A Los Angeles County probation officer was arrested Tuesday afternoon on charges he smuggled drugs into a juvenile hall where a teen died of a drug overdose in 2023, prosecutors said.
Michael Solis, 59, allegedly conspired with two juvenile detainees to sell Xanax to people being held inside of Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall in Sylmar between May and August of 2023, according to a criminal complaint filed last week.
Court records show Solis allegedly began conspiring to sell the drugs on May, 14, 2023, just five days after 18-year-old detainee Bryan Diaz died of a fentanyl overdose in the same building.
“Trafficking illegal drugs to juveniles is unconscionable under any circumstances, let alone as a government employee taking advantage of vulnerable youth in need of guidance and support,” Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman said in a statement. “Probation officers have as their primary duty the protection, health and safety of juveniles under their care. My office will not tolerate such an abuse of power, which endangers youth, undermines rehabilitation, and makes our communities less safe.”
The L.A. County Probation Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It was not immediately clear if Solis had legal representation or when he would be arraigned.
A spokesperson for the district attorney’s office declined to say if Diaz’s death sparked the investigation into Solis, who faces up to three years in prison if he is convicted.
Reports of increased drug use among teens held at the Secure Youth Treatment Facility at Nidorf, where Solis worked, had surfaced in the months before Diaz’s death.
In April 2023, the L.A. County Inspector General’s office detailed two incidents where youths were taken to local medical facilities or revived with Narcan after fentanyl overdoses. A March 2023 search of the unit where the teens overdosed uncovered pills laced with fentanyl and “two large bindles of what appeared to be fentanyl” inside a dormitory, according to the inspector general’s report.
Diaz died on May 9, 2023. Five days later, according to the criminal complaint, Solis began conspiring with two juveniles at Nidorf to bring Xanax into the jails. Court filings say he was caught on camera twice handing a juvenile — identified only as “Co-Conspirator A” — small packages believed to be drugs inside Nidorf hall.
Solis, who the juveniles nicknamed “Old Boy” in phone calls recorded by law enforcement, was charging as much as $400 per drug drop, according to the complaint.
The enterprise fell apart in August 2023, when “Co-Conspirator A” was caught with 106 Xanax pills inside of Nidorf Hall, court records show.
“There is no room in this Department for anyone who violates the public trust and endangers the safety and wellbeing of the youth in our care,” Chief Probation Officer Guillermo Viera Rosa said in a statement Tuesday. “We applaud the action taken by District Attorney Nathan Hochman, and remain steadfast in our commitment to holding our staff to the highest standards of professionalism, integrity, and accountability.”
Solis first came under scrutiny in October 2023 after another Secure Youth Treatment Facility resident, Nicholas Ibarra, was charged with bringing drugs into the facility. Ibarra told two probation officers — Reggie Torres and David Corona — that he could identify an officer bringing drugs into the facility, according to Tom Yu, an attorney representing both officers.
Torres and Corona were both placed on administrative leave a short time later for conducting an “incomplete investigation,” according to Yu, who said the charges against Solis vindicated the officers.
“My guys were unlawfully f—ed with essentially, they were harassed and they were obstructed from doing their jobs,” Yu said. “Solis was the target of the investigation.”
The probation department has not responded to Yu’s allegations since he first made them in 2023.
The charges are the latest in a series of criminal investigations targeting probation officers. Earlier this year, a California Attorney General’s office investigation into so-called “gladiator fights” at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey led to indictments against 30 officers. A probation supervisor also pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault in February, years after the Times published footage of him bending a teen in half inside Camp Kilpatrick.
This story originally appeared on LA Times
