Officials announced Thursday that Los Angeles County has automated the process of notifying law enforcement agencies when people who violate restraining orders fail to comply with judges’ orders to hand their guns over to authorities.
Previously, court clerks had to identify which of the county’s 88 law enforcement agencies to notify about a firearm relinquishment by looking up addresses for the accused, which could take multiple days, Presiding Judge Sergio C. Tapia II of the L.A. County Superior Court said during a news conference.
Now, “notices are sent within minutes” to the appropriate agencies, Tapia said.
“This new system represents a step forward in ensuring timely, consistent and efficient communication between the court and law enforcement,” he said, “helping to remove firearms from individuals who are legally prohibited from possessing them.”
According to a news release, the court launched the platform, which the Judicial Council of California funded with a $4.12 million grant in conjunction with the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department and district attorney’s office, and the L.A. Police Department and city attorney’s office.
The court also rolled out a new portal for law enforcement that “streamlines interagency communications by providing justice partners with a centralized list of relevant cases for review” and allows agencies “to view all firearm relinquishment restraining order violations within their jurisdiction,” according to the release.
The new digital approach “represents a major enhancement in public safety,” Luna said.
“Each of those firearms,” he said, “represents a potential tragedy prevented or a domestic violence situation that did not escalate, a life that was not lost to gun violence.”
INDIO, Calif. — A Riverside County criminal grand jury indicted the longtime mayor of Coachella on nine counts, including one felony charge of violating conflict of interest rules related to government contracts and four felony counts of perjury.
Steven Hernandez, 42, who has served on the Coachella City Council for nearly two decades, pleaded not guilty Thursday morning at the Larson Justice Center in Indio.
Hernandez was a rising politician in Riverside County and Coachella, an agricultural city of 42,500 people about 130 miles southeast of Los Angeles. If convicted as charged, Hernandez would be barred from public office for life and face more than seven years in state prison, according to Riverside County Dist. Atty. Mike Hestrin.
Hernandez was raised in Coachella by his grandparents, who were migrant farmworkers. He was first elected to the council in 2006, becoming an integral part of a powerful group of Latino politicians in the valley east of Palm Springs. Under his leadership, the city made major infrastructure investments in its downtown, including an expanded library, a new senior center and a new fire station.
But Hernandez allegedly benefited from some of the votes he cast from the dais, catching the attention of the Riverside County District Attorney’s office.
The indictment, unsealed Thursday, charges Hernandez with several misdemeanors for using his role as a public official to influence governmental decisions in which he had a financial interest. Among those were votes, cast between 2021 and 2023, to use pandemic-era American Rescue Plan Act funds to rehabilitate the downtown fire station, as well as votes on a commercial project known as Fountainhead Plaza, an affordable apartment community called the Tripoli Mixed-Use project, and a transit hub near downtown.
It also charges Hernandez with a felony for “willfully and unlawfully” approving a contract in which he had a financial interest when when he voted for an agreement between the city and the Coachella Valley Assn. of Governments’ Housing First program, which serves chronically homeless people.
An Assn. of Governments spokesperson said the organization has fully cooperated with the district attorney’s office and grand jury and “there has never been an implication from investigators that the investigation had anything to do with actions by elected officials serving in their CVAG capacity.”
The perjury charges relate to claims made by Hernandez on his Statement of Economic Interests public disclosure forms, also known as the Form 700, the district attorney said.
The indictment named 13 witnesses who testified before the criminal grand jury, including a city council member, the city’s economic development director, a former council member and a former city manager.
Hernandez will remain mayor of Coachella “until otherwise notified,” according to city spokesperson Risseth Lora.
Along with serving on the city council, Hernandez works as the chief of staff for Riverside County Supervisor V. Manuel Perez. He was placed on “indefinite administrative leave” from the county, Perez said in a statement Wednesday, adding: “Although we are still waiting on more details, it’s our understanding that the charges are unrelated to his role in our office.”
Hernandez surrendered to Riverside County Sheriff officials at the Robert Presley Detention Center in Riverside on Tuesday and posted $112,500 bail. He appeared before Riverside County Superior Court Judge John J. Ryan on Thursday morning. Wearing a navy suit, he clasped his hands behind his back as his attorney entered the plea.
He donned sunglasses as he left the courtroom.
This article is part of The Times’ equity reporting initiative,funded by the James Irvine Foundation, exploring the challenges facing low-income workers and the efforts being made to addressCalifornia’s economic divide.
