February 16, 2026 • 50 mins
While the DEA showers Hager in accolades, the LASD turns against him. But Hager fights back, and drags the department’s dirty secrets out into open court. Betsy and Hayley go through thousands of pages of court documents, including internal LASD memos and recordings, to find out what the department knows about Aujay’s disappearance.
Hear the full Valley of Shadows soundtrack here.
Binge the entire season of Valley of Shadows, ad-free, by subscribing to Pushkin+. Sign up on the Valley of Shadows show page on Apple Podcasts or at Pushkin.fm/plus.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
This series includes content that may not be suitable for
all listeners. Listener discretion is advised. Previously, on Valley of Shadows,
he said that.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
He received information that Ingles was a dirty cop and
he assisted Tom with his mess sales and his meth labs,
and the relationship was that they had their own little
enterprise out there in Para Blossom and it was narcotic sales,
manufacturing and illegal firearm distribution.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
So we rolled out.
Speaker 5 (00:52):
With twenty three different searchboard teams.
Speaker 6 (00:54):
DAFBI SWAT and then simultaneously hit these doors across the valley.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
We took down five out of six cells that nobody
else could. These are names that I knew for fifteen
years that nobody could get to jail, and we took
him all to jail federally.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
I was wondering if you could tell us about your
wall over here.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
I just put up some of the plaques that I
received some awards and makes me feel good.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
On solialth again, in his home near his handbuilt bar,
Darren Hagar has a wall covered with mementos from his
career in law enforcement, and it includes a sendoff from
the Operations Silent Thunder team.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
It's like a going away present, so your whole group
that you worked with would sign it as a farewell.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Operation Silent Thunder completes one of the biggest drug busts
in the Antelope Valley and then disbands in two thousand
and one, but not without a little fanfare. Hagar and
his task force buddies received nearly a dozen awards for
their work.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
That's an award I got from the Mayor of Los Angeles.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
This is a.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Da flew us back to Washington, d C. To receive
the Administrator where it's the second highest award, but nothing
from nothing from the Sheriff's Department.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
The LASD doesn't share in the accolades. One of Hager's
superiors even orders him not to attend the DEA Awards ceremony.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
He goes, Darren, I'm telling you, I'm giving you a directory.
You're not going I go chief, do what you want.
He can come arrest me in DC.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
I'm going to that.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
There's a photo of Hagar at the ceremony, but his
facial expression doesn't match the occasion. His eyes are fiery
and ringed with dark circles. I mean, it is a
very intense look that you have on your faith.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
I'm not happy in any of these pictures. I knew
it was coming down the pike.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
After silent Thunder wraps Hagar, hears through the rumor mill
that his days at the LASD are numbered. When he
eventually gets his walking papers, Hagar's shattered in my heart.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
I know I didn't do anything wrong to be fired
dismantled the way they did on purpose.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Homicide detective Larry Brandenburg calls his old pal as soon
as he hears the news.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
He goes, I'm coming right over, and I go if
I'm still around, knock yourself out. He goes, don't you
do anything stupid.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
I'll be right there.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
He came hauling us up and we just sat here
and had some chocolate milk and talked.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Brandenburg shows up for Hagar in his moment of crisis
because he understands what it's like to have your reputation
smeared by the department. How did your friendship with Brandenburg
kind of evolve after you were termed?
Speaker 3 (04:11):
We became closer, the families got together, and then we
got in the buffalo business and all that.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
This is when Hagar turns cowboy and starts a buffalo
farm with Brandenburg. They've got their word cut out for them, though,
because buffalo do not like to be herded. They're unwieldy
and they stand their ground.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Buffalo don't have the fight like cattle. Half Oh, They'll
rather stand and fight than run, and they win.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Buffalo are unique in that they don't run from a storm.
Some even run towards it, straight into it. And in
a sense, Hagar isn't much different. He never shied away
from the AJ case and he's not about to turn
tail now.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
I go, I don't know what to do, Larry. He goes, Oh, no,
you'll get it back. You know, you gotta fight it,
do all this stuff. And I'm like, I'm going to
fight it, no doubt about it. Good Lord, I'm scared.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Hager steals himself, rears back, and rushes head first into
a legal shit storm. He sues the Sheriff's department over
his firing.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
We did our job, and we did it right, and
we did it honestly. But the Sheriff's department is covering
up the corruption and that's why they did it.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Hagar versus the La County Sheriff's Department will take nearly
a decade to resolve, and in the process, the lawsuit
drags the lasd's dirty laundry out into open court. We
track down the court filings and go through a massive
internal LASD documents and recordings to get to the bottom
(05:55):
of why Hager was fired and to find out what
was really going on at the Sheriff's Department during the
John Aujy investigation. I'm Betsy Shepherd.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
I'm Haley Fox is Valley of Shadows, Episode seven the trial.
So they won't even give you the whole case file anymore,
(06:28):
the paper case file. You have to go on the
computers and it's all digitized, and you gotta just got
a click.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Through that way, got it?
Speaker 7 (06:37):
Second floor?
Speaker 8 (06:41):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (06:42):
This way. Betsy and I are in downtown Los Angeles,
descending two floors below ground to the County Courthouse archives,
and we're on a mission define the case file for
Hagar's lawsuit against the Sheriff's Department.
Speaker 9 (06:58):
Do you want to just take these two in the corner?
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Yeah. We set up camp at two computers in what
looks like an old bomb shelter with gray concrete on
all sides.
Speaker 10 (07:11):
All right, So here we go.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
We discover Hagar's discharge notice an official letter from the
LASD informing him that he's been fired. They cite two
reasons for it, one that Hagar carried out a rogue
and quote reckless investigation into fellow deputy Rick Angles, and
two that Hagar made false statements about these findings to
(07:35):
his superiors. But Hagar's legal team argues that he's a
whistleblower who is canned simply for exposing wrongdoing within the
Sheriff's Department between twenty three and twenty fifteen. There's a
volley of filings, motions, and appeals, but the outcome of
Hager's lawsuit against the Sheriff's Department is eye opening. Oh yeah, see,
(07:59):
this is holy moly.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Look at all of those documents. So we should just
take up residence here.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Oh for sure, We're just gonna have to like read
through all these things. During the lawsuit, the LASD is
forced to turn over a massive amount of investigative files
related to the AUJ case. Hager's legal team uses this
as evidence during the trial, and that makes them public records.
Speaker 9 (08:27):
Do you know what the most beautiful word in the
English language is no way tape tape.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Look at all those tapes.
Speaker 10 (08:35):
I know.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
There's a trove of recorded interviews that the Sheriff's Department
conducted in connection to Auj's disappearance.
Speaker 7 (08:45):
AUJ disappeared on June eleventh, Thursday, at about twenty three
to thirty hours.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
This is a recording of Detective Joe Holmes aka Joe Friday.
He was handpicked to take over the AUJ case from
Detective Larry Brandenburg.
Speaker 8 (09:01):
I don't want to pull myself that chess with J.
Let's let you guys know I am a good investigator.
Speaker 4 (09:05):
I really am.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Holmes is talking to the las d's Internal Affairs Bureau.
It's a key interview because the department uses home statements
to discredit Hager and the DEA task Force.
Speaker 8 (09:19):
The basic belief is that al J had stumbled across
some methmphetamine lab during this run and he was murdered.
Speaker 7 (09:31):
Man Rick Engels, Tom Hinkle and several other people were
involved in it. Remember.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Brandenburg says that after he was taken off the case,
he overheard as Captain Frank Merriman tell Joe Holmes to
quote take care of me on this this being the
AUJ case, Brandenburg presumes, but Holmes denies it.
Speaker 7 (09:54):
There rely made that decision in you know the politics involved,
they said, Joe, you're going to do it, or somebody
on the outside who knows nothing about anything here is.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Holmes is not exactly an outsider. He's had previous interactions
with Deputy big Foot Angles and met dealer Tom Hankele
while investigating the bombing death of a woman near Hinkle's home. Nevertheless,
Holmes gets the AUJ case, which means he gets first
crack at Hinkle after the Silent thunder agents bring him in.
Speaker 7 (10:24):
Well asked him what he knows about Deputy Jingles, his
knowledge of the disference of the deputy.
Speaker 8 (10:28):
The whole nine yards, you know, what do you know?
And what he said is he doesn't know anything about it.
He doesn't even know Deputy English. He said, he's hurt
of him, doesn't know him. He's hurt of it. That's it.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Tom Hinkle tells Internal Affairs the same thing, but in
his own colorful way.
Speaker 8 (10:44):
I have no gection about any of it.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
I don't have any fucking idea.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
This IA interview is the only recording we have of
Hinkle because Holmes says that his tape player malfunctioned during
his interview and great investigator that he is. Holmes didn't
even write a report on it, so the department reinterviews Hinkle.
When Hinkles asked about his connection to Deputy Angles, he.
Speaker 10 (11:10):
Says, I never heard of Raking doming check shit.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
I gotta say he sounds a lot like I imagined
someone called bearded Meta clause Wood gravelly voiced surly cussin
like a sailor. When asked about scary Jeff Sherry, his
close associate who implied Hinkle was involved in Auj's disappearance,
Hinkle says, I don't know what kind.
Speaker 8 (11:35):
Of damn ty battery wherever Jeff Scherry told him her.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
Got of his head.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
And that story from multiple informants about Hinkle saying Auj
stumbled on a meth lab and was taken care of.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
It's all about of shit.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
The man has a way with words. When asked if
there's anything else he could share about au J, oh
fucker was, Hinkle agrees to take a lie detector test.
Speaker 4 (12:03):
Fucking right.
Speaker 8 (12:04):
I have no reason that fucking telling and kosher.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
So Holmes call in a polygrapher.
Speaker 8 (12:11):
I believe Hinkle give him a polygraph plaster with flying colors.
Let me tell you something. If Pinkel had any knowledge
about criminal activity or foul played involved in a disparence
of Deputy Adja, he would be spilling his guts over
his table. And if he did, I wish he wore.
