A Los Angeles County deputy probation officer faces felony charges for allegedly smuggling Xanax into Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall and then working with a youth in custody to sell it.

The District Attorney’s Office announced the charges against the officer, Michael Angelo Solis, 59, on Tuesday, June 10.

Solis is being charged with the possession of alprazolam — commonly known Xanax— with the intent to sell it, for bringing the drugs into the juvenile hall and for conspiring with others to smuggle in and sell the drugs.

“Trafficking illegal drugs to juveniles is unconscionable under any circumstances, let alone as a government employee taking advantage of vulnerable youth in need of guidance and support,” District Attorney Nathan Hochman said in a statement. “Probation officers have as their primary duty the protection, health and safety of juveniles under their care.

“My office will not tolerate such an abuse of power, which endangers youth, undermines rehabilitation, and makes our communities less safe.”

If convicted, Solis faces three years in prison.

The criminal complaint states that a juvenile connected Solis with a third person, identified only as “Co-conspirator B,” sometime between May 14, 2023, and July 26, 2023. Solis then made contact with that individual and, just days later, was seen on surveillance camera handing a small object to the juvenile. Another handoff was caught on camera in August, according to the complaint.

The juvenile was found in possession of 106 alprazolam pills that same month, records showed.

Recorded calls between the juvenile and the co-conspirator allegedly referred to Solis as “Old Boy” and referenced hundreds of dollars in payments to Solis and similar amounts in sales to others in custody.

The accused officer received more than $180,000 in pay in 2023, according to the public pay database Transparent California.

In a statement, Probation Chief Guillermo Viera Rosa commended the “swift and thorough work” of the District Attorney’s Office and Probation Department’s internal affairs bureau for the arrest.

“There is no room in this Department for anyone who violates the public trust and endangers the safety and well-being of the youth in our care,” Viera Rosa stated. “We applaud the action taken by District Attorney Nathan Hochman and remain steadfast in our commitment to holding our staff to the highest standards of professionalism, integrity, and accountability.”

The department worked closely with the investigators “as soon as allegations surfaced,” according to the statement. Solis was on an “ordered absence” for the duration of the investigation.

It’s unclear when exactly the investigation into Solis began. The state forced the juvenile hall side of Barry J. Nidorf to shut down in July 2023, though a separate unit for youth sentenced for serious crimes, the Barry J. Nidorf Secure Youth Treatment Facility, continued and still operates today in the same building.

The SYTF was under intense scrutiny at the time due to a series of nonfatal overdoses and the death of 18-year-old Bryan Diaz from fentanyl just days before Solis’ conspiracy allegedly began in May 2023. A report by the Office of Inspector General found that drugs were being dropped by drones, delivered by fake DoorDash drivers and walked through security with little scrutiny.

Though the department cracked down after Diaz’s death, the inspector general’s staff continued to document lapses in security, including an unidentified staff member at Barry J. Nidorf whose food wasn’t checked by security and was later found to have contraband hidden inside.

In October 2023, the District Attorney’s Office charged 22-year-old Nicholas Ibarra with possession of fentanyl inside the SYTF. While transporting Ibarra to Men’s Central Jail, probation officers Reggie Torres and David Corona alleged Ibarra told them about an officer who had been supplying fentanyl.

Torres and Corona began investigating that source and suspected Solis, but were placed on leave after relaying their findings to a superior, according to their attorney, Tom Yu.

“They were obstructed from doing their job,” Yu said in a phone interview. “They were fighting the department so they could save kids from overdosing.”

Yu sent a letter to Viera Rosa that same October stating Corona, through his investigation, “had obtained an overwhelming amount of evidence that suggested an active-duty probation officer, Michael Solis,” and a teacher at Barry J. Nidorf, were the sources of the fentanyl.

While Corona and Torres were placed on leave, Solis and the teacher were still working at Barry J. Nidorf as of Oct. 11, 2023, Yu wrote. Both Corona and Torres were reinstated roughly a year later and were never given a reason for being placed on leave, according to Yu.

Vicky Waters, a Probation Department spokesperson, deferred questions to the District Attorney’s Office, which separately declined to comment on the investigation.

Court records show that three of the four felony charges against Ibarra were dropped in July 2024. He pleaded no contest to the fourth — possession of a controlled substance in a juvenile hall — and received 137 days in prison, reduced from a two-year sentence due to time served and credit for his conduct, records showed.

The announcement of Solis’ arrest — and the revelation that he had been caught on camera — came the same day that the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors ordered the Probation Department to develop a more active monitoring policy for its closed-circuit television system.

The board recently approved a $2.7 million settlement with a youth who was beaten at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall while officers did nothing. The assault was caught on camera, but the footage wasn’t reviewed until weeks later, according to Supervisor Janice Hahn, who co-authored the motion with Supervisor Lindsey Horvath.

“CCTV cameras are one of the best tools that we have for accountability and to protect both our youth and staff in our juvenile detention facilities,” Hahn stated. “But the cameras are only effective if they are monitored around the clock and if every incident is reported immediately, and it is time our Probation Department has a new CCTV monitoring policy on the books.”

A grand jury indicted 30 officers in March for allowing — and even encouraging — 69 fights, including “gladiator”-style fight clubs involving multiple youth at Los Padrinos after the video of the original incident became public.

Barry J. Nidorf is now a lynchpin in the Probation Department’s plan to bring Los Padrinos, which was ordered to close in December, back into compliance. A court-approved plan to reduce the population at Los Padrinos requires the department to reopen Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall to take a portion of the juveniles.

The Board of State and Community Corrections, the state regulatory body overseeing California’s juvenile halls, was set to vote on whether Barry J. Nidorf can be used in that capacity again at its June 12 meeting, but the board removed the item from the agenda this week after Los Angeles County failed to provide a requested staffing plan in time.

That approval, needed to meet an aggressive timeline ordered by a Superior Court judge, will likely be taken up at the BSCC’s next meeting in July.