he also claimed to know nothing about the drugs in the yard.
Prosecutors said Baca had $300,000 in his bank accounts and a similar amount in investments at the time of his arrest in October 2021. The amount of money in his accounts dwarfed his household income, prosecutors said. He also owned all or part of several homes in California and Arizona, along with a 2018 Audi Q7, a 2001 Chevy pickup truck and the Ferrari.
Baca offered a “sincere apology” in court, according to a statement from his attorney Victor Sherman.
He said he acknowledged that he had “disgraced the police badge that he will live with for the rest of his life.”