But he doesn't, and I'm convinced of that.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
And with that, Holmes clears Hinkle. He's still got to
answer for the drug charges, but he's out of the
Homicide Bureau's hot seat.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
When Hager hears the news, he feels totally deflated because
to him, Hinkle's the lasd's best chance of solving Auj's
alleged murder. With the right amount of pressure, Hager thinks
he could have gotten Tom Hinkle to roll on angles.
But now after Holmes gives Hinkle a pass, Hagar has
no leverage.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
I looked him straight in the eyes and I said, Tom,
you got anything to say? He goes, no, don't know
what you're talking about. Because Toholmes had his bat the
lead homicide investor here at his back, he was good
to go.
Speaker 5 (13:15):
What kissed me off was to come back and said,
oh yeah, do nothing. And then they tell me he passed.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
The polygraphs.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Dea Special Agent Kim Bailey was head of the Silent
Thunder task force about.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
Oh I to find that surprising but all right? And
then to.
Speaker 5 (13:31):
Find out from the Ali kind of shares Politifer that
he goes, no, he didn't pass, that he failed it.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Detective Holmes lied to Agent Bailey. Hinkle did not pass
the light detector test, then, yet Holmes cleared him anyway.
Hinkle's polygraph results aren't the problem per se, because polygraphs
aren't considered all that reliable. The dishonesty in question here
involves Holmes. Why would he lie about Hinkle's test results
(14:01):
for Bailey and Hagar, It's just another indication that Holmes's
investigation is a total snow job. I think that Holmes
wouldn't be so quick to send Hinkle on his way,
given the severity of the allegations against him. But as
Holmes explains to Internal Affairs, he never put stock into
those claims in the first place.
Speaker 8 (14:23):
They had no factual basis for anything. It's all rooms.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
And his mind is made up by the time he
talks to Deputy Rick Angles. Listening to Holmes's interview, we
discover just how toothless his investigation was. I mean, Holmes
didn't even bother to record his conversation with Angles.
Speaker 8 (14:44):
And I'm gonna say why we didn't team at this
point in time. We didn't feel that he was a
suspect in a case.
Speaker 7 (14:50):
We were not going to insult him to that degree.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Holmes didn't want to insult Angles. He didn't get a
recording of his interview with Tom Hinkle either, but he
assures the department he did his due diligence.
Speaker 8 (15:07):
We went to with homewrecker's financial wor everything on it,
there is nothing to suggest that Rick is guilty of anything.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Holmes says, Angles is accounted for on the day of
Auj's disappearance.
Speaker 7 (15:22):
What will we establish us of that day of that date,
because why if it's getting her hair done, he was
a home that day, he was at home.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Holmes seems to be arguing that Angles couldn't have murdered
Auja because Ingles was at home that day while his
wife was out getting her hair done. But if his
wife's not home to vouch for Angles, that's not much
of an alibi. Holmes lets him off the hook. Anyway,
my gut feeling.
Speaker 7 (15:51):
I got a straight, hard working cop, That's what I
think he is, if he's thirty, if he's the best
prook I have come within in my life.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Informants and witnesses allege that Angles is able to get
away with things by hiding behind his badge and reviewing
these cord exhibits, we can serve only see that at
play here. Holmes says he's got a gut feeling that
Angles is a straight, hard working cop, and so he
doesn't feel the need to scrutinize him, and he certainly
(16:21):
doesn't want to tarnish his reputation.
Speaker 8 (16:24):
I said, you've got bloomering in the window. That's my
opinion on that fact. I called, you might say, boy
given a rule a lot of guy's careers.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Instead, the Sheriff's Department ruins Darren Hager's The LSD claims
Hager conducted illegal searches and misrepresented what informants reported to him,
but Bailey says he was the one who wrote the
search warrants, the DEA vetted its informants, and everything was
done by the book.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Did anyone from the Sheriff's Department reach out about like
behavior on the case.
Speaker 6 (16:57):
Nobody from Maternal fairsh ever talk to me. I started
thinking well, did I not brush my teeth to take.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
A shower or what. I'm starting to feel no love here.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Bailey was shocked by how the Sheriff's department responded to
the DA's findings, just trying to wash its hands of it.
Speaker 5 (17:14):
I don't think that they wanted that to be true,
he says.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
This is all happening in the wake of the Rampart scandal,
one of the biggest police corruption scandals in American history.
In the late nineties. Seventy Los Angeles Police Department officers
were implicated in misconduct, drug dealing, planning, fall sevenence bank robbing,
and it brought the LAPD to its knees.
Speaker 5 (17:39):
So that was heavy in the news. I did now
offen the big scandal of the bucking LA Shares.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
They were like, no, wait, can we let this stun
go up?
Speaker 1 (17:46):
The La County Sheriff's Department was no less corrupt than
the LAPD. Captain Mike Bower says, they were just better
at hiding their secrets.
Speaker 11 (17:57):
We were in competition to see who could be more
corrupt than the other. I'd like to say LAPD won,
but when I look back on it now, I think
we bested them.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
I've reported on the La County Sheriff's Department for years,
and the type of cover up that Hagar and his
legal team allegend their lawsuit isn't unprecedented. The department has
a long history of corruption, and that history can offer
some insight into the way the department handled the AUJ case.
So we're going to try to understand Hager's lawsuit within
(18:45):
the broader context of the lasd's legal troubles.
Speaker 7 (18:48):
A stinging rebuke today for the Los Angeles Sheriffs to Boughton.
Speaker 12 (18:52):
A long investigation into drug money skimming culminated today in
more than a dozen criminal indictments.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
In nineteen eighty nine, there was the Big Spender scandal,
in which it was discovered that an elite drug unit
at the LASD was embezzling and extorting money from narco traffic.
Speaker 13 (19:10):
The deputies came large amounts of seized drug money before
turning it into the department. Then they allegedly divided it
among themselves and bought boats, swimming pools, vacation homes, and
helicopter lessons, hence the.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Name Big Spender.
Speaker 12 (19:27):
They discovered cash walled up behind deputy's drywall in their houses,
and they found scores of deputies involved in this.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Retired Captain Mike Bauer was stunned by his colleagues behavior.
The scandal was exposed by then Sheriff Sherman Block, who
invited the FEDS in to help investigate the dirty deputies.
Speaker 13 (19:51):
Sherman Block is the sheriff of Los Angeles County.
Speaker 6 (19:55):
I think we had individuals who succumbed to temptation.
Speaker 4 (20:02):
I just can't accept that.
Speaker 11 (20:04):
The philosophy of Block and Big Spender was if we
did something wrong, we're going to admit it and we're
going to make it right.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
We're not going to hide it.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
But Sherman Block died in nineteen ninety eight, the same
year Aujay disappeared, and there was a new sheriff in town,
the notorious Lee Baca. Under him, Bauer says the lasd's
philosophy changed to protect the department above all else.
Speaker 11 (20:31):
If the inside people are making political decisions and not
professional law enforcement decisions, you get favoritism and you get corruption.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Bacca is the Los Angeles County sheriff from nineteen ninety
eight until twenty fourteen, when he was pushed out and
later jailed on federal corruption charges.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Former La County Sheriff Lee Baca is now a convicted criminal.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Bacca convicted on three federal charges, obstruction of justice, conspiracy
to obstruct justice, and making false statements or lying. Bacca
and nine of his deputies were sent to prison for
their role in interfering with a federal investigation into lasd
civil rights abuses. Baco was found guilty of witness tampering
(21:17):
and threatening an FBI agent, but that was just a
fraction of the misconduct under Baka, his reign saw the
growing terror of deputy gangs.
Speaker 14 (21:30):
There's a different kind of gang problem in Los Angeles
County that people meant to serve and protect the population
of more than nine million people allegedly part of powerful.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Gigs going back decades.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
These groups form within individual sheriff stations. They have menacing
names like the Executioners and the grim Reapers, and they're
known for their violent beatings and killings. In other words,
they're gangs that operate under the cover of the sheriff's department.
Speaker 11 (22:02):
Now, if you read out the gang, you're not back
in the blue. You're both to back the blue under
any circumstance like unconstitutional policing. Fabricating evidence, falsifying search warrants,
using excessive and unnecessary force, and then covering it up.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
According to the Office of the Inspector General, crimes committed
by deputy gangs have cost the county more than fifty
four million dollars in settlement payouts. One of those lawsuits
was filed against members of the Linwood Vikings, which included
none other than Deputy Joe Holmes. It accuses Holmes and
company of being in a neo Nazi deputy gang and
(22:44):
committing acts of racial violence. It also accuses the Department
of helping to conceal their misconduct.
Speaker 15 (22:51):
So when you see somebody like Holmes handling somebody like
Hauj of missing deputy and allegations of corruption by deputies
in Namo Valley, well you have to say, well, why
was it the Linwood Viking that got this case.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Bauer has a theory that the department hand picked Holmes
for the AUJ case because he owed him one.
Speaker 15 (23:18):
What Joe Holmes did he did not do on his own.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
And Bauer thinks that's why the AUJ case shook out
like it did, because the department had a lot of
dirt on a lot of people, and that meant they
were loyal to the lasd's cause self preservation.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Operation Silent Thunder documented allegations against Rick Engles, of course,
but it also kicked up dirt on a number of
other deputies. One guy was said to be a patched
and active member of the Vagos biker gang. Another sold
guns to the bikers, And when one deputy's home was raided,
the task Force discovered a counterfeit money operation. Bailey was
(24:05):
there at the search and discovered something even more disturbing
in the process.
Speaker 6 (24:09):
Us It was the toy baby that was called painted
black Um going to hang him in his noose from
the ceiling, and then right behind it on the chest
door was his class photo of the La Shaf Department.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
It's just it's really like very near as unbelievable. I mean,
like when you see all this and then you guys
turn this information over to the Sheriff's department or what
happens next.
Speaker 6 (24:37):
I made one document was a growing document, and I
think it ended up being three to five pages of
bullet statements.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Bullet point statements detailing all the potential misconduct the Task
Force witnessed during Silent.