L.A. County prosecutors tried to force City Councilman Curren Price’s wife to testify before a grand jury and served subpoenas on several members of his City Hall staff earlier this year, three sources told The Times.
The grand jury was convened in March, according to three sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity because grand jury proceedings are secret under California law. Price’s attorney, Michael Schafler, also confirmed the existence of a grand jury proceeding in a new court filing on Thursday.
The convening of a grand jury, coupled with news that prosecutors filed additional charges against Price earlier this week, marks a significant uptick in the district attorney’s office’s focus on the veteran councilman. Price was first charged in 2023 after voting in favor of multiple measures that prosecutors allege would financially benefit his wife, real estate consultant Del Richardson.
Documents made public Thursday also show the district attorney’s office considered Richardson a “suspect” in the criminal investigation into her husband as recently as 2022.
The councilman has denied all wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty.
Richardson ultimately did not testify before the grand jury, though it was not clear why, according to two of the sources. No criminal charges were filed against Richardson. The district attorney’s office did not immediately respond to questions about that decision Thursday.
“I would not expect Del Richardson to be charged because she has done nothing wrong,” said Richardson’s attorney, Adam Kamenstein. “She is also completely confident that her husband, Councilman Price, will soon be fully vindicated, and she looks forward to being able to put this matter behind them.”
Price now faces 12 criminal counts in total accusing him of grand theft by embezzlement, perjury and violating state conflict of interest laws. Prosecutors allege Price repeatedly voted in favor of measures to sell buildings or support grants for developers or agencies that had previously contracted with his wife’s consulting firm, Del Richardson & Associates.
Price has also been accused of bilking the city out of $33,000 in medical premiums by listing his wife as a beneficiary of his city-issued healthcare plan between 2013 and 2017, before they were legally married.
In documents made public Thursday morning, a summary of the district attorney’s office’s investigation written in 2022 described Richardson as a “suspect” in the case.
An investigator wrote that Richardson committed perjury and aided and abetted in Price’s alleged embezzlement by seeking to recoup healthcare costs from the city of Inglewood, where Price formerly served as a councilman, between 2015 and 2017, according to the summary document. Price and Richardson were not legally married at the time as Price did not divorce his first wife until 2018, prosecutors allege.
Prosecutors served subpoenas on several members of Price’s City Hall staff and several former employees of Del Richardson & Associates, which Richardson sold to the Greenwood Seneca Foundation several years ago, the sources said.
The purpose of the grand jury was also unclear, as two of the sources said questions asked by prosecutors were not focused on the charges already filed against Price.
In a motion seeking to dismiss all charges filed Thursday morning, Schafler questioned the legality of the grand jury proceedings.
Schafler said the grand jury hearings “appear to impermissibly have been for the primary purpose of discovery and preparing for the preliminary hearing and trial in this action, which had already been pending since June 2023.”
Grand juries are held in secret and transcripts of such proceedings only become public if an indictment is returned against the target of the hearing. Price has not been indicted.
The district attorney’s office said it could not comment on grand jury proceedings without court authorization.
“The Grand Jury process involves two types of Grand Juries: Investigative and Indicting. An Investigative Grand Jury investigates and does not seek an Indictment,” the office said in a statement.
It was not clear which type of grand jury was convened in Price’s case. It is rare for prosecutors to fail to convince a grand jury to return an indictment.
In a motion seeking to dismiss charges in 2023, Price’s attorney argued prosecutors could not prove that past payments to Richardson’s company had any influence on the councilman’s voting record. Many of the votes that prosecutors zeroed in on passed easily, with Price’s vote making no difference to their success or failure.
Under California law, criminal cases can proceed from the filing of charges to a trial by two pathways. More often than not, defendants face a preliminary hearing where a judge must decide if prosecutors have enough evidence to prove there is probable cause for a defendant to stand trial.
Prosecutors can also seek an indictment before a grand jury, a move that limits what counterarguments defense attorneys can put forth and protects witnesses from cross-examination. In recent years, L.A. County prosecutors have convened grand juries to indict disgraced porn star Ron Jeremy on a litany of rape allegations and to review manslaughter charges against Torrance police officers.
Price appeared in court on Thursday morning to answer the two new charges filed against him earlier this week. On Tuesday, Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman said that between 2019 and 2021, Price voted in support of grants and funding for L.A. Metro and the city’s housing authority after Richardson’s firm was paid more than $800,000 combined by both agencies.
Joined by about two dozen supporters who sat in the back rows of the courtroom, Price pleaded not guilty to the new charges. His attorney said he would file a motion to dismiss those charges later on Thursday.
