A Los Angeles County probation officer and her boyfriend, a high-ranking member of a Pomona Crips street gang, have been arrested along with a dozen other gang associates on federal narcotics-trafficking charges, authorities said Monday.
County Probation Officer Crystal Dillard was arrested last month along with her boyfriend Jerron Johns, 27, following a yearlong investigation, authorities said. Dillard is suspected of participating in multiple crack cocaine transactions, including one in which she was accompanied by a young child.
The narcotics probe stemmed in part from an investigation into Dillard and Johns, a known member of the Pomona Crips gang called the Westside Mafia, with several felony drug convictions going back to 2000, authorities said.
"It's almost one of those stories you hear in Hollywood about drug trafficking and kingpins," said Pomona Police Chief Joe Romero, whose department was part of the task force that made the arrests. Romero described Dillard as a bad apple who "put a stain" on her department.
"The probation officer is one of the bad guys," Romero said.
"Anybody that would sell their badge, whether it's an FBI badge . . . or a probation officer" is a disgrace to law enforcement, he said.
Dillard and Johns, of San Bernardino, are both in federal custody. Two other defendants are in state facilities and 10 other associates were arrested Monday morning in the San Gabriel and Pomona valleys during a multi-agency operation led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Pomona police, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Dillard, according to federal officials, works in the probation department's Compton office. An FBI official said Dillard used her official vehicle to transport narcotics.
Several defendants remain at large, including Raymond "Ray Dog" King, 37, who authorities say is a gang leader and a main supplier of crack cocaine in the Pomona area.
A 17-count indictment returned by a federal grand jury accuses 23 defendants of participating in a drug ring that trafficked in cocaine, crack cocaine and marijuana. The indictment documents a series of transactions involving kilogram quantities of cocaine.
Twice in April 2007, Dillard allegedly delivered crack cocaine, once dropping it off under a car in a Vons market parking lot in Upland and another time at a trash can at a Chevron station in Claremont, according to court documents. The drugs were retrieved by Johns and sold to an informant, the documents stated.