Speaker 6 (24:49):
Thunder, and I left to the Shriffs Department to do
their internal affairs investigations.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
To my knowledge, they didn't do anything with him.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Bailey says that LASD internal affairs never contacted him about
the disturbing noos effigy or any of the other misconduct
he handed over to them. But some Aneloge Valley deputies
had gotten word of Silent Thunder and they try to
get in front of any possible accusations by preemptively filing
complaints against Darren Hager. The group includes six deputies and
(25:20):
is led by Rick Angles. They say Hagar has it
out for them and is acting out of turn as
an internal affairs investigator.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Yeah, we weren't investigating deputies, but it's in your lap.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
You know.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
If I catch a deputy doing something bad, I can't
just say I don't worry about it. You know, they're
not above the law. But in this case, everybody was
above the law except for Darren Hager.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
Instead of going after Rick Angles and his cohort, the
department goes after Hagar. He admits his record isn't sterling.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
Am I an angel? Absolutely not. I've done a lot
of things wrong, but all these criminal allegations they threw
against So this is all stupid. Absolutely, If they were
that bad, why wasn't I prosecuted? Why did they wait
till the court case.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
In the early nineties, the LA Sheriff's Bertment was trying
to put a lid on use of force incidents among
its deputies.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
They came out with a list of one hundred guys
that was costing the county too much money on lawsuits
and things like that.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Hagar was on that list. He says it's because he
had a high arrest record, that he used force when needed,
and that ultimately the department ruled he was justified in
doing so.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
The use of force, it starts with protection of yourself.
You don't have time to think. You do what you
got to do, You do what you're trained to do,
and you take him to jail.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
The department brought up other things from Hager's past, allegations
of drinking and driving, and that he injured a man
while intoxicated. Hager says that yes, he did have a
drinking problem and did accidentally run over a guy's foot
while leaving a bar.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Jack Daniels and I became a really close friend and
got me in a lot of trouble made me embarrassed, and.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
There was an accusation by an ex girlfriend who also
worked at the LASD, that Hagar sexually harassed and physically
assaulted her. She filed a civil suit against Hager in
the department, which was ultimately settled out of court. Hager
denies the incidents alleged by his ex girlfriend. If they
did happen, those would be fireable offenses in my book,
(27:36):
so would excessive force incidents. But the department never went
after Hagar for those things. They went after him for
documenting misconduct by his fellow officers.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
I had too much information. They had to get rid
of the.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Messenger from the start. The LASD is clear on who
they're targeting.
Speaker 8 (27:59):
Now, anything we talk about here, can we go to
tell Hag.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Okay, this is a lead investigator for the Department's Internal
Criminal Investigation Bureau, and he's talking to Hagar's main informant, Keith,
the catalyst for the whole Silent Thunder Task Force and
any Kango wo work.
Speaker 7 (28:17):
But we worked for the sheriff directly, Okay, I worked
for the MAP itself.
Speaker 13 (28:22):
I can step on.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
I can step on Hagar like a little cockroach. He
tells Keith. We don't know if this LASD official was
trying to intimidate the witness, but if I was Keith
and I saw the apartment going after one of its
own guys, I'd say as far away from the situation
as possible, because working as an informant is incredibly dangerous,
(28:47):
especially without full backing from the department. The LASD says
Hager presented a false theory of what happened to aj
because some of his informants later recanted their stories. But
how many informants are going to stay the course after
the department makes it clear they've got Hagar in their crosshairs.
Speaker 5 (29:08):
It should shock the system. In their own letter saying
we're proposing you for termination because you presented a false
theory to LA Shriff's management. Are you freaking kidding me?
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Special Agent Kent Bailey.
Speaker 5 (29:25):
It's just like when do you talk about their theories
until you collect the evidence to confirm or deny.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
You know what I'd argue, Joe A. Holmes's theory is
fucking false.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
This is what Hagar argues, And after fighting seven long
years to prove his case, he finally gets his day
in court, and he finally gets some answers from the
person at the epicenter of the AUJ case, Resident Deputy
Break Angles. When trial day comes, Angles will be dragged
out of the shadows and into the fluorescent lights of
(29:59):
the courtroom where he'll be ordered to take the stand.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
So, yeah, this is the list of everything that's going
to be submitted as evidence in the case four and
eighty nine exhibits. Betsy and I are back at the
courthouse looking at the list of exhibits presented during Hagar
versus La County.
Speaker 10 (30:39):
Are there tapes of Rick Angles?
Speaker 11 (30:41):
See?
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Oh, here we go Ingle's IAB interview.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
So that would be Internal Affairs Bureau.
Speaker 8 (30:49):
Okay, okay cool.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Over the years, Angles has been questioned numerous times by
all sorts of lawyers and LASD personnel. Recordings of these
interviews are entered as evidence in Hager's case. In the
lead up to his trial, Darren Hager and his lawyer
were view these tapes and find plenty of inconsistencies between
the lasd's claims and the testimony of Deputy Rick Angles.
Speaker 16 (31:18):
State of full names, Bell, your last name is State
Ture employe number Thie Richard Augustus Eingles E. N.
Speaker 8 (31:24):
G Els.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
This is an internal affairs interview with Angles in which
they ask about his irregular behavior in another Pair Blossom case.
Speaker 8 (31:35):
Back on September twelve, three thousand and one, you got
a signed a call of.
Speaker 13 (31:41):
A vehicle fire in the Angelus Forest.
Speaker 8 (31:43):
Do you remember?
Speaker 13 (31:44):
Like?
Speaker 8 (31:44):
Yes, I do.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Okay, this car that was on fire. Turns out it
was Rodney Katziff's, that unofficial investigator who helped connect Hager
with a key witness and then suddenly went missing. Katzif
reportedly had information tying Angles and Hinkle to the auj disappearance.
(32:06):
But before he gets a chance to share these details
with Hagar, his car is found burned out and abandoned. Well,
it happened in Rick Engle's jurisdiction, and when someone reported
that the car was on fire, Angles was assigned to
the call, but curiously, he chose not to respond because
he says he heard from a neighbor that the car
(32:28):
wasn't on fire anymore. Plus it was the end of
his shift and he didn't want the hassle.
Speaker 16 (32:35):
And I thought to myself, Okay, fire has been put out.
I'll get it tomorrow. Man, it's under the highways burned up.
It was a burned up, Yeah, burned up man, Okay,
no big deal.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
It seems strange that Angles would choose not to respond
to a call involving a car on fire right near
a national forest, especially since it's his job to be
mister Johnny on the spot. No big deal, Angle says,
but what are the chances that he would be directly
tied to another disappearance near the punch bowl? La D
(33:10):
doesn't dig into Engle's explanation of why he was so
slow to respond to Katsiff's disappearance. In fact, the department
doesn't seem to push back at all, not even when
Angles admits that Detective Holmes give him a soft toss
interview and leaked information to him about the AUJ case.
Speaker 16 (33:28):
By the time Jill got around talking to me, he
just blatt told me, we know you didn't do this,
and that in so many words, it was more like
you know on your best witness.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
That doesn't sound like something a homicide investigator should be
telling a suspect, especially given that Holmes had only been
working on the AUJ case for three weeks at this point.
The detective also tells Engles his phone was being monitored
by Operation Silent Thunder. After hearing the news, Angles changes
the message on his answering machine, seemingly to taunt authorities.
Speaker 16 (34:04):
The FBI has a camp on the phone etna's launch
from the home to leave a message.
Speaker 8 (34:09):
Of the tone and I'll call you.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
Back with my own.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
Angles is yucking it up with the IA investigators over
this voice message, in which he's basically making light of
the John Aujy case and thumbing his nose at the FEDS.
There was the DEA investigating him during Operation Silent Thunder,
and the FBI mentioned is a reference to a widespread
rumor circulating at the time that the FBI was also
(34:37):
looking into Aujay's disappearance. They won't confirm or deny that,
of course, but when Angles is being interrogated by the
Sheriff's department, they don't ask about this voice message, or
it seems, any of his questionable behavior because their internal
affairs investigation is pretty much a gimme Heygre's attorney, on
(34:57):
the other hand, a guy named Rick Love, takes a
much harder line of questioning during the trial.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
The attorneys make their opening statements on September thirteenth, twenty eleven,
about eight long years after Hager first filed a lawsuit
against the department. His lawyer Rick Love argues that Hager
was fired as payback for exposing wrongdoing. The department says
the wrongdoing was fabricated by Hagar. Hager's got evidence to
(35:26):
back up his claims, which Love wheels into the courtroom.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
I think we have seventeen file boxes every day in court,
and he hired a moving company every day to move
them back and forth.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
Over the two week trial, Love calls dozens of witnesses
to the stand. So Brandenburg was a witness.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Yep, we see some informants on there.
Speaker 10 (35:51):
Get Kent Bailey from the DEEA Verry Staff from the
Sheriff's Department, Joe Holmes, the mother load. Okay.
Speaker 9 (36:03):
So Rick Engels was called to testify for six hours
and then there were two hours of cross examination.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
There aren't any tapes of the trial itself, so we're
gonna read from the transcripts. Haley will be reading the
questions asked by Hager's attorney Rick Love, and I'll read
the part of Deputy Rick Angles. Yes, we know there
are a lot of ricks in this show, but we're
gonna do our best to help you keep them straight.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
You were familiar with the trails and terrain around Devil's
punch Bowl, right, yes, And didn't you think that your
expertise would be useful in a search for a missing deputy.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
At this point, the county attorney objects, shutting down Love's
line of questioning. The defense tells the jury, we're not
here to try to solve the mystery of why the
deputy was disappearing. Nobody knows. The evidence has shown what
happened to him. He may have committed suicide, he may
be living in some other part of the world. He
(37:06):
may have been murdered. We just don't know. It's interesting
to see the county attorney acting kind of like a
defense lawyer for Rick Angles, being like, any of these
other things could have happened at John Auj. Let's just
get off this whole murder tip.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
Oh yeah. They don't want to go anywhere near the
Auj case. They're trying to keep it focused on Darren
Hager and Darren Hager alone.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
But the AJ case comes up again and again, because
what this trial is ultimately about is whether Hagar should
have been pursuing the informant's claims about Deputy Angles. Remember,
Detective Joe Holmes says that Angles had an alibi for
when auj disappeared. He says Angles was at home while
his wife was at the beauty salon. It's a detail
(37:53):
that Hager's attorney questions Angles about.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Did you tell Detective Holmes that your wife had a
beauty shop appointment on June eleventh, nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
No, my wife never goes to the beauty shop. She's
uglier than a mud fence.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
What is wrong when this man who says that nobody
says that, I've never heard that saying before.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
It's his folksy way of dunking on his wife. Dude,
why you gotta bring his wife in?