Prosecutors said the councilman’s staff “flagged the conflict of interest prior to the votes” that prompted the new charges.
Price’s spokeswoman, Angelina Valencia, did not respond directly to that allegation. But she said the councilman’s office has always “carried out a multi-layered process to identify and address potential conflicts of interests, work that is highly complex and requires thorough review.”
“Each month, our legislative team reviews hundreds of Council and Committee votes, cross-checking for potential conflicts,” she said.
Schafler has repeatedly argued that Price did not knowingly violate conflict of interest laws.
When President Trump deployed the National Guard to quell protests last month against immigration raids unfolding across Los Angeles County, he claimed widespread lawlessness forced him to send in the troops.
Days later, L.A. County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman stepped in front of news cameras to announce charges against people who allegedly attacked police during the demonstrations. He avoided mentioning Trump or the swarms of masked federal agents descending on parks, workplaces and schools, but tried to push back against the White House’s chaos narrative.
Noting that the unrest was confined to a small section of downtown, Hochman promised to hold the lawbreakers accountable and disputed that Los Angeles was “under siege.”
Reflecting on the moment in a recent interview with The Times, Hochman said he wanted to set the record straight without igniting a partisan dispute.
“What I’m hearing and reading and seeing is a political discourse that I have no interest in engaging in,” he said. “But one that is misstating what the factual context is on the ground.”
A former Republican who rebranded as an independent last year, Hochman promised to “get politics out” of the district attorney’s office. He endorsed Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential race but has stuck to his self-described “hard middle” since, focusing instead on restoring order to an office he criticized as being too chaotic under his predecessor.
Federal immigration agents near MacArthur Park in the Westlake area on July 7.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
Now more than six months into Hochman’s first term, prosecutors and law enforcement officials say the new district attorney has delivered “a return to normalcy” after the contentious term of progressive luminary George Gascón. By repealing nearly all of Gascón’s sweeping policies, Hochman is allowing his prosecutors to mete out justice as they see fit, restoring a relative degree of harmony to an office that spent four years at war with itself.
But Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement campaign is testing the limits of Hochman’s neutrality.
“When the head prosecutor in the county doesn’t take a position, silence may appear to the community as support,” said L.A. County Public Defender Ricardo Garcia.
Hochman said that his office is not collaborating with the federal government on immigration enforcement and that he would prefer if immigration agents let state-level cases play out before taking action.
“I’m doing my best to focus on my mission, which is public safety. There’s a lot of politics going on and a lot of noise above that mission, whether it’s the president squabbling with the governor, squabbling with the mayor or anybody else who wants to interject in the political discussions,” he said. “I’m going out of my way nowadays to keep our focus in this office on the public safety aspect.”
It was that focus that made Hochman speak up at the news conference. He recalled watching TV news and social media clips of the first weekend of protests that echoed Trump’s proclamations that the city might burn down.
“You’d swear to God, L.A. was under siege. I mean I got scared the first night,” he said. “I’m calling up my people and I’m saying, ‘Is this going on throughout the city and the county?’”
Superpowers, celebrity trials and stark contrasts
Hochman’s measured approach stands in contrast not only to Gascón’s but also to his counterpart’s at the federal prosecutor’s office in Los Angeles.
During a news conference on arrests of people who allegedly attacked police during last month’s protests, Hochman calmly laid out the legal reasoning for the various prosecutions during the politically charged events. By comparison, U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli took the microphone minutes later and parroted Trump verbatim before pushing a long-held conservative suspicion about out-of-state agitators causing violence.
Although Hochman talked as a candidate about crime in apocalyptic tones, took significant money from conservative megadonors and worked with fundraisers tied to Trump, his overhaul of the district attorney’s office has not resembled the right-wing makeover some feared it would. If anything, Hochman’s law and order orientation is in line with statewide voter shifts on criminal justice reform.
Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman announces “aggressive action” against retail theft during a news conference outside a 7-Eleven in May.
(Al Seib / For The Times)
Gone are Gascón’s reformist policies discouraging the use of cash bail and limiting the use of sentencing enhancements. The death penalty is back on the table, although Hochman has not yet pursued it against a defendant.
Six months into his term, data show Hochman is charging felonies at roughly the same rate Gascón did. Although the new district attorney vowed during his campaign to charge more juveniles as adults, so far he has pursued a total of five cases — the same number Gascón had at this time last year, according to a spokesperson for the office.
