Year Long Investigation of Smuggling Leads to Arrest of Orange County Sheriff's Deputy
Santa Ana– An Orange County Deputy has been arrested by investigators of the OCSD on suspicion of bribery. Investigators arrested David Lloyd Cass at 9 a.m. on Thursday, February 7th. He was later booked into the Santa Ana city jail.
David Cass
38-year-old Cass of Glendora was an employee of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department for seven years, where he was assigned to the Custody Operations department at the Men’s Main Jail in Santa Ana.
In January of 2012, it was discovered that a legal runner was possibly smuggling drugs into the facility after marijuana, tobacco and cellular phones had been discovered in an inmate’s cell during a late December 2011 search of the facility.
After investigating surveillance cameras, phone conversations and video records, investigators arrested 31-year-old Ha Duc Nguyen of Norwalk on February 23rd of 2012. She was charged with bringing drugs into a jail facility, possession of marijuana for sale and gang affiliation. She is being held on bail of $1,000,000.
The items she possessed were delivered to her husband, inmate Stephenson Kim. At the time, Kim was awaiting trial for murder as well as other crimes. He was later convicted and sentenced in April to life in prison. During these visits, David Cass was the supervising deputy of the visiting area.
Kim secretly married Nguyen while in prison in August of 2012 so she could act as his “legal assistant runner” for his cases.
In an effort to understand how Nguyen was able to smuggle drugs to her husband, sheriff’s personal began another investigation. It was then that they discovered that Cass had been communicating with Nguyen. They also learned that Cass had received monetary items such as four tickets to a Los Angeles Kings hockey game, gift certificates to a spa and various restaurants, in exchange to allow Nguyen to pass items to Kim. Nguyen and Kim also offered to introduce Cass to women in exchange for him to allow Kim and Nguyen to have sex in the attorney/bond room.
The acts of bribe are said to have happened from September of 2010 through March of 2012.
Cass was placed on administrative leave during the investigation and was later placed on non-paid administrative leave when he was taken into custody.
In a news release, the OCSD stated “Cass is accused of allowing Kim and Nguyen to smuggle prohibited items into the jail including food, razors, a cell phone, prescription medications and drugs, including marijuana. Kim is accused of frequently selling these items to other inmates.
Cass is being charged with two counts of CPC 68 (a), also known as “Officer Asking & Receiving a Bribe.”
Read More:
Orange County Register- Deputy Arrested on Suspicion of Bribery at Jail
Orange County Breeze- OCSD Arrests Deputy for Taking Bribes
Los Angeles Times- O.C. Sheriff’s Deputy Accused of Taking Bribes from Inmate