Speaker 10 (38:22):
Guy?
Speaker 1 (38:22):
I mean, what's even more confusing, though, is that he's
doing something that's so obviously against his own self interest.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Yeah, he's undermining what Holmes said when Holmes was trying
to give him an alibi.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
I'm just like, no, I didn't say that, which is
essentially saying no, I didn't have an alibi.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Which makes no sense.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
So one of these guys, Angles or Holmes has to
be lying mm hmm. And I don't think it's the
guy who's volunteering information about his wife being ugly.
Speaker 10 (38:54):
M m.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Hager's attorney continues to dig into this supposed alibi.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Once Joe Holmes told you you were not working on
June eleventh, nineteen ninety eight, were you able to figure
out what you were in fact doing that day?
Speaker 11 (39:09):
No?
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Did Joe Holmes ever review any phone records that you had?
Speaker 15 (39:15):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Did he ever come to your house? Nope? Did Joe
Holmes ever ask to search your house?
Speaker 8 (39:23):
No?
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Did he ever ask to review your phone records? Nope?
Did you tell Joe Holmes that you were home on
June eleventh, nineteen ninety eight, I don't.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
Remember what I was doing then. It's very strange to
me that, twelve years after Auja's disappearance, Angles still doesn't
know what he was doing that day. I mean thought experiment,
you're accused of murdering someone on a certain day, you'd
figure out what you were doing.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Then, right, Yeah, you would rack your brain and go
through your receipts and try and put together some sort
of timeline of where you were.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
And Angle's just like, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
It's almost like he's bragging about how little effort the
Sheriff's department put into their investigation.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
But Hagar's attorney doesn't let Angles off so easily. He
teas up Angles for his coop to Graw. He presses
him about why the Sheriff's department dismissed information from numerous informants.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Council asked you about this tweaker talk. It's not different
than any other social group, is it, where people get
together and talk about things. It's very different. And it's
different because they're criminals. No, because they do drugs.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
They do drugs, they steal. If you ever had anyone
come and tell you that they've seen a giant snake
that's sixty feet long and about five feet around, slithering
across the desert in the buttes, that was a rumor
that was going around in the tweaking community at one time.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
It's a little bit different than water cooler talk. Deputy Angles,
you saw bigfoot, didn't you? I did?
Speaker 1 (41:07):
I believe it was, and.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
You reported a bigfoot sighting to the Annalo Valley Shriff's Department.
I did, Were you a tweaker?
Speaker 10 (41:17):
No?
Speaker 1 (41:21):
This courtroom scene distills for me what so much of
this story is about. We have these two competing versions
of reality. Yeah, several informants come forward say this is
what happened. John A Day was murdered, and they're automatically
dismissed because of their history of drug use. On the
(41:43):
other hand, we have Angles and he's like, Nope, it
didn't happen, and he's automatically given credible narrator status because
he's a deputy in the La County Shaff's apartment.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
Yeah, I mean, it's really like Angles is just getting
a carte blanche get out of jail free card.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
Literally, the LSD would have final say on all this
if it weren't for the fact that Hagar puts that
whole line of reasoning on trial. Hagar's lawyer, in his
closing argument says, Darren Hager should still be a deputy
sheriff and Darren Hager is not a deputy sheriff because
(42:21):
he did his job, He did as he was ordered,
and he did it in a context of a sheriff's
department that did not want to hear what they were
being told, would not confront the issues they were being told,
and instead decided to cover up and bury the entire issue,
and the issue ladies and gentlemen is very simply corruption
within the Sheriff's department.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
Darren Hagar has been waiting a long time for this
moment to tell his side of the story. He wants
to be vindicated, to show that he was fired for
doing the right thing. And for Hagar, there's a lot
riding on the outcome of the trial because the disgrace
of being fired followed him around like a dark cloud.
Hagar had tried to start again. He looked for jobs
(43:09):
and security and private investigation.
Speaker 3 (43:12):
It's hard to get a job when you say, yeah,
I just got fired because they said I was lying
on all my police reports. A lot of those jobs
just went nowhere. It was a dead end. As soon
as I went through my.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Interview, nothing panned out. He filed for bankruptcy and didn't
know how he was going to support his family. On
top of everything, Hager was shunned and isolated, and the
one friend he had held onto homicide detective Larry Brandenburg,
that relationship would go south too.
Speaker 3 (43:44):
Him and I went into the Buffalo business together, and
that he never do business with friends.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
The two argued over finances and workloads and ultimately had
a falling out that led to the dissolution of the company.
Speaker 3 (43:58):
Well, didn't see eye to eye, and I have nothing
against Larry about what he did or what he didn't do.
He had some things against me because I didn't put
in the money that he did since I was fired
and thing like that. So he was pretty upset with
me and he just split and that was into that.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
After years of emotional turmoil and being put through the
legal ringer, Hagar is ready to put this chapter of
life behind him.
Speaker 3 (44:25):
So you had to start from step one, and that's
what I did, and the same time as fighting the
case in court for years and years and years.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
And now the time has finally come for the case
to be decided. After two days of deliberation, the jury
files back into the courtroom. Hager and his lawyer Rick
Love brace for their judgment.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
I remember when the jury read the verdict, Rick gives
me a big hug and everything he goes congratulations.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
Hagar wins his suit and the court awards him four
point five million dollars in damages.
Speaker 3 (45:03):
The one guy a foreman order, He goes, I hope
this will help you get your life back in order.
And I got thank you for seeing our side of
the story, Rick and I went out and had one
beer after the court and then I was it and
I went back to the hotel. I called my ex
wife to tell her I think my son's going to
be all right. That's all I remember.
Speaker 4 (45:24):
I left it at that.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
The County of La later appeals the court's decision, and
Hager's payout is cut in half. The money he does
get quickly dissipates between lawyer fees and living expenses, but
Hager says it was never about the money. He accomplished
what he set out to do to prove that he
was fired for doing his job, a job that towards
(45:52):
the end included putting away some of the Antelope Valleys
heavy hitting meth suppliers. Tom Hinkel was charged with conspiracy
to distribute methamphetamine and was sentenced to almost five years
in prison. And then there was outlaw biker big Rick,
the guy who allegedly bragged about killing Auj in the
punch bowl and then showed a woman where the deputy
(46:14):
had been buried. Big Rick was charged with conspiracy to
manufacture and distribute meth and sentenced to eleven years in prison.
After that, Hagar took the La County Sheriff's Department to
task and slayed his goliath.
Speaker 3 (46:31):
They lost the battle, but not really sure if they
won the laureate or not.
Speaker 2 (46:38):
That's because the Sheriff's Department is still sitting on the
Auj case. They allowed Deputy Angles to continue on as
the resident Deputy of Pair Blossom, while Hagar continues to
be haunted by the whole ordeal.
Speaker 3 (46:53):
I don't forget about the day I die to my
brain's not working anymore. I kicked myself in the ass
for it all the time, because I think I could
have solved it. At least John would have had maybe
a burial or close case.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
We thought this was where the story was going to end,
but then we discovered that back in two thousand and six,
something happened that seems to validate Hagar and Brandenburg's investigation
into Rick Angles. A young woman and her father were
shot inside Deputy angles home with Deputy Angles gun. It
(47:35):
was a horrific scene, but most shocking of all these
suspicious deaths were quickly ruled suicides, and just like in
the Aujay case, the La County Sheriff's Department tried to
bury the matter, but a long overdue reconciliation between two
(47:55):
former Buffalo farmers might help expose why so many suspicious
deaths have piled up in the Devil's Punch Bowl area.
Speaker 3 (48:05):
So with all the stink about angles, wouldn't you think
you know.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
What this guy?
Speaker 3 (48:10):
If he did this, he is a stole, cold blooded killer.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
That's next time on the final episode of Valley of Shadows.
(48:46):
If you have any information or tips related to the
disappearance of John Aujay.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
Please call two one three two six two nine eight
eight nine or email Shadows at Pushkin dot FM. Valley
of Shadows is reported, written and produced by us Haley
Fox and Betsy Shepherd. Our editor is Dianne Hodson. Our
executive producers are Jacob Smith and Alexandra Garreton. Original music
(49:16):
by Jake Gorsky, Ray Lynch, Mike Jersich, and Hayden Gardner.
Sound designed by Jake Gorsky, fact checking by Aica Robbins.
Additional production support by Sonya Gerwy and Our show art
was designed by Sean Harney and Betsy Shepherd. Special thanks
to Nick White for show art photography. Valley of Shadows
(49:39):
is a production of Pushkin Industries. To find more Pushkin Podcasts.
Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you
listen to podcasts from Type two Fun. We're Haley and Betsy.
See you next week.
Speaker 1 (50:18):
Subscribe to Pushkin Plus to hear the entire season of
Valley of Shadows ad free starting January twelfth. You'll also
get bonus episodes, full audiobooks, and early ad free listening
from your favorite Pushkin hosts and authors. Find Pushkin Plus
on the Valley of Shadows show page on Apple Podcasts.
We're at pushkin dot fm, slash plus. Thanks for your support.
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
This series includes content that may not be suitable for
all listeners. Listener discretion is advised. Previously, on Valley of Shadows,
he said that.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
He received information that Ingles was a dirty cop and
he assisted Tom with his mess sales and his meth labs,
and the relationship was that they had their own little
enterprise out there in Para Blossom and it was narcotic sales,
manufacturing and illegal firearm distribution.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
So we rolled out.