After Hochman wiped out Gascón’s ban on filing certain misdemeanors, prosecutors charged nearly 70% of all low-level cases presented by police in the first half of 2025, records show. Hochman says it’s a necessary step to deter criminals, but Garcia and other advocates warn it puts more people at risk of deportation.
Hochman says he’s merely enforcing the law, and often presents himself as a man trying to get the trains back on time. In his downtown office, a framed silver age comic book sits by his desk, chronicling the adventures of “Mr. District Attorney.” Hochman laughs when describing the 1940s hero who seems to share his straight-ahead approach to the job.
“He doesn’t have any superpowers,” Hochman says. “Turns out, he’s just a really good lawyer.”
In an attempt to win over rank-and-file prosecutors, Hochman filled his administration with office veterans. And he’s made a point of dropping in on trials large and small — from celebrity defendants to juvenile cases far from the headlines — to cheer on his staff.
“We’ve seen a return to normalcy. We have a general understanding of what the expectations are of us,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Ryan Erlich, president of the union that represents most of Hochman’s staff. “We feel the upper management understands the job that we do, and it allows us to communicate and work on issues.”
Marilyn Manson, Menendez brothers and political pitfalls
Good vibes aside, some of Hochman’s decisions have rankled line prosecutors and led to political pitfalls.
The office has been on the wrong end of several high-profile cases this year, leading some prosecutors to question why the district attorney’s even-keel behavior tends to falter when the lights are on brightest.
“He wants to be recognized, so he’s always involved in these high-profile cases,” said one veteran deputy district attorney, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. “Sometimes to the detriment of the case.”
During his campaign for district attorney last year, Nathan Hochman spoke alongside actor Esme Bianco to criticize his opponent’s handling of a case involving singer Marilyn Manson.
(Michael Blackshire / Los Angeles Times)
“You don’t parade people out. … I found that so deeply offensive,” said Lenora Claire, a former member of the district attorney’s office’s victim advisory board. “What was that choice other than being completely irresponsible? He hadn’t reviewed the case.”
Hochman said the case was handled appropriately and prosecutors made a decision not to charge that was “rooted in facts and the law, not a political agenda.”
Hochman’s personal involvement in the resentencing hearings for Erik and Lyle Menendez, the brothers who killed their parents in a pair of brutal shotgun murders in 1989, also drew scrutiny. The brothers were each serving a life sentence with no hope of release until Gascón petitioned for their resentencing last year, a move Hochman opposed both on the campaign trail and then in court.
Hochman’s interactions with the Menendez family drew allegations of bias and his decision to transfer the prosecutors who filed Gascón’s petition resulted in a civil suit. During one hearing in May, he personally took over arguments in the courtroom and said the brothers needed to show proper “insight” into their crimes, even after a judge repeatedly warned him it was legally irrelevant.
“When people say did you win or lose the Menendez case, I say we won. The defense was asking for immediate release through a voluntary manslaughter finding. The judge didn’t go there,” Hochman said.
Tougher sentences, ticked off attorneys
After a campaign fueled by pro-law enforcement rhetoric, some defense attorneys say Hochman’s election has emboldened prosecutors to become unnecessarily aggressive.
“They are focused more now on incarceration and high prison sentences, as opposed to probation and the opportunity for rehabilitation,” attorney Damon Alimouri said.
One of Alimouri’s clients, Gerardo Miguel, is currently awaiting trial in a vandalism and burglary case after allegedly smashing his way into a Los Angeles home while screaming, “call the police” before hiding in the victim’s bathroom, according to court records.
Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman outside the Van Nuys Courthouse during a hearing in the case of Erik and Lyle Menendez in May.
(Damian Dovarganes / Associated Press)
No one was injured in the incident. Miguel did not steal anything, nor does he have a criminal record. Yet, Alimouri said, the district attorney’s office’s only plea offer would send his client to state prison.
“[The prosecutor] said, I’m concerned about the safety of the public, this guy could have done X, Y and Z,” Alimouri said of the plea negotiation. “But the fact of the matter is [my client] didn’t do X, Y and Z. He curled up in the fetal position and called for help.”
Garcia, the public defender, also expressed frustration that Hochman’s prosecutors have been fighting attempts to get defendants into the county’s Rapid Diversion Program, which allows defendants to get treatment without taking on a criminal conviction. The program has a 90% success rate, according to Garcia.
Hochman, who championed the use of some mental health diversion programs during his campaign, says it’s a lack of county resources that limits the use of alternative justice programs.
“We don’t have enough beds, anywhere in this county, for dealing with that whole population,” Hochman said.
