Ex-Los Angeles sheriff opts for trial in corruption case

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Former Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca withdrew his guilty plea Monday to lying about efforts to thwart an FBI investigation into abuses at the jails he ran, saying he wants to "set the record straight" at trial before he declines from Alzheimer's disease.

Defense lawyers said they offered to have Baca serve no more than a year, but they believed the judge wanted a sentence of several years and that was too much given the 74-year-old's prognosis and his desire to emerge from incarceration without having lost too much mental capacity.

The prospect that Baca will face a public trial as he declines from Alzheimer's is another dramatic twist in a corruption scandal that blossomed after deputies discovered an inmate was an FBI informant gathering evidence about civil rights abuses by jailers.

[...] earlier this year, as prosecutors prepared for trial against his top lieutenant, Baca pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators and acknowledged he had played a role in trying to derail the probe, even telling deputies to intimidate a female FBI agent with the threat of arrest.

Baca, who wore a gray pinstriped suit, white shirt, pink necktie and matching handkerchief in his breast pocket on Monday, took exception with the judge's remarks as he addressed reporters outside court and explained his reasoning for withdrawing his guilty plea.