Speaker 5 (00:52):
With twenty three different searchboard teams.
Speaker 6 (00:54):
DAFBI SWAT and then simultaneously hit these doors across the valley.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
We took down five out of six cells that nobody
else could. These are names that I knew for fifteen
years that nobody could get to jail, and we took
him all to jail federally.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
I was wondering if you could tell us about your
wall over here.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
I just put up some of the plaques that I
received some awards and makes me feel good.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
On solialth again, in his home near his handbuilt bar,
Darren Hagar has a wall covered with mementos from his
career in law enforcement, and it includes a sendoff from
the Operations Silent Thunder team.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
It's like a going away present, so your whole group
that you worked with would sign it as a farewell.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
Operation Silent Thunder completes one of the biggest drug busts
in the Antelope Valley and then disbands in two thousand
and one, but not without a little fanfare. Hagar and
his task force buddies received nearly a dozen awards for
their work.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
That's an award I got from the Mayor of Los Angeles.
Speaker 4 (02:16):
This is a.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Da flew us back to Washington, d C. To receive
the Administrator where it's the second highest award, but nothing
from nothing from the Sheriff's Department.
Speaker 1 (02:32):
The LASD doesn't share in the accolades. One of Hager's
superiors even orders him not to attend the DEA Awards ceremony.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
He goes, Darren, I'm telling you, I'm giving you a directory.
You're not going I go chief, do what you want.
He can come arrest me in DC.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
I'm going to that.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
There's a photo of Hagar at the ceremony, but his
facial expression doesn't match the occasion. His eyes are fiery
and ringed with dark circles. I mean, it is a
very intense look that you have on your faith.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
I'm not happy in any of these pictures. I knew
it was coming down the pike.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
After silent Thunder wraps Hagar, hears through the rumor mill
that his days at the LASD are numbered. When he
eventually gets his walking papers, Hagar's shattered in my heart.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
I know I didn't do anything wrong to be fired
dismantled the way they did on purpose.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Homicide detective Larry Brandenburg calls his old pal as soon
as he hears the news.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
He goes, I'm coming right over, and I go if
I'm still around, knock yourself out. He goes, don't you
do anything stupid.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
I'll be right there.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
He came hauling us up and we just sat here
and had some chocolate milk and talked.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Brandenburg shows up for Hagar in his moment of crisis
because he understands what it's like to have your reputation
smeared by the department. How did your friendship with Brandenburg
kind of evolve after you were termed?
Speaker 3 (04:11):
We became closer, the families got together, and then we
got in the buffalo business and all that.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
This is when Hagar turns cowboy and starts a buffalo
farm with Brandenburg. They've got their word cut out for them, though,
because buffalo do not like to be herded. They're unwieldy
and they stand their ground.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Buffalo don't have the fight like cattle. Half Oh, They'll
rather stand and fight than run, and they win.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Buffalo are unique in that they don't run from a storm.
Some even run towards it, straight into it. And in
a sense, Hagar isn't much different. He never shied away
from the AJ case and he's not about to turn
tail now.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
I go, I don't know what to do, Larry. He goes, Oh, no,
you'll get it back. You know, you gotta fight it,
do all this stuff. And I'm like, I'm going to
fight it, no doubt about it. Good Lord, I'm scared.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Hager steals himself, rears back, and rushes head first into
a legal shit storm. He sues the Sheriff's department over
his firing.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
We did our job, and we did it right, and
we did it honestly. But the Sheriff's department is covering
up the corruption and that's why they did it.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Hagar versus the La County Sheriff's Department will take nearly
a decade to resolve, and in the process, the lawsuit
drags the lasd's dirty laundry out into open court. We
track down the court filings and go through a massive
internal LASD documents and recordings to get to the bottom
(05:55):
of why Hager was fired and to find out what
was really going on at the Sheriff's Department during the
John Aujy investigation. I'm Betsy Shepherd.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
I'm Haley Fox is Valley of Shadows, Episode seven the trial.
So they won't even give you the whole case file anymore,
(06:28):
the paper case file. You have to go on the
computers and it's all digitized, and you gotta just got
a click.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Through that way, got it?
Speaker 7 (06:37):
Second floor?
Speaker 8 (06:41):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (06:42):
This way. Betsy and I are in downtown Los Angeles,
descending two floors below ground to the County Courthouse archives,
and we're on a mission define the case file for
Hagar's lawsuit against the Sheriff's Department.
Speaker 9 (06:58):
Do you want to just take these two in the corner?
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Yeah. We set up camp at two computers in what
looks like an old bomb shelter with gray concrete on
all sides.
Speaker 10 (07:11):
All right, So here we go.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
We discover Hagar's discharge notice an official letter from the
LASD informing him that he's been fired. They cite two
reasons for it, one that Hagar carried out a rogue
and quote reckless investigation into fellow deputy Rick Angles, and
two that Hagar made false statements about these findings to
(07:35):
his superiors. But Hagar's legal team argues that he's a
whistleblower who is canned simply for exposing wrongdoing within the
Sheriff's Department between twenty three and twenty fifteen. There's a
volley of filings, motions, and appeals, but the outcome of
Hager's lawsuit against the Sheriff's Department is eye opening. Oh yeah, see,
(07:59):
this is holy moly.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Look at all of those documents. So we should just
take up residence here.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Oh for sure, We're just gonna have to like read
through all these things. During the lawsuit, the LASD is
forced to turn over a massive amount of investigative files
related to the AUJ case. Hager's legal team uses this
as evidence during the trial, and that makes them public records.
Speaker 9 (08:27):
Do you know what the most beautiful word in the
English language is no way tape tape.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Look at all those tapes.
Speaker 10 (08:35):
I know.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
There's a trove of recorded interviews that the Sheriff's Department
conducted in connection to Auj's disappearance.
Speaker 7 (08:45):
AUJ disappeared on June eleventh, Thursday, at about twenty three
to thirty hours.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
This is a recording of Detective Joe Holmes aka Joe Friday.
He was handpicked to take over the AUJ case from
Detective Larry Brandenburg.
Speaker 8 (09:01):
I don't want to pull myself that chess with J.
Let's let you guys know I am a good investigator.
Speaker 4 (09:05):
I really am.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Holmes is talking to the las d's Internal Affairs Bureau.
It's a key interview because the department uses home statements
to discredit Hager and the DEA task Force.
Speaker 8 (09:19):
The basic belief is that al J had stumbled across
some methmphetamine lab during this run and he was murdered.
Speaker 7 (09:31):
Man Rick Engels, Tom Hinkle and several other people were
involved in it. Remember.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Brandenburg says that after he was taken off the case,
he overheard as Captain Frank Merriman tell Joe Holmes to
quote take care of me on this this being the
AUJ case, Brandenburg presumes, but Holmes denies it.
Speaker 7 (09:54):
There rely made that decision in you know the politics involved,
they said, Joe, you're going to do it, or somebody
on the outside who knows nothing about anything here is.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Holmes is not exactly an outsider. He's had previous interactions
with Deputy big Foot Angles and met dealer Tom Hankele
while investigating the bombing death of a woman near Hinkle's home. Nevertheless,
Holmes gets the AUJ case, which means he gets first
crack at Hinkle after the Silent thunder agents bring him in.
Speaker 7 (10:24):
Well asked him what he knows about Deputy Jingles, his
knowledge of the disference of the deputy.
Speaker 8 (10:28):
The whole nine yards, you know, what do you know?
And what he said is he doesn't know anything about it.
He doesn't even know Deputy English. He said, he's hurt
of him, doesn't know him. He's hurt of it. That's it.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Tom Hinkle tells Internal Affairs the same thing, but in
his own colorful way.
Speaker 8 (10:44):
I have no gection about any of it.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
I don't have any fucking idea.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
This IA interview is the only recording we have of
Hinkle because Holmes says that his tape player malfunctioned during
his interview and great investigator that he is. Holmes didn't
even write a report on it, so the department reinterviews Hinkle.
When Hinkles asked about his connection to Deputy Angles, he.
Speaker 10 (11:10):
Says, I never heard of Raking doming check shit.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
I gotta say he sounds a lot like I imagined
someone called bearded Meta clause Wood gravelly voiced surly cussin
like a sailor. When asked about scary Jeff Sherry, his
close associate who implied Hinkle was involved in Auj's disappearance,
Hinkle says, I don't know what kind.
Speaker 8 (11:35):
Of damn ty battery wherever Jeff Scherry told him her.
Speaker 4 (11:38):
Got of his head.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
And that story from multiple informants about Hinkle saying Auj
stumbled on a meth lab and was taken care of.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
It's all about of shit.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
The man has a way with words. When asked if
there's anything else he could share about au J, oh
fucker was, Hinkle agrees to take a lie detector test.
Speaker 4 (12:03):
Fucking right.
Speaker 8 (12:04):
I have no reason that fucking telling and kosher.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
So Holmes call in a polygrapher.
Speaker 8 (12:11):
I believe Hinkle give him a polygraph plaster with flying colors.
Let me tell you something. If Pinkel had any knowledge
about criminal activity or foul played involved in a disparence
of Deputy Adja, he would be spilling his guts over
his table. And if he did, I wish he wore.
But he doesn't, and I'm convinced of that.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
And with that, Holmes clears Hinkle. He's still got to
answer for the drug charges, but he's out of the
Homicide Bureau's hot seat.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
When Hager hears the news, he feels totally deflated because
to him, Hinkle's the lasd's best chance of solving Auj's
alleged murder. With the right amount of pressure, Hager thinks
he could have gotten Tom Hinkle to roll on angles.
But now after Holmes gives Hinkle a pass, Hagar has
no leverage.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
I looked him straight in the eyes and I said, Tom,
you got anything to say? He goes, no, don't know
what you're talking about. Because Toholmes had his bat the
lead homicide investor here at his back, he was good
to go.
