A former Los Angeles County deputy facing 10 years in prison will instead only serve four months following intervention from an unlikely source.

It wasn’t Trevor Kirk’s lawyers who secured the much lighter sentence after the judge agreed to drop the felony count of deprivation of rights under color of law. He did so at the request of the Justice Department, which prosecuted the case.

Confused? Well, even though the prosecutors didn’t change, and no new evidence had surfaced that might lead to a different outcome, the new interim U.S. Attorney for Los Angeles, Bill Essayli, a loyal Trump ally, seemed more sympathetic to the defense. Kirk’s reduced sentence wouldn’t have happened had Essayli not ordered his prosecutors to offer Kirk a misdemeanor plea deal even though they had already secu

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