Deputy’s conviction highlights rising drug presence in county jails
The inmate’s request seemed fairly benign inside the teeming, violent Los Angeles County jail. He wanted Sheriff’s Deputy Peter Paul Felix to smuggle him in some decent food.
The deputy knew he was breaking the rules, but he obliged. What started with hamburgers and pizza led to steadily more requests until the inmate asked Felix to perform another favor: smuggle in a marijuana package in exchange for about $600.
That delivery into the Castaic jail would be the first in a months-long series of drug carries the deputy made, netting thousands of dollars in the process. Inmates goaded Felix to bring them more, telling the young deputy that he wasn’t the only officer smuggling drugs, and that they respected him because he was from the “hood.”