Speaker 5 (13:15):
What kissed me off was to come back and said,
oh yeah, do nothing. And then they tell me he passed.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
The polygraphs.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
Dea Special Agent Kim Bailey was head of the Silent
Thunder task force about.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
Oh I to find that surprising but all right? And
then to.
Speaker 5 (13:31):
Find out from the Ali kind of shares Politifer that
he goes, no, he didn't pass, that he failed it.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Detective Holmes lied to Agent Bailey. Hinkle did not pass
the light detector test, then, yet Holmes cleared him anyway.
Hinkle's polygraph results aren't the problem per se, because polygraphs
aren't considered all that reliable. The dishonesty in question here
involves Holmes. Why would he lie about Hinkle's test results
(14:01):
for Bailey and Hagar, It's just another indication that Holmes's
investigation is a total snow job. I think that Holmes
wouldn't be so quick to send Hinkle on his way,
given the severity of the allegations against him. But as
Holmes explains to Internal Affairs, he never put stock into
those claims in the first place.
Speaker 8 (14:23):
They had no factual basis for anything. It's all rooms.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
And his mind is made up by the time he
talks to Deputy Rick Angles. Listening to Holmes's interview, we
discover just how toothless his investigation was. I mean, Holmes
didn't even bother to record his conversation with Angles.
Speaker 8 (14:44):
And I'm gonna say why we didn't team at this
point in time. We didn't feel that he was a
suspect in a case.
Speaker 7 (14:50):
We were not going to insult him to that degree.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Holmes didn't want to insult Angles. He didn't get a
recording of his interview with Tom Hinkle either, but he
assures the department he did his due diligence.
Speaker 8 (15:07):
We went to with homewrecker's financial wor everything on it,
there is nothing to suggest that Rick is guilty of anything.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Holmes says, Angles is accounted for on the day of
Auj's disappearance.
Speaker 7 (15:22):
What will we establish us of that day of that date,
because why if it's getting her hair done, he was
a home that day, he was at home.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Holmes seems to be arguing that Angles couldn't have murdered
Auja because Ingles was at home that day while his
wife was out getting her hair done. But if his
wife's not home to vouch for Angles, that's not much
of an alibi. Holmes lets him off the hook. Anyway,
my gut feeling.
Speaker 7 (15:51):
I got a straight, hard working cop, That's what I
think he is, if he's thirty, if he's the best
prook I have come within in my life.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
Informants and witnesses allege that Angles is able to get
away with things by hiding behind his badge and reviewing
these cord exhibits, we can serve only see that at
play here. Holmes says he's got a gut feeling that
Angles is a straight, hard working cop, and so he
doesn't feel the need to scrutinize him, and he certainly
(16:21):
doesn't want to tarnish his reputation.
Speaker 8 (16:24):
I said, you've got bloomering in the window. That's my
opinion on that fact. I called, you might say, boy
given a rule a lot of guy's careers.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Instead, the Sheriff's Department ruins Darren Hager's The LSD claims
Hager conducted illegal searches and misrepresented what informants reported to him,
but Bailey says he was the one who wrote the
search warrants, the DEA vetted its informants, and everything was
done by the book.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Did anyone from the Sheriff's Department reach out about like
behavior on the case.
Speaker 6 (16:57):
Nobody from Maternal fairsh ever talk to me. I started
thinking well, did I not brush my teeth to take.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
A shower or what. I'm starting to feel no love here.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Bailey was shocked by how the Sheriff's department responded to
the DA's findings, just trying to wash its hands of it.
Speaker 5 (17:14):
I don't think that they wanted that to be true,
he says.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
This is all happening in the wake of the Rampart scandal,
one of the biggest police corruption scandals in American history.
In the late nineties. Seventy Los Angeles Police Department officers
were implicated in misconduct, drug dealing, planning, fall sevenence bank robbing,
and it brought the LAPD to its knees.
Speaker 5 (17:39):
So that was heavy in the news. I did now
offen the big scandal of the bucking LA Shares.
Speaker 4 (17:43):
They were like, no, wait, can we let this stun
go up?
Speaker 1 (17:46):
The La County Sheriff's Department was no less corrupt than
the LAPD. Captain Mike Bower says, they were just better
at hiding their secrets.
Speaker 11 (17:57):
We were in competition to see who could be more
corrupt than the other. I'd like to say LAPD won,
but when I look back on it now, I think
we bested them.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
I've reported on the La County Sheriff's Department for years,
and the type of cover up that Hagar and his
legal team allegend their lawsuit isn't unprecedented. The department has
a long history of corruption, and that history can offer
some insight into the way the department handled the AUJ case.
So we're going to try to understand Hager's lawsuit within
(18:45):
the broader context of the lasd's legal troubles.
Speaker 7 (18:48):
A stinging rebuke today for the Los Angeles Sheriffs to Boughton.
Speaker 12 (18:52):
A long investigation into drug money skimming culminated today in
more than a dozen criminal indictments.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
In nineteen eighty nine, there was the Big Spender scandal,
in which it was discovered that an elite drug unit
at the LASD was embezzling and extorting money from narco traffic.
Speaker 13 (19:10):
The deputies came large amounts of seized drug money before
turning it into the department. Then they allegedly divided it
among themselves and bought boats, swimming pools, vacation homes, and
helicopter lessons, hence the.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Name Big Spender.
Speaker 12 (19:27):
They discovered cash walled up behind deputy's drywall in their houses,
and they found scores of deputies involved in this.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Retired Captain Mike Bauer was stunned by his colleagues behavior.
The scandal was exposed by then Sheriff Sherman Block, who
invited the FEDS in to help investigate the dirty deputies.
Speaker 13 (19:51):
Sherman Block is the sheriff of Los Angeles County.
Speaker 6 (19:55):
I think we had individuals who succumbed to temptation.
Speaker 4 (20:02):
I just can't accept that.
Speaker 11 (20:04):
The philosophy of Block and Big Spender was if we
did something wrong, we're going to admit it and we're
going to make it right.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
We're not going to hide it.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
But Sherman Block died in nineteen ninety eight, the same
year Aujay disappeared, and there was a new sheriff in town,
the notorious Lee Baca. Under him, Bauer says the lasd's
philosophy changed to protect the department above all else.
Speaker 11 (20:31):
If the inside people are making political decisions and not
professional law enforcement decisions, you get favoritism and you get corruption.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Bacca is the Los Angeles County sheriff from nineteen ninety
eight until twenty fourteen, when he was pushed out and
later jailed on federal corruption charges.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
Former La County Sheriff Lee Baca is now a convicted criminal.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Bacca convicted on three federal charges, obstruction of justice, conspiracy
to obstruct justice, and making false statements or lying. Bacca
and nine of his deputies were sent to prison for
their role in interfering with a federal investigation into lasd
civil rights abuses. Baco was found guilty of witness tampering
(21:17):
and threatening an FBI agent, but that was just a
fraction of the misconduct under Baka, his reign saw the
growing terror of deputy gangs.
Speaker 14 (21:30):
There's a different kind of gang problem in Los Angeles
County that people meant to serve and protect the population
of more than nine million people allegedly part of powerful.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
Gigs going back decades.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
These groups form within individual sheriff stations. They have menacing
names like the Executioners and the grim Reapers, and they're
known for their violent beatings and killings. In other words,
they're gangs that operate under the cover of the sheriff's department.
Speaker 11 (22:02):
Now, if you read out the gang, you're not back
in the blue. You're both to back the blue under
any circumstance like unconstitutional policing. Fabricating evidence, falsifying search warrants,
using excessive and unnecessary force, and then covering it up.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
According to the Office of the Inspector General, crimes committed
by deputy gangs have cost the county more than fifty
four million dollars in settlement payouts. One of those lawsuits
was filed against members of the Linwood Vikings, which included
none other than Deputy Joe Holmes. It accuses Holmes and
company of being in a neo Nazi deputy gang and
(22:44):
committing acts of racial violence. It also accuses the Department
of helping to conceal their misconduct.
Speaker 15 (22:51):
So when you see somebody like Holmes handling somebody like
Hauj of missing deputy and allegations of corruption by deputies
in Namo Valley, well you have to say, well, why
was it the Linwood Viking that got this case.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Bauer has a theory that the department hand picked Holmes
for the AUJ case because he owed him one.
Speaker 15 (23:18):
What Joe Holmes did he did not do on his own.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
And Bauer thinks that's why the AUJ case shook out
like it did, because the department had a lot of
dirt on a lot of people, and that meant they
were loyal to the lasd's cause self preservation.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
Operation Silent Thunder documented allegations against Rick Engles, of course,
but it also kicked up dirt on a number of
other deputies. One guy was said to be a patched
and active member of the Vagos biker gang. Another sold
guns to the bikers, And when one deputy's home was raided,
the task Force discovered a counterfeit money operation. Bailey was
(24:05):
there at the search and discovered something even more disturbing
in the process.
Speaker 6 (24:09):
Us It was the toy baby that was called painted
black Um going to hang him in his noose from
the ceiling, and then right behind it on the chest
door was his class photo of the La Shaf Department.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
It's just it's really like very near as unbelievable. I mean,
like when you see all this and then you guys
turn this information over to the Sheriff's department or what
happens next.
Speaker 6 (24:37):
I made one document was a growing document, and I
think it ended up being three to five pages of
bullet statements.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Bullet point statements detailing all the potential misconduct the Task
Force witnessed during Silent.
