Former Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca disappeared from his home in San Marino on Sunday afternoon, according to authorities.
Baca, now 82, has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. The Times previously reported.
The former sheriff was last seen leaving his home around 4:30 p.m., authorities said. He was wearing a red, long-sleeved shirt and black pants, according to an internal department message. He should be wearing a metal medical alert bracelet, the message said.
“His family, friends and colleagues, along with members of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, are concerned for his well-being,” a Sheriff’s Department spokesperson told The Times on Sunday evening. “We are in contact with his family and offering our help and support during this difficult time.”
The department said it would provide additional resources to assist the San Marino Police Department with the search.
Baca, raised by his grandparents in East Los Angeles, dropped out of community college and was hired as a patrol officer with the Sheriff’s Department. He rose through the ranks, eventually earning a doctorate from USC. He worked for the department for several decades before becoming the county’s top cop in 1998.
Toward the end of his tenure, the department became embroiled in a scandal that eventually landed him and several others in federal prison. Low in 2014.
The 2011 scandal that tarnished his reputation as a reformer involved harboring an inmate who was an FBI informant and then threatening to arrest the agent leading the investigation. All 10 members of the department who faced charges in the case pleaded guilty or were convicted, including former Undersheriff Paul Tanaka, who was sentenced to five years in prison after a jury found he had helped lead the scheme.
Several other officers were convicted of civil rights violations for beating inmates and jail visitors.
At trial, federal prosecutors focused on Baca’s efforts to obstruct the investigation, claiming that Tanaka had led the obstruction and kept Baca informed about its progress. Baca’s lawyers argued that he never authorized any wrongdoing and that there was no hard evidence directly linking him to the obstruction scheme.
At one point, Baca planned to take a plea deal, but a federal judge said it was too lenient and the case went to trial — twice. After a mistrial, he was convicted and in 2017 he was sentenced. Sentenced to three years in federal prison.
He spent several years fighting his conviction in court. After losing his appeals, he began his sentence in 2020 at the Federal Correctional Institute of La Tuna.
He was released in January 2022, according to federal prison records.
