"It's all in the attitude."
These are words Damacio Diaz says were instilled in him at a young age by coach Jim White, who was portrayed in the Disney movie McFarland, USA.
The attitude in the recently released court documents show Diaz as accepting of his looming sentence and the actions that led to it.
Diaz is scheduled to be sentenced on Monday in Fresno after taking a plea deal for possession of meth with the intent to sell, falsifying a tax return and bribery.
Diaz says he has been made out to be the scapegoat and argues Patrick Mara, his former partner, is the one who brought him into the darkness.
Diaz calls Mara "one of my closest friend and later also became my worst nightmare".
The nightmare began when Mara told him an informant he was working with was giving him money as gifts.
Soon Guillermo Magallanes, known as "Memo", who Diaz was in charge of, began leaving money for Diaz.
Diaz says the first time Memo left him money, he told him back to take it back but accepted it and says it is "a day I truly regret and a decision that changed my entire life."
Diaz alleges that Mara had friends who sold drugs and instead of seizing and booking some drugs, he would take the drugs to his friend so he could sell them.
Diaz says he assisted him in not booking drugs, but he never dealt with Mara's friend directly.
The documents also detail Diaz growing up in McFarland and speak about a broken marriage caused by living a double life with drug informants.
Diaz says he found great success as a detective, but began to cut corners, fudge paperwork and not book drugs because he was not being watched.
He says bosses in the department drank heavily and he began to as well, even being pulled over for drinking and driving once by fellow officers, who laughed about it and took him home.
Diaz pointed to discrepancies in policies in the department and actual practices, like drinking on duty and meeting an informant alone even though policy said not to.
The documents end with Diaz being deemed a minimum risk to the community and asks for a minimal sentence.
