Yagman bags a new client in jail

Civil rights lawyer Stephen Yagman made bail on income tax evasion charges after spending part of Friday in jail and returned to his office on the Venice Beach boardwalk, where VenicePaper caught up with him.

According to Yagman, he used his time in a cell at the US Marshals Federal Holding Facility productively. He gained a new client and discovered a new type of “over-detention.”

Over-detention is a means by which law enforcement agencies hold prisoners beyond their sentences. In this instance, Yagman alleged that law enforcement had held a prisoner in the Los Angeles County Jail rather than transfer him to Federal custody in a timely manner. Conditions at Los Angeles County Jail are said to be much harsher than those in federal facilities: as such it would be punitive to leave a prisoner in LA County.

Yagman told VenicePaper that his own few hours in custody were illuminating because he witnessed the experience of others who were under law enforcement custody and saw “how unnecessarily harshly they treat people who are just poor wretched people."

Previously on LA Observed: Yagman indicted