Heroin in Pringles cans passed a jail checkpoint. The deputy got 67 months.

Two Pringles cans filled with heroin went past a jail’s first security checkpoint in a deputy’s backpack, alongside his loaded handgun. The deputy was not an outsider trying to gain entry. Michael Meiser worked at the North County Correctional Facility in Castaic—the jail he admitted trying to supply with drugs.⁠²

On November 5, 2026, U.S. District Judge Fernando M. Olguin sentenced the former Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy to 67 months in federal prison: five years and seven months. Meiser, 40, of Lancaster, had accepted $15,000 for the attempted delivery of approximately 1.1 pounds of heroin concealed in the two potato-chip cans.⁠¹⁠²⁠⁶

The sentence is the new development. The scheme took place in 2024, and Meiser pleaded guilty on July 10, 2025. His conviction was for one count of possession with intent to distribute heroin. The attempted jail delivery was conduct he admitted, not simply an accusation left unresolved at sentencing; it should not, however, be confused with a separately established conviction for bribery or another smuggling offense.⁠²⁠⁶⁠¹¹⁠¹⁴

CBS Los Angeles’s account, drawing on Meiser’s plea agreement, describes a transaction arranged with inmates while he was working at the facility. At a Valencia gas station, Meiser met two women, one associated with a jail inmate. He received the heroin-filled cans and $15,000 in cash there. His admission tied the cash directly to the attempted delivery: it was payment from inmates, not merely unexplained money found during a search.⁠²

Meiser placed the cans and his loaded handgun in a backpack and traveled to the jail campus in another deputy’s truck. Meiser sat in the passenger seat. The other deputy drove through the initial security checkpoint and parked in the jail parking lot. That sequence puts the heroin on the campus, beyond its first security barrier.⁠²

The other deputy’s role needs to be kept separate from Meiser’s admissions. The available account establishes that the deputy drove the truck; it does not establish that the driver knew about the heroin or knowingly participated in the scheme. Sharing a vehicle is not, by itself, evidence of sharing the plan.⁠²

Later that day, Meiser met an inmate involved in the scheme and spoke with him for several minutes. That meeting is part of the documented attempt, but it does not establish a drug handoff. The account does not confirm that either can reached a prisoner or that any of the heroin was distributed inside the facility.⁠²

At the end of the day, sheriff’s investigators stopped the truck as the two deputies began driving out of the jail campus. They arrested Meiser and searched the vehicle. Inside the backpack, investigators found the $15,000, his loaded handgun, his badge and his sheriff’s department identification. They also recovered both Pringles cans containing heroin.⁠²

The recovery establishes the endpoint of the documented attempt: investigators found the drugs in the truck as it was leaving. It does not support a stronger claim that Meiser successfully delivered heroin to inmates. Equally, describing the operation as an attempt should not obscure how far it progressed. The cans had already crossed the initial checkpoint using the access Meiser had as an employee.⁠²

The FBI investigated the case with assistance from the sheriff’s department’s Internal Criminal Investigations Bureau. The available reporting places the scheme in 2024 but does not establish the exact arrest date; neither the later guilty plea nor the sentencing date supplies that missing detail.⁠²

The verified punishment is the 67-month prison term. The federal court’s calendar lists the November 5 sentencing before Olguin, but a calendar is not a criminal judgment. Without the judgment, the available record does not establish a supervised-release term or other sentencing conditions, and those should not be assumed.⁠¹⁠⁵⁠⁶

The Pringles cans are the memorable detail. The more consequential one is the employee carrying them. This was an admitted effort to turn jail access into a paid drug-delivery route. Investigators recovered the shipment before any completed delivery to prisoners was established—but only after it had passed the campus’s first security checkpoint.