LOS ANGELES, California — A former Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department (LASD) deputy who was assigned to investigate gang activity inside the county jails was sentenced on Thursday, November 5, to 67 months — five years and seven months — in federal prison for possessing more than a pound of heroin hidden inside Pringles potato-chip cans, which he admitted he was trying to smuggle into a county jail in the Santa Clarita Valley.

Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Central District of California

Michael Meiser, 40, of Lancaster, was sentenced by United States District Judge Fernando M. Olguin in federal court in Los Angeles. Meiser had pleaded guilty in July 2025 to one count of possession with intent to distribute heroin. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office reporting carried by MyNewsLA, he must also serve four years of supervised release after the prison term.

Source: MyNewsLA

The deputy who investigated jail gangs was working for inmates, prosecutors say

At the time of the offence, Meiser was working as an LASD deputy at the North County Correctional Facility in Castaic. According to his plea agreement, in April 2024 he agreed with inmates to smuggle narcotics into the jail in exchange for cash and payments made through the Cash App digital wallet, which inmates would arrange for Meiser and one of his relatives to receive. Federal prosecutors said the heroin was destined for inmate “shot-callers” appointed by the Mexican Mafia to control Latino inmates in county lockups — and Meiser was assigned to Operation Safe Jails, the very unit dedicated to investigating suspected gang leaders, according to documents filed in Los Angeles federal court.

The plea agreement sets out the handover in detail. On April 24, 2024, one of Meiser's relatives received $1,500 via Cash App from an individual connected to an inmate, and later told Meiser about it. Six days later, on April 30, 2024, Meiser drove his BMW to a Chevron gas station in Valencia and parked next to a Chevrolet SUV carrying two women, one of whom was associated with a jail inmate.

Source: U.S. Department of Justice (plea agreement account)

One of the women handed Meiser a plastic grocery bag containing two Pringles cans loaded with approximately 511 grams — 1.1 pounds — of heroin. The bag also held two white envelopes containing a total of $15,000 in cash, which the Justice Department said represented Meiser's payment from the inmates for smuggling the heroin into the jail.

A green backpack, a radio car — and detectives waiting at the gate

Later that day, Meiser put the grocery bag into his green backpack, which also contained his loaded handgun, and travelled to the jail in Castaic as a passenger in a fellow deputy's truck, passing the jail's initial security checkpoint. Inside, he placed the backpack in the trunk of an LASD radio car and then hid the two heroin-filled Pringles cans under computer towers inside that trunk, after removing the $15,000 in cash and putting it back in his backpack. He then went to the jail gym with the other deputy and met for several minutes with an inmate who was participating in the smuggling scheme, the plea agreement says.

As the other deputy began driving the truck out of the jail at the end of the day, LASD investigators stopped them and arrested Meiser. In the truck they found the green backpack containing the $15,000 in cash, Meiser's loaded handgun, his badge and his LASD identification. In the radio car's trunk they found the two heroin-containing Pringles cans. MyNewsLA reported, citing prosecutors, that investigators also found another $10,500 in a drawer at Meiser's Lancaster home.

Source: MyNewsLA

Why it matters locally: contraband drugs inside a jail fuel violence, debts and overdoses among inmates and put custody staff at risk — and this case alleged that the supply line ran through a deputy posted to the unit meant to stop exactly that trade. For residents of Lancaster, Castaic and the wider Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys, the sentence closes the federal part of a case that has hung over the North County Correctional Facility since Meiser's arrest in April 2024.

What happens next: Meiser will serve the 67-month federal prison term imposed by Judge Olguin, followed by four years of supervised release. The Justice Department announcement did not set a surrender date in the material published on Thursday, and no further federal hearing in the case was listed in either report.