theft<\/a> and one misdemeanor count of petty theft and is scheduled to be sentenced June 5 at the Foltz Criminal Justice Center, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney\u2019s Office.<\/p>\nMu\u00f1oz is expected to receive two years of formal probation, serve 180 days in county jail, resign from Peace Officer Standards and Training certification and pay restitution to victims\u2019 families, 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 District Attorney 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
Prosecutors said the case stems in part from a Jan. 6, 2023, death investigation in South Los Angeles, where Mu\u00f1oz responded to a report of a warehouse worker who died of a heart attack while on the job.<\/p>\n
Surveillance footage showed Mu\u00f1oz removing a gold crucifix necklace from the man\u2019s neck and placing it in his medical bag without documenting or returning the item, according to Hochman.<\/p>\n
During a subsequent search of Mu\u00f1oz\u2019s desk, investigators recovered rare antique coins along with a receipt in the name of another man whose death Mu\u00f1oz had investigated in November 2022, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n
The case was investigated by the Los Angeles County Sheriff\u2019s Department.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former Los Angeles County medical examiner investigator pleaded no contest Friday to stealing items from deceased individuals…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[1312,138,48,52,51,47,50,49,100,238],"class_list":{"0":"post-262316","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-courts","9":"tag-crime-and-public-safety","10":"tag-la","11":"tag-la-headlines","12":"tag-la-news","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","15":"tag-los-angeles-news","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-theft"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262316","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=262316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}