Speaker 6 (24:49):
Thunder, and I left to the Shriffs Department to do
their internal affairs investigations.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
To my knowledge, they didn't do anything with him.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Bailey says that LASD internal affairs never contacted him about
the disturbing noos effigy or any of the other misconduct
he handed over to them. But some Aneloge Valley deputies
had gotten word of Silent Thunder and they try to
get in front of any possible accusations by preemptively filing
complaints against Darren Hager. The group includes six deputies and
(25:20):
is led by Rick Angles. They say Hagar has it
out for them and is acting out of turn as
an internal affairs investigator.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Yeah, we weren't investigating deputies, but it's in your lap.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
You know.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
If I catch a deputy doing something bad, I can't
just say I don't worry about it. You know, they're
not above the law. But in this case, everybody was
above the law except for Darren Hager.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
Instead of going after Rick Angles and his cohort, the
department goes after Hagar. He admits his record isn't sterling.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
Am I an angel? Absolutely not. I've done a lot
of things wrong, but all these criminal allegations they threw
against So this is all stupid. Absolutely, If they were
that bad, why wasn't I prosecuted? Why did they wait
till the court case.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
In the early nineties, the LA Sheriff's Bertment was trying
to put a lid on use of force incidents among
its deputies.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
They came out with a list of one hundred guys
that was costing the county too much money on lawsuits
and things like that.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Hagar was on that list. He says it's because he
had a high arrest record, that he used force when needed,
and that ultimately the department ruled he was justified in
doing so.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
The use of force, it starts with protection of yourself.
You don't have time to think. You do what you
got to do, You do what you're trained to do,
and you take him to jail.
Speaker 1 (26:47):
The department brought up other things from Hager's past, allegations
of drinking and driving, and that he injured a man
while intoxicated. Hager says that yes, he did have a
drinking problem and did accidentally run over a guy's foot
while leaving a bar.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Jack Daniels and I became a really close friend and
got me in a lot of trouble made me embarrassed, and.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
There was an accusation by an ex girlfriend who also
worked at the LASD, that Hagar sexually harassed and physically
assaulted her. She filed a civil suit against Hager in
the department, which was ultimately settled out of court. Hager
denies the incidents alleged by his ex girlfriend. If they
did happen, those would be fireable offenses in my book,
(27:36):
so would excessive force incidents. But the department never went
after Hagar for those things. They went after him for
documenting misconduct by his fellow officers.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
I had too much information. They had to get rid
of the.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Messenger from the start. The LASD is clear on who
they're targeting.
Speaker 8 (27:59):
Now, anything we talk about here, can we go to
tell Hag.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
Okay, this is a lead investigator for the Department's Internal
Criminal Investigation Bureau, and he's talking to Hagar's main informant, Keith,
the catalyst for the whole Silent Thunder Task Force and
any Kango wo work.
Speaker 7 (28:17):
But we worked for the sheriff directly, Okay, I worked
for the MAP itself.
Speaker 13 (28:22):
I can step on.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
I can step on Hagar like a little cockroach. He
tells Keith. We don't know if this LASD official was
trying to intimidate the witness, but if I was Keith
and I saw the apartment going after one of its
own guys, I'd say as far away from the situation
as possible, because working as an informant is incredibly dangerous,
(28:47):
especially without full backing from the department. The LASD says
Hager presented a false theory of what happened to aj
because some of his informants later recanted their stories. But
how many informants are going to stay the course after
the department makes it clear they've got Hagar in their crosshairs.
Speaker 5 (29:08):
It should shock the system. In their own letter saying
we're proposing you for termination because you presented a false
theory to LA Shriff's management. Are you freaking kidding me?
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Special Agent Kent Bailey.
Speaker 5 (29:25):
It's just like when do you talk about their theories
until you collect the evidence to confirm or deny.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
You know what I'd argue, Joe A. Holmes's theory is
fucking false.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
This is what Hagar argues, And after fighting seven long
years to prove his case, he finally gets his day
in court, and he finally gets some answers from the
person at the epicenter of the AUJ case, Resident Deputy
Break Angles. When trial day comes, Angles will be dragged
out of the shadows and into the fluorescent lights of
(29:59):
the courtroom where he'll be ordered to take the stand.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
So, yeah, this is the list of everything that's going
to be submitted as evidence in the case four and
eighty nine exhibits. Betsy and I are back at the
courthouse looking at the list of exhibits presented during Hagar
versus La County.
Speaker 10 (30:39):
Are there tapes of Rick Angles?
Speaker 11 (30:41):
See?
Speaker 2 (30:43):
Oh, here we go Ingle's IAB interview.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
So that would be Internal Affairs Bureau.
Speaker 8 (30:49):
Okay, okay cool.
Speaker 2 (30:54):
Over the years, Angles has been questioned numerous times by
all sorts of lawyers and LASD personnel. Recordings of these
interviews are entered as evidence in Hager's case. In the
lead up to his trial, Darren Hager and his lawyer
were view these tapes and find plenty of inconsistencies between
the lasd's claims and the testimony of Deputy Rick Angles.
Speaker 16 (31:18):
State of full names, Bell, your last name is State
Ture employe number Thie Richard Augustus Eingles E. N.
Speaker 8 (31:24):
G Els.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
This is an internal affairs interview with Angles in which
they ask about his irregular behavior in another Pair Blossom case.
Speaker 8 (31:35):
Back on September twelve, three thousand and one, you got
a signed a call of.
Speaker 13 (31:41):
A vehicle fire in the Angelus Forest.
Speaker 8 (31:43):
Do you remember?
Speaker 13 (31:44):
Like?
Speaker 8 (31:44):
Yes, I do.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Okay, this car that was on fire. Turns out it
was Rodney Katziff's, that unofficial investigator who helped connect Hager
with a key witness and then suddenly went missing. Katzif
reportedly had information tying Angles and Hinkle to the auj disappearance.
(32:06):
But before he gets a chance to share these details
with Hagar, his car is found burned out and abandoned. Well,
it happened in Rick Engle's jurisdiction, and when someone reported
that the car was on fire, Angles was assigned to
the call, but curiously, he chose not to respond because
he says he heard from a neighbor that the car
(32:28):
wasn't on fire anymore. Plus it was the end of
his shift and he didn't want the hassle.
Speaker 16 (32:35):
And I thought to myself, Okay, fire has been put out.
I'll get it tomorrow. Man, it's under the highways burned up.
It was a burned up, Yeah, burned up man, Okay,
no big deal.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
It seems strange that Angles would choose not to respond
to a call involving a car on fire right near
a national forest, especially since it's his job to be
mister Johnny on the spot. No big deal, Angle says,
but what are the chances that he would be directly
tied to another disappearance near the punch bowl? La D
(33:10):
doesn't dig into Engle's explanation of why he was so
slow to respond to Katsiff's disappearance. In fact, the department
doesn't seem to push back at all, not even when
Angles admits that Detective Holmes give him a soft toss
interview and leaked information to him about the AUJ case.
Speaker 16 (33:28):
By the time Jill got around talking to me, he
just blatt told me, we know you didn't do this,
and that in so many words, it was more like
you know on your best witness.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
That doesn't sound like something a homicide investigator should be
telling a suspect, especially given that Holmes had only been
working on the AUJ case for three weeks at this point.
The detective also tells Engles his phone was being monitored
by Operation Silent Thunder. After hearing the news, Angles changes
the message on his answering machine, seemingly to taunt authorities.
Speaker 16 (34:04):
The FBI has a camp on the phone etna's launch
from the home to leave a message.
Speaker 8 (34:09):
Of the tone and I'll call you.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
Back with my own.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
Angles is yucking it up with the IA investigators over
this voice message, in which he's basically making light of
the John Aujy case and thumbing his nose at the FEDS.
There was the DEA investigating him during Operation Silent Thunder,
and the FBI mentioned is a reference to a widespread
rumor circulating at the time that the FBI was also
(34:37):
looking into Aujay's disappearance. They won't confirm or deny that,
of course, but when Angles is being interrogated by the
Sheriff's department, they don't ask about this voice message, or
it seems, any of his questionable behavior because their internal
affairs investigation is pretty much a gimme Heygre's attorney, on
(34:57):
the other hand, a guy named Rick Love, takes a
much harder line of questioning during the trial.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
The attorneys make their opening statements on September thirteenth, twenty eleven,
about eight long years after Hager first filed a lawsuit
against the department. His lawyer Rick Love argues that Hager
was fired as payback for exposing wrongdoing. The department says
the wrongdoing was fabricated by Hagar. Hager's got evidence to
(35:26):
back up his claims, which Love wheels into the courtroom.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
I think we have seventeen file boxes every day in court,
and he hired a moving company every day to move
them back and forth.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
Over the two week trial, Love calls dozens of witnesses
to the stand. So Brandenburg was a witness.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Yep, we see some informants on there.
Speaker 10 (35:51):
Get Kent Bailey from the DEEA Verry Staff from the
Sheriff's Department, Joe Holmes, the mother load. Okay.
Speaker 9 (36:03):
So Rick Engels was called to testify for six hours
and then there were two hours of cross examination.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
There aren't any tapes of the trial itself, so we're
gonna read from the transcripts. Haley will be reading the
questions asked by Hager's attorney Rick Love, and I'll read
the part of Deputy Rick Angles. Yes, we know there
are a lot of ricks in this show, but we're
gonna do our best to help you keep them straight.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
You were familiar with the trails and terrain around Devil's
punch Bowl, right, yes, And didn't you think that your
expertise would be useful in a search for a missing deputy.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
At this point, the county attorney objects, shutting down Love's
line of questioning. The defense tells the jury, we're not
here to try to solve the mystery of why the
deputy was disappearing. Nobody knows. The evidence has shown what
happened to him. He may have committed suicide, he may
be living in some other part of the world. He
(37:06):
may have been murdered. We just don't know. It's interesting
to see the county attorney acting kind of like a
defense lawyer for Rick Angles, being like, any of these
other things could have happened at John Auj. Let's just
get off this whole murder tip.
Speaker 2 (37:22):
Oh yeah. They don't want to go anywhere near the
Auj case. They're trying to keep it focused on Darren
Hager and Darren Hager alone.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
But the AJ case comes up again and again, because
what this trial is ultimately about is whether Hagar should
have been pursuing the informant's claims about Deputy Angles. Remember,
Detective Joe Holmes says that Angles had an alibi for
when auj disappeared. He says Angles was at home while
his wife was at the beauty salon. It's a detail
(37:53):
that Hager's attorney questions Angles about.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Did you tell Detective Holmes that your wife had a
beauty shop appointment on June eleventh, nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
No, my wife never goes to the beauty shop. She's
uglier than a mud fence.
