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Hollywoods Pet Lawman

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by Jeff Bercovici
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Aug 16 2007 12:00am EDT

Hollywood's Pet Lawman

On the face of it, a new law making its way through the California legislature sounds like a pretty good idea: Law enforcement officials shouldn't be able to sell mugshots or police records to the press. The ones that do should get in trouble. How can you argue with that?

Easily, considering whose idea the law was: Sheriff Lee Baca, a.k.a. Hollywood's go-to fixer for legal problems. Baca was the guy in charge when the Los Angeles sheriff's department told reporters Mel Gibson had been arrested without incident—then denied there had been any attempt to cover up his anti-Semitic outburst.

He's also the guy who tried, unsuccessfully, to circumvent a judge's order that Paris Hilton serve her time in jail rather than at home. It turned out that Paris's grandpa is one of Baca's campaign donors. Others include just about every media and entertainment mogul in Hollywood.

It's no fun to side with the tabloid press, but when the alternative is siding with a guy like Lee Baca, it's an easy call.

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