In Los Angeles County’s volatile political landscape, the ousting of Sheriff Alex Villanueva in 2022 was never the organic “will of the voters” storyline county insiders and their media partners peddled. As laid out in our series, The Coordinated Takedown of Sheriff Villanueva, the operation was built on manufactured scandals, choreographed leaks, and a coalition of insiders driven by ambition and personal vendettas. Now, newly obtained sources inside the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD), along with court records and internal investigative findings, point to the central architect behind it all: former LASD commander and failed sheriff candidate Eli Vera – Villanueva’s one-time ally who reinvented himself as the department’s most determined internal saboteur.
Vera didn’t merely join the pile-on; he engineered it. He emerges as the strategist holding the threads, coordinating leaks, coaching whistleblowers, and aligning with powerful adversaries – Inspector General Max Huntsman, the Los Angeles Times, District Attorney George Gascón, and operatives within the Board of Supervisors – each of whom had their own reasons to eliminate a sheriff who refused to bow to the establishment. This reporting uncovers how Vera weaponized internal conflicts, exploited media gullibility, and buried his own misconduct while orchestrating one of the most calculated political takedowns in recent L.A. County history.
Vera’s crusade was born from ego, not ethics. Elevated by Villanueva into the executive ranks, Vera launched his sheriff campaign in 2021 and immediately recast himself as a victim of political retaliation. After being demoted from chief to commander on August 30, 2021, he staged a press conference outside the Hall of Justice blaming Villanueva, declaring, “The undersheriff made it perfectly clear that the incumbent sheriff doesn’t feel that he could have a division chief running against him.”
But LASD officials made the legal reality unmistakably clear: Vera was an at-will confidential advisor. Acting as a political opponent while holding a role requiring loyalty wasn’t just inappropriate, it was prohibited. Legal precedent backs it. Capt. John Satterfield summarized it plainly: “Those who serve as confidential advisors to an elected leader cannot oppose him/her politically and keep their post.”
Vera tried to spin the demotion as symbolic. In truth, it was a prelude – because another story, buried beneath the narrative he sold the press, was unraveling.
In August 2020, Vera and his wife attempted to explain away a lost firearm by claiming she misplaced her purse at a church in Chino. But sources directly familiar with the incident say the gun was Vera’s, and with his political aspirations forming, he knew that losing a firearm could derail his ambitions before they even started. Chino Police initially handled the investigation, but LASD swooped in after aggressive maneuvering by Vera’s allies. The internal probe, riddled with inconsistencies and shifting statements, resulted in line deputies being held accountable – while Vera and his wife escaped consequences entirely.
The reason? Executive allies loyal to Vera controlled Internal Affairs and ICIB at the time. A suspect was arrested, yet the gun conveniently vanished. Vera proclaimed himself “cleared.” Sources call that laughable.
Once his campaign launched, Vera needed a political weapon. He found one in the March 2021 San Fernando Courthouse incident involving Deputy Douglas Johnson and inmate Enzo Escalante. Johnson was brutally attacked. Amid the struggle, Johnson’s knee made brief contact with Escalante’s neck. No injury, no violation, no criminal conduct – according to every official review.
But the political climate made even the appearance of a knee restraint explosive.
Multiple sources confirm Vera, then overseeing Court Services, leaked the video to Inspector General Max Huntsman and L.A. Times reporter Alene Tchekmedyian – a deliberate political strike disguised as whistleblowing. Villanueva exposed this network during his March 29, 2022 press conference with the now-famous slide: “WHAT DID THEY KNOW AND WHEN DID THEY KNOW IT?”
The Times cried “attack on journalism.” Villanueva clarified: only the illegal disclosure was under investigation. Not the press.
Internal LASD investigations later confirmed no cover-up, no wrongdoing by Johnson, and no obstruction by Villanueva. The scandal – the one that dominated headlines for months – evaporated under scrutiny.
But not before Vera took it to the next level.
He recruited a cadre of disgruntled executives, Commander Allen Castellano, Assistant Sheriff Robin Limon, and Chief LaJuana Haselrig, all of whom filed misleading, contradictory, and legally dubious claims. Their filings, strategically timed between May and October 2022, alleged Villanueva tried to bury the video, allegations disproven by timestamps, logs, and sworn declarations.
LASD’s October 6, 2022 response didn’t mince words: the claims were “frivolous,” “regurgitated falsehoods,” and clearly “timed to influence an election.” Worse, internal reviews revealed these executives themselves failed to initiate proper investigations, a dereliction conveniently omitted from their lawsuits.
Sources now say Vera personally encouraged Limon to fight rather than retire, promising political protection and BOS backing, a move that cost her more than $150,000 a year in retirement pay.
Even lawsuits like Lt. Joe Garrido’s, spun as retaliation for a $1,500 campaign donation to Vera, were part of the broader orchestration. Attorney Vincent Miller, who represented a small army of anti-Villanueva plaintiffs, weaponized the “deputy gang” panic for maximum political benefit.
Then came the most aggressive maneuver of all: Gascón’s secret grand jury.
Despite determining by October 2022 that Deputy Johnson committed no crime, Gascón’s office sat on the information while simultaneously pushing a politically-timed effort to indict Villanueva on obstruction charges. It failed spectacularly. The grand jury refused to indict. Internal memos and testimony later revealed prosecutors themselves admitted the case was “total BS.”
Meanwhile, the county’s multi-million-dollar deputy gang “investigation,” funneled to Kendall Brill & Kelly, produced nothing, no findings, no charges, only well-timed headlines engineered to politically kneecap Villanueva while bolstering the incoming Luna regime.
Vera’s fingerprints are on every stage of the takedown: the leaks, the lawsuits, the false narratives, the media manipulation, the manufactured deputy gang hysteria, and the DA-driven election interference that ultimately collapsed in court.
His own sheriff campaign? It imploded.
But the real story is this: what destroyed Villanueva’s 2022 campaign wasn’t accountability, it was a coordinated internal power grab, and at the center of it was a man who once sat at Villanueva’s side.
As one of my department sources told me: “Vera didn’t just play a role, he built the entire operation.”
Vera’s actions didn’t just contribute to Villanueva’s downfall, they helped trigger the collapse of the department itself. What he did mirrors the final scene of the movie “300″, where the Spartan army’s defeat on the battlefield was enabled by betrayal from within. In the film, the hunchback, denied a place in the ranks because he couldn’t fight, leads Xerxes’ forces through a hidden pass, surrounding the Spartans and sealing their fate. Vera played the same role inside LASD: a disgruntled insider, denied the command and prestige he believed he deserved, who chose sabotage over service. And just like in “300″, it wasn’t the enemy’s strength that brought the institution to its knees, it was the betrayal of one man who opened the back gate and ushered them in.
Strip away the lawsuits, leaks, and political theater, and the picture is brutally simple: Eli Vera chose vengeance over duty, and the legacy he left behind is blood on his hands.
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