Opioids, especially fentanyl and heroin, have led to an increase in fatal overdoses across Pennsylvania. District Attorney's offices are attempting to address the issue, which can vary wildly by location, by pursuing drug delivery resulting in death charges. Img 5459
Los Angeles, California – A deputy with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department admitted in federal court Wednesday to a plot that sounds more like a cartel screenplay than real life: smuggling over a pound of heroin into a county jail using Pringles cans, a grocery bag, and a department-issued patrol vehicle — all while assigned to a unit tasked with keeping drugs out of the jails.
Michael Meiser, 40, of Lancaster, pleaded guilty to one count of possession with intent to distribute heroin. He now faces a mandatory minimum of five years and up to 40 years in federal prison when he’s sentenced December 11 by U.S. District Judge Fernando M. Olguin.
According to his plea agreement, Meiser wasn’t just bending the rules — he was in active coordination with inmates and gang leaders to profit off narcotics in a closed facility, where street drugs can sell for up to 20 times their market value. Meiser’s assignment, ironically, was Operation Safe Jails, a unit created specifically to monitor and dismantle the very gang activities he was now enabling.
The smuggling operation came to a head on April 30, 2024, when Meiser met two women — one connected to a jailed inmate — in a Chevron parking lot in Valencia. They handed him a plastic bag containing two Pringles cans filled with more than a pound of black tar heroin and two envelopes carrying $15,000 in cash. The payment had been arranged through Cash App and sent to one of Meiser’s relatives just days prior.
Meiser placed the bag in his backpack, which also held his loaded handgun, and carpooled to the North County Correctional Facility with another deputy. There, he slipped the heroin-filled cans into the trunk of a sheriff’s radio car parked inside a secured jail zone. But by then, internal investigators were already following him.
Detectives from the Sheriff’s Department’s Internal Criminal Investigations Bureau watched as Meiser coordinated via text to have the patrol car moved into a more secure area of the jail — a request another deputy declined. The tailing investigators seized the drugs from the trunk, arrested Meiser as he attempted to leave the jail, and later found $10,500 stashed in a sock drawer at his home.
While Meiser’s plea agreement did not name the Mexican Mafia, internal reports reviewed by investigators suggest he worked with prison “shot-callers” designated by the gang to control internal rackets.
Sheriff’s officials said Meiser was “relieved of duty” without pay in March. He was one of 17 individuals charged earlier this year in a broader case alleging a conspiracy to traffic drugs into county jails. He is the only one so far to face federal charges.
“This incident represents a serious breach of public trust,” the department said in a written statement — a familiar refrain in a region where the line between law enforcement and organized crime can sometimes blur.
