Former LA sheriff’s deputy sentenced for smuggling heroin in Pringles cans

A crooked Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy who tried to smuggle more than a pound of heroin into jail using Pringles cans for a $15,000 payday has been sentenced to more than five years in federal prison.

Former Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputy Michael Meiser, 40, admitted to hiding the drugs inside two cans of the popular potato chips in a brazen scheme. to sneak narcotics into the jail where he worked, the Department of Justice said Thursday.

Meiser, from Lancaster, was sentenced to 67 months behind bars after pleading guilty in July 2025 to one count of possession with intent to distribute heroin.

Meiser agreed to smuggle drugs into the North County Correctional Facility in Castaic, where he worked as a deputy, in exchange for cash payments arranged by inmates, according to the plea agreement.

A relative of Meiser received a Cash App payment of $1,500 from someone connected to an inmate on April 24, 2024, before Meiser proceeded with the scheme, according to prosecutors.

Six days later, he drove to a Chevron gas station in Valencia and parked next to a Chevrolet SUV.

Two women, including one associated with a jail inmate, exited the Chevrolet and handed Meiser a plastic grocery bag with the drug-loaded Pringles cans containing about 1.1 pounds of heroin. The bag also contained two envelopes holding a total of $15,000 in cash — his payment for the illicit delivery.

He later stuffed the bag into a green backpack alongside his loaded hanggu before driving to a fellow deputy’s apartment complex.

Meiser then hitched a ride with the fellow deputy, who drove his truck past the jail’s initial security checkpoint into the parking lot.

Once inside, Meiser took his green backpack stuffed and stashed the drug-filled Pringles cans beneath computer towers in the trunk of an LASD patrol car and moved the $15,000 in cash back into his backpack.

He then went to the jail’s gym with the other deputy and later met with an inmate involved in the smuggling plot, according to prosecutors.

But his scheme unraveled when LASD investigators stopped the paur as they attempted to drive out of the jail later that day.

Investigators arrested Meiser and searched the truck, discovering his backpack stuffed with the $15,000 in cash, his loaded handgun, his badge and department identification.

A separate search of the patrol car’s trunk turned up the two heroin-filled Pringles cans.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation assisted in the case along with the LASD’s Internal Criminal Investigations Bureau. Assistant United States Attorney Kathy Yu led the prosecution.

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