Allocating resources is the job of L.A. County’s Board of Supervisors, a panel that leans heavily left. Hochman won’t face reelection until 2028, and until then observers say his centrism could be an asset.
“The advantage to being an independent is he can put the voters in the city before his political party,” said Dan Schnur, who teaches political communications at the University of Southern California. “Anyone with a D or an R next to their name comes under immense pressure to toe their respective party lines.”
Times staff writer Richard Winton contributed to this report.
On a recent morning inside San Quentin prison, Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman and more than a dozen other prosecutors crowded into a high-ceilinged meeting hall surrounded by killers, rapists and other serious offenders.
Name the crime, one of these guys has probably done it.
“It’s not every day that you’re in a room of 100 people, most of whom have committed murder, extremely violent crimes, and been convicted of it,” Hochman later said.
Many of these men, in their casual blue uniforms, were serving long sentences with little chance of getting out, like Marlon Arturo Melendez, an L.A. native who is now in for murder.
Melendez sat in a “sharing circle,” close enough to Hochman that their knees could touch, no bars between them. They chatted about the decrease in gang violence in the decades since Melendez was first incarcerated more than 20 years ago, and Melendez said he found Hochman “interesting.”
Inside San Quentin, this kind of interaction between inmates and guests isn’t unusual. For decades, the prison by the Bay has been doing incarceration differently, cobbling together a system that focuses on accountability and rehabilitation.
Like the other men in the room, Melendez takes responsibility for the harm he caused, and every day works to be a better man. When he introduces himself, he names his victims — an acknowledgment that what he did can’t be undone but also an acknowledgment that he doesn’t have to remain the same man who pulled the trigger.
Whether or not Melendez or any of these men ever walk free, what was once California’s most notorious lockup is now a place that offers them the chance to change and provides the most elusive of emotions for prisoners — hope.
Creating that culture is a theory and practice of imprisonment that Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to make the standard across the state.
He’s dubbed it the California Model, but as I’ve written about before, it’s common practice in other countries (and even in a few places in the United States). It’s based on a simple truth about incarceration: Most people who go into prison come out again. Public safety demands that they behave differently when they do.
“We are either paying to keep them here or we are paying if they come back out and harm somebody,” said Brooke Jenkins, the district attorney of San Francisco, who has visited San Quentin regularly for years.
Jenkins was the organizer of this unusual day that brought district attorneys from around the state inside of San Quentin to gain a better understanding of how the California Model works, and why even tough-on-crime district attorneys should support transforming our prisons.
As California does an about-face away from a decade of progressive criminal justice advances with new crackdowns such as those promised by the recently passed Proposition 36 (which is expected to increase the state inmate population), it is also continuing to move ahead with the controversial plan to remake prison culture, both for inmates and guards, by centering on rehabilitation over punishment.
Despite a tough economic year that is requiring the state to slash spending, Newsom has kept intact more than $200 million from the prior budget to revamp San Quentin so that its outdated facilities can support more than just locking up folks in cells.
Some of that construction, already happening on the grounds, is expected to be completed next year. It will make San Quentin the most visible example of the California Model. But changes in how inmates and guards interact and what rehabilitation opportunities are available are already underway at prisons across the state.
It is an overdue and profound transformation that has the potential to not only improve public safety and save money in the long run, but to fundamentally reshape what incarceration means across the country.
Jenkins’ push to help more prosecutors understand and value this metamorphosis might be crucial to helping the public support it as well — especially for those D.A.s whose constituents are just fine with a system that locks up men to suffer for their (often atrocious) crimes. Or even those Californians, such as many in San Francisco and Los Angeles, who are just fed up with the perception that California is soft on criminals.
“It’s not about moderate or progressive, but I think all of us that are moderates have to admit that there are reforms that still need to happen,” Jenkins told me as we walked through the prison yard. She took office after the successful recall of her progressive predecessor, Chesa Boudin, and a rightward shift in San Francisco on crime policy.
Still, she is vocal about the need for second chances. For her, prison reform is about more than the California Model, but a broader lens that includes the perspectives of incarcerated people, and their insights on what they need to make rehabilitation work.
“It really grounds you in your obligation to make sure that the culture in the [district attorney’s] office is fair,” she said.
For Hochman, a former federal prosecutor and defense lawyer who resoundingly ousted progressive George Gascón last year, rehabilitation makes sense. He likes to paraphrase a Fyodor Dostoevsky quote, “The degree of civilization in a society is revealed by entering its prisons.”