Speaker 2 (38:10):
What is wrong when this man who says that nobody
says that, I've never heard that saying before.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
It's his folksy way of dunking on his wife. Dude,
why you gotta bring his wife in?
Speaker 10 (38:22):
Guy?
Speaker 1 (38:22):
I mean, what's even more confusing, though, is that he's
doing something that's so obviously against his own self interest.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Yeah, he's undermining what Holmes said when Holmes was trying
to give him an alibi.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
I'm just like, no, I didn't say that, which is
essentially saying no, I didn't have an alibi.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Which makes no sense.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
So one of these guys, Angles or Holmes has to
be lying mm hmm. And I don't think it's the
guy who's volunteering information about his wife being ugly.
Speaker 10 (38:54):
M m.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Hager's attorney continues to dig into this supposed alibi.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Once Joe Holmes told you you were not working on
June eleventh, nineteen ninety eight, were you able to figure
out what you were in fact doing that day?
Speaker 11 (39:09):
No?
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Did Joe Holmes ever review any phone records that you had?
Speaker 15 (39:15):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Did he ever come to your house? Nope? Did Joe
Holmes ever ask to search your house?
Speaker 8 (39:23):
No?
Speaker 2 (39:24):
Did he ever ask to review your phone records? Nope?
Did you tell Joe Holmes that you were home on
June eleventh, nineteen ninety eight, I don't.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
Remember what I was doing then. It's very strange to
me that, twelve years after Auja's disappearance, Angles still doesn't
know what he was doing that day. I mean thought experiment,
you're accused of murdering someone on a certain day, you'd
figure out what you were doing.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Then, right, Yeah, you would rack your brain and go
through your receipts and try and put together some sort
of timeline of where you were.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
And Angle's just like, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
It's almost like he's bragging about how little effort the
Sheriff's department put into their investigation.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
But Hagar's attorney doesn't let Angles off so easily. He
teas up Angles for his coop to Graw. He presses
him about why the Sheriff's department dismissed information from numerous informants.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Council asked you about this tweaker talk. It's not different
than any other social group, is it, where people get
together and talk about things. It's very different. And it's
different because they're criminals. No, because they do drugs.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
They do drugs, they steal. If you ever had anyone
come and tell you that they've seen a giant snake
that's sixty feet long and about five feet around, slithering
across the desert in the buttes, that was a rumor
that was going around in the tweaking community at one time.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
It's a little bit different than water cooler talk. Deputy Angles,
you saw bigfoot, didn't you? I did?
Speaker 1 (41:07):
I believe it was, and.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
You reported a bigfoot sighting to the Annalo Valley Shriff's Department.
I did, Were you a tweaker?
Speaker 10 (41:17):
No?
Speaker 1 (41:21):
This courtroom scene distills for me what so much of
this story is about. We have these two competing versions
of reality. Yeah, several informants come forward say this is
what happened. John A Day was murdered, and they're automatically
dismissed because of their history of drug use. On the
(41:43):
other hand, we have Angles and he's like, Nope, it
didn't happen, and he's automatically given credible narrator status because
he's a deputy in the La County Shaff's apartment.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
Yeah, I mean, it's really like Angles is just getting
a carte blanche get out of jail free card.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
Literally, the LSD would have final say on all this
if it weren't for the fact that Hagar puts that
whole line of reasoning on trial. Hagar's lawyer, in his
closing argument says, Darren Hager should still be a deputy
sheriff and Darren Hager is not a deputy sheriff because
(42:21):
he did his job, He did as he was ordered,
and he did it in a context of a sheriff's
department that did not want to hear what they were
being told, would not confront the issues they were being told,
and instead decided to cover up and bury the entire issue,
and the issue ladies and gentlemen is very simply corruption
within the Sheriff's department.
Speaker 2 (42:46):
Darren Hagar has been waiting a long time for this
moment to tell his side of the story. He wants
to be vindicated, to show that he was fired for
doing the right thing. And for Hagar, there's a lot
riding on the outcome of the trial because the disgrace
of being fired followed him around like a dark cloud.
Hagar had tried to start again. He looked for jobs
(43:09):
and security and private investigation.
Speaker 3 (43:12):
It's hard to get a job when you say, yeah,
I just got fired because they said I was lying
on all my police reports. A lot of those jobs
just went nowhere. It was a dead end. As soon
as I went through my.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
Interview, nothing panned out. He filed for bankruptcy and didn't
know how he was going to support his family. On
top of everything, Hager was shunned and isolated, and the
one friend he had held onto homicide detective Larry Brandenburg,
that relationship would go south too.
Speaker 3 (43:44):
Him and I went into the Buffalo business together, and
that he never do business with friends.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
The two argued over finances and workloads and ultimately had
a falling out that led to the dissolution of the company.
Speaker 3 (43:58):
Well, didn't see eye to eye, and I have nothing
against Larry about what he did or what he didn't do.
He had some things against me because I didn't put
in the money that he did since I was fired
and thing like that. So he was pretty upset with
me and he just split and that was into that.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
After years of emotional turmoil and being put through the
legal ringer, Hagar is ready to put this chapter of
life behind him.
Speaker 3 (44:25):
So you had to start from step one, and that's
what I did, and the same time as fighting the
case in court for years and years and years.
Speaker 2 (44:33):
And now the time has finally come for the case
to be decided. After two days of deliberation, the jury
files back into the courtroom. Hager and his lawyer Rick
Love brace for their judgment.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
I remember when the jury read the verdict, Rick gives
me a big hug and everything he goes congratulations.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
Hagar wins his suit and the court awards him four
point five million dollars in damages.
Speaker 3 (45:03):
The one guy a foreman order, He goes, I hope
this will help you get your life back in order.
And I got thank you for seeing our side of
the story, Rick and I went out and had one
beer after the court and then I was it and
I went back to the hotel. I called my ex
wife to tell her I think my son's going to
be all right. That's all I remember.
Speaker 4 (45:24):
I left it at that.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
The County of La later appeals the court's decision, and
Hager's payout is cut in half. The money he does
get quickly dissipates between lawyer fees and living expenses, but
Hager says it was never about the money. He accomplished
what he set out to do to prove that he
was fired for doing his job, a job that towards
(45:52):
the end included putting away some of the Antelope Valleys
heavy hitting meth suppliers. Tom Hinkel was charged with conspiracy
to distribute methamphetamine and was sentenced to almost five years
in prison. And then there was outlaw biker big Rick,
the guy who allegedly bragged about killing Auj in the
punch bowl and then showed a woman where the deputy
(46:14):
had been buried. Big Rick was charged with conspiracy to
manufacture and distribute meth and sentenced to eleven years in prison.
After that, Hagar took the La County Sheriff's Department to
task and slayed his goliath.
Speaker 3 (46:31):
They lost the battle, but not really sure if they
won the laureate or not.
Speaker 2 (46:38):
That's because the Sheriff's Department is still sitting on the
Auj case. They allowed Deputy Angles to continue on as
the resident Deputy of Pair Blossom, while Hagar continues to
be haunted by the whole ordeal.
Speaker 3 (46:53):
I don't forget about the day I die to my
brain's not working anymore. I kicked myself in the ass
for it all the time, because I think I could
have solved it. At least John would have had maybe
a burial or close case.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
We thought this was where the story was going to end,
but then we discovered that back in two thousand and six,
something happened that seems to validate Hagar and Brandenburg's investigation
into Rick Angles. A young woman and her father were
shot inside Deputy angles home with Deputy Angles gun. It
(47:35):
was a horrific scene, but most shocking of all these
suspicious deaths were quickly ruled suicides, and just like in
the Aujay case, the La County Sheriff's Department tried to
bury the matter, but a long overdue reconciliation between two
(47:55):
former Buffalo farmers might help expose why so many suspicious
deaths have piled up in the Devil's Punch Bowl area.
Speaker 3 (48:05):
So with all the stink about angles, wouldn't you think
you know.
Speaker 1 (48:08):
What this guy?
Speaker 3 (48:10):
If he did this, he is a stole, cold blooded killer.
Speaker 1 (48:16):
That's next time on the final episode of Valley of Shadows.
(48:46):
If you have any information or tips related to the
disappearance of John Aujay.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
Please call two one three two six two nine eight
eight nine or email Shadows at Pushkin dot FM. Valley
of Shadows is reported, written and produced by us Haley
Fox and Betsy Shepherd. Our editor is Dianne Hodson. Our
executive producers are Jacob Smith and Alexandra Garreton. Original music
(49:16):
by Jake Gorsky, Ray Lynch, Mike Jersich, and Hayden Gardner.
Sound designed by Jake Gorsky, fact checking by Aica Robbins.
Additional production support by Sonya Gerwy and Our show art
was designed by Sean Harney and Betsy Shepherd. Special thanks
to Nick White for show art photography. Valley of Shadows
(49:39):
is a production of Pushkin Industries. To find more Pushkin Podcasts.
Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you
listen to podcasts from Type two Fun. We're Haley and Betsy.
See you next week.
Speaker 1 (50:18):
Subscribe to Pushkin Plus to hear the entire season of
Valley of Shadows ad free starting January twelfth. You'll also
get bonus episodes, full audiobooks, and early ad free listening
from your favorite Pushkin hosts and authors. Find Pushkin Plus
on the Valley of Shadows show page on Apple Podcasts.
We're at pushkin dot fm, slash plus. Thanks for your support.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Betrayal Season 5
Saskia Inwood woke up one morning, knowing her life would never be the same. The night before, she learned the unimaginable – that the husband she knew in the light of day was a different person after dark. This season unpacks Saskia’s discovery of her husband’s secret life and her fight to bring him to justice. Along the way, we expose a crime that is just coming to light. This is also a story about the myth of the “perfect victim:” who gets believed, who gets doubted, and why. We follow Saskia as she works to reclaim her body, her voice, and her life. If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal Team, email us at betrayalpod@gmail.com. Follow us on Instagram @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations, and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience, and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack.