A Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputy has pleaded guilty to heroin possession, admitting to attempting to smuggle the drug into a county jail in the Santa Clarita Valley. Michael Meiser, 40, of Lancaster, entered his plea for one count of possession with intent to distribute heroin.
According to his plea agreement, Meiser was working as an LASD deputy at the North County Correctional Facility in Castaic in April 2024. He had arranged with inmates to smuggle narcotics into the jail in exchange for cash and payments via Cash App. On April 24, 2024, one of Meiser’s relatives received $1,500 through Cash App from someone connected to an inmate.
Meiser later met two women at a Chevron station in Valencia. One woman handed him a bag containing two Pringles cans filled with approximately 511 grams (1.1 pounds) of heroin and two envelopes with $15,000 cash as payment for smuggling the drugs.
After placing the bag into his green backpack along with his loaded handgun, Meiser drove to another deputy’s apartment complex. They then traveled together to the jail in Castaic where Meiser hid the heroin-filled cans under computer towers inside a radio car’s trunk.
Later that day, investigators stopped and arrested Meiser after he left the jail premises. A search revealed $15,000 cash and other items in his backpack while heroin was found hidden inside Pringles cans within a radio car’s trunk.
United States District Judge Fernando M. Olguin has scheduled sentencing for December 11 when Meiser faces five years minimum up to forty years maximum imprisonment.
The FBI investigated this case alongside LASD’s Internal Criminal Investigations Bureau. Assistant United States Attorney Thomas F. Rybarczyk is prosecuting it.
