John Abel Baca showed up to the meeting in a Ferrari with a gram of cocaine in a medical glove.
The man he had come to meet was a customer, and Baca, an Inglewood police officer and the department’s union representative at the time, said he had an extra kilo of the product that he could sell for $22,000.
But Baca wasn’t working an undercover case. Instead, the 2021 meeting was being recorded by the FBI.
On Tuesday, Baca, 48, was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to one count of cocaine distribution and ordered to pay a $40,000 fine.
In a plea deal with federal prosecutors, Baca admitted to stealing drugs from the Inglewood Police Department’s evidence room and selling them on the side for profit.
“Former Officer Baca tarnished the badge and dishonored the majority of those who serve and protect our communities with integrity,” said Akil Davis, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office.
U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada echoed that sentiment in a statement, saying Baca “abused his position as a law enforcement officer to further his drug trafficking activities.”
In September 2020, Baca bragged to a potential buyer about stealing drugs and money during routine traffic stops, prosecutors said. He offered to sell “White China” heroin, an unlimited supply of black heroin and a kilogram of cocaine, according to his plea agreement. The buyer informed the FBI of what Baca was saying in February 2021.
The buyer, later identified as a confidential witness in court records, asked Baca what he should say if someone asked him where he got the cocaine.
According to court documents, Baca told him, “Tell them it’s from Mexico.”
Prosecutors focused on two meetings in their case against Baca.
In April 2021, Baca drove to a buyer’s home in his 2012 Ferrari FF with a small sample of cocaine in a medical glove. The meeting was recorded by federal agents, according to court records.
The buyer then turned the cocaine over to the FBI. The product tested at 75 percent purity, prosecutors said.
In a follow-up call, Baca agreed to sell the confidential witness one kilogram of cocaine. He met with the buyer at his business on May 4, 2021. During that visit, he drove a Nissan Maxima with no license plates.
He delivered a brick of cocaine wrapped in a plastic bag and duct tape, which he carried in a Target shopping bag, according to court documents. He demanded $22,000 from the buyer, which the FBI provided as part of his operation. Baca claimed he only made $1,000 in the transaction, but the government never got the money back.
Baca told a federal informant that he often traveled to Las Vegas to gamble at casinos and launder his money, according to court documents.
Baca was also accused of recruiting a second person to help him in his drug trafficking. That person, Gerardo Ekonomo, 42, of South LA, was arrested in Las Vegas in June 2021 with 3 kilos of heroin in his car, prosecutors said.
According to federal prosecutors, Baca called Las Vegas police and tried to intervene in Ekonomo’s case. He claimed he was Ekonomo’s “contact” and suggested he “settle the case” by helping them.
Ekonomo was eventually charged with trying to distribute heroin, and on Oct. 28, 2021, the FBI dug into his yard and found large quantities of drugs wrapped in black plastic, including 1,258 grams of fentanyl and about 462 grams of heroin, according to court documents. FBI agents also found evidence of a drug trafficking operation at his home.
Ekonomo claimed he was working for Baca as an informant and had permission to transport the drugs to Las Vegas as part of a law enforcement operation, prosecutors said, but he also claimed to be unaware of the presence of drugs in the yard.
Prosecutors said Baca had $300,000 in his bank accounts and a similar amount in investments at the time of his arrest in October 2021. The amount of money in his accounts dwarfed his household income, prosecutors said. He also owned or partially owned several homes in California and Arizona, as well as a 2018 Audi Q7, a 2001 Chevy pickup truck and a Ferrari.
Baca offered a “sincere apology” to the court, according to a statement from his attorney Victor Sherman.
He said he acknowledged having “dishonored the police badge that he will live with for the rest of his life.”