“In my perfect world, the education system, the family system, the community, would have done all this work on the front end such that these people wouldn’t have been in position to commit crimes in the first place,” he said. But when that fails, it’s up to the criminal justice system to help people fix themselves.
Despite being perceived as a tough-on-crime D.A. (he prefers “fair on crime”) he’s so committed to that goal of rehabilitation that he is determined to push for a new Men’s Central Jail in Los Angeles County — an expensive (billions) and unpopular idea that he says is long overdue but critical to public safety.
“Los Angeles County is absolutely failing because our prisons and jails are woefully inadequate,” he said.
He’s quick to add that rehabilitation isn’t for everyone. Some just aren’t ready for it. Some don’t care. The inmates of San Quentin agree with him. They are often fiercely vocal about who gets transferred to the prison, knowing that its success relies on having incarcerated people who want to change — one rogue inmate at San Quentin could ruin it for all of them.
“It has to be a choice. You have to understand that for yourself,” Oscar Acosta told me. Now 32, he’s a “CDC baby,” as he puts it — referring to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation — and has been behind bars since he was 18. He credits San Quentin with helping him accept responsibility for his crimes and see a path forward.
When the California Model works, as the district attorneys saw, it’s obvious what its value is. Men who once were nothing but dangerous have the option to live different lives, with different values. Even if they remain incarcerated.
“After having been considered the worst of the worst, today I am a new man,” Melendez told me. “I hope (the district attorneys) were able to see real change in those who sat with them and be persuaded that rehabilitation over punishment is more fruitful and that justice seasoned with restoration is better for all.”
Melendez and the other incarcerated men at San Quentin aspire for us to see them as more than their worst actions. And they take heart that even prosecutors like Jenkins and Hochman, who put them behind bars, sometimes with triple-digit sentences, do see that the past does not always determine the future, and that investing in their change is an investment in safer communities.
Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer appeared at a civil trial this week and denied claims he retaliated against a former executive and whistleblower who sought to protect female prosecutors who were sexually harassed in the D.A.’s office.
In a lawsuit filed against the county by former senior assistant Dist. Atty. Tracy Miller, at one point the highest-ranking woman in the prosecutors office, Spitzer and others are accused of retaliation and trying to force Miller out of her job after she questioned Spitzer’s actions as D.A. Those actions included his handling of allegations that a male superior, who was also the best man at Spitzer’s wedding, sexually harassed young female prosecutors.
Spitzer denied the accusations during hours of testimony that became at times tense and emotional. In a San Diego courtroom this week, Spitzer acknowledged deep tensions within the D.A.’s office following his 2018 election victory over former Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas.
Spitzer, who appeared to wipe away tears during his testimony, told jurors he believed he was walking “in the lions’ den” after winning the election and expected opposition from employees who had worked for Rackauckas.
“I knew it was going to be miserable, and it was miserable,” Spitzer said, his voice cracking.
In her lawsuit, Miller alleges that Spitzer and former chief assistant Dist. Atty. Shawn Nelson — who is now an Orange County Superior Court Judge — forced the prosecutor out through “purposeful and intentional retaliation.” The reason for this, Miller alleges, is that she was protecting female subordinates who had reported sexual misconduct by a male superior, Gary LoGalbo, who is now deceased.
“Miller was punished for refusing to allow Spitzer to lionize the predator, gaslight, and further savage the reputation of the victims,” her lawsuit says.
According to the suit, Miller had also raised concerns about Spitzer’s handling of the D.A.’s office, including worries that Spitzer had violated the Racial Justice Act by bringing up questions of race while trying to determine whether or not to seek the death penalty against a Black defendant. She also claimed that Spitzer considered a prosecutor’s race in assignments and that he had possibly undermined a homicide case.
But it was the allegations of sexual harassment against LoGalbo, a former friend and roommate of Spitzer’s, that plaintiff attorneys say most threatened Spitzer’s leadership and prompted him to target Miller.
“[Spitzer] knew that if this was believed, the (district attorney’s) office would suffer one of the worst scandals ever,” said John Barnett, an attorney representing Miller during his opening statement Monday. “He punished (Miller) for protecting one of her young prosecutors.”
Attorneys representing the county, as well as Spitzer and Nelson, argue that the men wanted Miller to stay in the prosecutor’s office and valued her experience, pointing out they promoted four women to top positions due to her recommendations.
Defense Attorney Tracey Kennedy argued during her opening statement Monday that even though LoGalbo had been friends with Spitzer years ago, the relationship had changed by the time the allegations were raised.
“(Spitzer) had no reason to protect Mr. LoGalbo at the expense of the Orange County DA’s office, and the expense of his career,” Kennedy said.
