An investigator in L.A. County medical examiner\u2019s office accused of stealing a gold crucifix from the neck of a dead man pleaded no contest to theft charges on Friday, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n
Adrian Mu\u00f1oz, 36, was responding to the death of a warehouse employee in South L.A. in January 2023 when he snatched the piece of jewelry and hid it in his medical bag, according to a statement issued by the L.A. County district attorney\u2019s office. An investigation led to a search of Mu\u00f1oz\u2019s desk, where detectives found \u201crare antique coins\u201d that belonged to a man whose death Mu\u00f1oz investigated in late 2022, prosecutors said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThere is something especially appalling about stealing from the dead. During a time when dignity and respect should be absolute, Mr. Mu\u00f1oz chose greed,\u201d Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman said in a statement. \u201cToday\u2019s plea is a step toward justice, but it cannot undo the additional trauma inflicted on families who were already dealing with loss.\u201d<\/p>\n
Under the terms of the plea, Mu\u00f1oz will serve 180 days in county jail and spend two years on probation, prosecutors said. He must also pay restitution to the victims\u2019 families and give up his right to serve as a peace officer or death investigator in California. <\/p>\n
Emails to the medical examiner\u2019s office and Mu\u00f1oz\u2019s attorney seeking comment were not immediately returned. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An investigator in L.A. County medical examiner\u2019s office accused of stealing a gold crucifix from the neck of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261570,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[115021,10479,2790,339,34119,1431,3816,48,52,51,47,53920,50,49,31121,346,728,7214,6877,3025,238],"class_list":{"0":"post-261569","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-adrian-munoz","9":"tag-atty","10":"tag-dead","11":"tag-death","12":"tag-dignity","13":"tag-family","14":"tag-investigator","15":"tag-la","16":"tag-la-headlines","17":"tag-la-news","18":"tag-los-angeles","19":"tag-los-angeles-county-dist","20":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","21":"tag-los-angeles-news","22":"tag-medical-examiner","23":"tag-office","24":"tag-plea","25":"tag-prosecutor","26":"tag-south-l-a","27":"tag-statement","28":"tag-theft"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}