Up for reelection in a shut race, L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva seems to be getting determined.

How else to elucidate what seems to be extra like a clownish and vindictive political stunt than a corruption probe?

On Wednesday morning, deputies knocked on the door of one among Villanueva’s chief critics, County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl. They served a search warrant, as reported by The Occasions’ Alene Tchekmedyian.

Kuehl, in a photograph by The Occasions’ Genaro Molina, is proven in naked toes, being escorted out of her residence by a deputy with a hand on Kuehl’s arm. The deputy is trailed by one other deputy, and each are sporting bulletproof vests.

You’d suppose Kuehl, 81, was some sort of desperado.

The search was associated to a sheriff’s probe of a nonprofit known as Peace Over Violence, which is run by Patti Giggans, a good friend of Kuehl’s. Giggans is a member of the Sheriff Civilian Oversight Fee and each she and Kuehl have known as for the resignation of Villanueva, who has a well-established file of retaliation in opposition to his critics.

The probe is said, partly, to a former Metro worker’s declare that Kuehl improperly helped Giggans get a contract to function a hotline for reporting sexual harassment on public transit.

“Completely bogus,” Kuehl stated Wednesday of the invasion of her residence, including that she didn’t know something in regards to the contract and that supervisors didn’t vote on its approval.

If there’s purpose to suspect one thing fishy or unlawful in regards to the contract, we haven’t seen the proof but. However we’ve seen loads of proof that the petty Villanueva — whose division has been the topic of misconduct and civil rights violations — has labored arduous to destroy his personal credibility.

Now stick with me right here as a result of there’s a thread, defined by Tchekmedyian, it is advisable to comply with:

The warrants served Wednesday on Kuehl and Giggans have been permitted by L.A. County Superior Court docket Choose Craig Richman, who has a relationship with Mark Lillienfeld, an investigator in Villanueva’s public corruption unit.

“Their relationship got here beneath scrutiny a number of years in the past when there was an impartial Sheriff’s Division inquiry into whether or not Lillienfeld tried to assist Richman out of authorized hassle,” wrote Tchekmedyian.

It’s like one thing out of “Chinatown.”

Relating to the search warrant served on Giggans, “These are Third World techniques,” stated her lawyer, Austin Dove. “Vladimir Putin could be impressed.”

In June, after I wrote that any of the candidates operating to interchange Villanueva could be an enchancment, the sheriff emailed me to complain.

He listed, amongst his achievements, “getting ICE out of the jails, physique worn cameras, making a nationwide greatest practices mannequin for dealing with the pandemic in our jail system, main the county’s efforts at stopping looting throughout civil unrest, eradicating unlawful marijuana grows within the Antelope Valley.”

No matter he claims as accomplishments, he’s put collectively an extended record of negatives.

I touched on only a few of them in Might, after I wrote that Villanueva “pushed again in opposition to necessities for reporting minor makes use of of pressure, he wished to convey again metallic flashlights that had served prior to now as golf equipment, and he had opposed former Sheriff Jim McDonnell’s makes an attempt to present prosecutors a secret record of deputies disciplined for dishonesty and misconduct.”

By the way in which, I responded to Villanueva’s criticism by emailing him again, twice, providing to fulfill with him throughout his runoff in opposition to former Lengthy Seaside Police Chief Robert Luna.

He didn’t take me up on the supply.

It’s price noting that in his e-mail to me, Villanueva claimed that he works for the individuals of Los Angeles County, not the Board of Supervisors. He stated the “civilian oversight fee is waging a proxy struggle on my workplace on behalf of the board” of supervisors.

Clearly, he’s waging a counteroffensive.

However except Villanueva can produce proof that justifies the Wednesday morning searches, it’s only one extra misfire, with the sheriff taking pictures himself within the foot but once more.

Steve.lopez@latimes.com