Instead, she said, Spitzer and Nelson had set out to make much needed reforms for the office.
“They had a mission to change the D.A.’s office,” she said.
The county investigation substantiated the sexual harassment allegations against LoGalbo, but an April 2021 report found that allegations of retaliation were unsubstantiated because no actions were taken against the employees.
Much of Spitzer’s time on the witness stand Tuesday centered on his role in the LoGalbo investigation, and what appeared to be differing versions of what occurred. At one point during questioning, Spitzer disclosed that the version of events he gave the county’s investigator during the internal probe — about a highly scrutinized private meeting with a supervisor — had been “inaccurate.”
Chris Duff, a former senior deputy district attorney, had told the county investigator that Spitzer met with him in the law library of a Westminster courthouse in January 2021 and instructed him to write up one of the sexual harassment victims in her upcoming evaluation for being “untruthful.” Duff said he refused to do so, according to a report of the internal investigation.
Spitzer initially denied discussing the evaluation during the meeting and told the investigator, Elisabeth Frater, that he “never said that” to Duff because he didn’t want anything “to be perceived in any way whatsoever that we were retaliating against her.”
But in court this week, Spitzer offered a different version of events.
“What I told Frater was inaccurate,” Spitzer said, adding that he did discuss concerns he had about the female prosecutor’s honesty regarding an email she wrote. “I did talk to Duff about that.”
But Spitzer maintained his concerns were about the prosecutor’s veracity, and not about the claims she had raised against LoGalbo.
After Duff met with Spitzer, Miller sent a note to Spitzer telling the district attorney she was aware of the conversation, and arguing against writing up the female prosecutor.
During his testimony, Spitzer said that he was disappointed with Miller, and that she had not gone directly to him with her concerns about various issues.
At one point, Spitzer said, he had grown to wonder why Miller would take notes during executive meetings.
“You could see anytime a subject came up, Tracy was taking notes about our meetings,” Spitzer said. “There was a point of time where it was very curious to me, why do you seem to be memorializing everything we’re doing?”
When he was first elected in 2018, Spitzer said he believed he was walking “in the lions’ den” and expected opposition from his direct reports. For that reason, he said, he chose Shawn Nelson to be his number two.
“I picked him because I was going into battle, in the lions’ den,” Spitzer said.
Miller’s lawsuit is just the latest in a series of troubles that have recently hit the district attorney’s office, including allegations of retaliation raised by top prosecutors and investigators in the office.
The county is also facing eight sexual harassment lawsuits involving allegations against LoGalbo.
In March, a now-retired investigator of the office also sent letters to the California attorney general, the U.S. Department of Justice, the State Bar of California, and other agencies to investigate Spitzer and other top officials at the prosecutor’s office.
It’s a bitter feud the likes of which are seldom seen in law enforcement circles — or at least those that boil over into public view.
For over seven years now, Orange County’s top prosecutor and a decorated former cop have been locked in an acrimonious dispute that shows little sign of abating. Both parties have accused the other of fractured ethics and corruption, and even an independent arbitrator likened the situation to a simmering cauldron.
Damon Tucker, a former supervising investigator for the county, has alleged in a lawsuit that he uncovered potential evidence of money laundering, terrorist threats and extortion by his then-boss, Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer. Tucker claims in his lawsuit that Spitzer and others quashed the probe and then fired the investigator as an act of retaliation, leaving him humiliated and shunned by law enforcement.
Spitzer has publicly called Tucker a “dirty cop,” and accused him of working with his opponents — including former Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas — to launch an investigation to hurt him politically. Tucker’s behavior, Spitzer says, was a “disgrace to the badge.”
Now, in yet another escalation of this Orange County drama, Tucker has called on the California attorney general, the U.S. Department of Justice, the State Bar of California and other agencies to investigate Spitzer; the OCDA Bureau of Investigation Chief Paul Walters; and former Chief Assistant Dist. Atty. Shawn Nelson, who is now an Orange County Superior Court judge.
“These allegations must be fully investigated,” Tucker wrote in a letter to those agencies.“Failure to investigate these men casts a shadow over our system of justice.”
Tucker’s call for an investigation of events dating back nearly a decade comes as the district attorney’s office is already facing increased scrutiny over its treatment of employees. Both Spitzer and Nelson face a potential civil trial next week over accusations they retaliated against female employees who say they were sexually harassed by former Senior Assistant Dist. Atty. Gary LoGalbo, a onetime friend of Spitzer’s who is now deceased.
