Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, who's now a leading candidate for governor of California, hid the causes of a mounting epidemic of jail deaths behind a culture of cover-up and retaliation, a former captain in the department said in her first interview since she filed a lawsuit outlining her claims.

Bianco ordered Capt. Victoria Flores not to answer questions from a civil grand jury investigating jail conditions, Flores alleges. Another of her bosses told her not to leave a paper trail about a detainee’s overdose. And the department didn’t discipline deputies who were captured on video knocking a man unconscious.

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