Spitzer and Walters have declined to discuss Tucker’s accusations with The Times. Nelson, through a court spokesperson, also declined, saying judges were prohibited by ethical rules from discussing cases before the court or in media reports.
The California Attorney General’s office confirmed that it is reviewing Tucker’s complaint but would not comment further. The State Bar has also begun a review of the allegations and has requested more information and documentation, according to a letter reviewed by The Times. A spokesperson for the State Bar declined to comment or confirm whether a complaint was received, adding that disciplinary investigations are confidential.
The U.S. Department of Justice would neither comment nor confirm that it had received the letter. Tucker said he also sent a letter to California’s Commission on Judicial Performance. The commission also declined to comment.
A veteran investigator of nearly 30 years, Tucker was fired from the DA’s office in December 2020 over allegations he had initiated a unilateral investigation into Spitzer shortly after he took office.
Tucker sued the county — alleging he was fired and retaliated against for uncovering corruption — and in 2022 he won his job back, along with lost wages. Last year, he received a $2-million out-of court settlement from the county, according to Tucker’s attorney.
Kimberly Edds, a spokesperson for the district attorney’s office, said a non-disparagement agreement signed by Tucker and Spitzer as part of the settlement prevented the office from commenting.
Tucker’s accusations date to an inquiry that was begun in October 2016, when another district attorney investigator, Tom Conklin, was assigned to assist the Fair Political Practices Commission in looking into allegations of campaign finance irregularities by Spitzer, who was at the time an Orange County supervisor but was considering a run for district attorney.
In his recent letter to multiple agencies, as well as in his lawsuit, Tucker alleges the investigation into Spitzer was left unfinished and, even though he and another investigator at one point suggested it should be forwarded to the FBI or state attorney general, the investigation was never referred to an outside agency.
A year after the 2016 investigation began, Conklin’s report was leaked to the Orange County Register, and the newspaper reported that Conklin had been unable to corroborate the allegations.
The leak came at a key time for Spitzer, who had just announced his campaign for district attorney. At the time, he told the Register the investigation had been politically motivated by his political rival, Rackauckas, and that nothing had been found. At the time, a spokesperson for Rackauckas confirmed the investigation but declined to comment on the allegations.
The leak sparked an internal investigation in the district attorney’s office and, when the initial investigator retired, Tucker was ordered to finish the case.
Tucker was tasked with finding out who leaked the report, but after reviewing the case, Tucker concluded that Conklin’s investigation was incomplete.
At least 10 identified witnesses in the case were never interviewed, and several leads had not been followed, according to an investigative summary written by Tucker, and given to a senior deputy district attorney he consulted with in the case.
During his investigation, Tucker reached out to superiors and colleagues at the district attorney’s office and said the allegations against Spitzer needed to be sent out to an outside agency, such as the FBI, for an impartial review.
Tucker said that as he continued to investigate and prepared to send the case to an outside agency, things suddenly changed.
The day after Spitzer was elected district attorney in 2018, Tucker said Walters ordered him to stop digging into the accusations, and to remove any mention of Spitzer’s name from questions in his investigation, according to an investigative summary and sworn depositions, taken in Tucker’s lawsuit against the county. Two days later, Tucker was removed from the case.
In a sworn deposition, Walters confirmed he ordered Tucker to remove questions about Spitzer from his investigation the day Spitzer became the district attorney-elect.
“That’s where I have to tell Tucker, ‘You can’t be asking all these questions about Spitzer,” Walters testfied. “It’s not the case. And I make him redact all that stuff.”
Tucker maintains that, up until the election, Walters supported his investigation.
“I was doing the right thing,” Tucker told The Times. “This should have been sent out.” Walters declined to respond to The Times about that accusation.
However, a spokesperson for the district attorney’s office said it was Tucker who refused to turn over the investigation.
“He was given the opportunity and declined to do so,” said Edds, the D.A’.s spokesperson. “He was offered the opportunity repeatedly.”
Tucker disputes that assertion.
Spitzer has characterized Tucker’s investigation as being politically motivated, and has pointed out in sworn depositions that Tucker had donated to his opponent, Rackauckas, and was friends with Rackauckas’ chief of staff, Susan Kang.
According to county records, Tucker made a $2,000 donation to Rackauckas’ campaign in August 2018, after he’d been assigned to investigate the leak.
Tucker had also been critical of Spitzer during the campaign in multiple Facebook posts, before and after he took up the case.
“I think they sent him off on this fishing expedition to get something on me after the primary election in 2018,” Spitzer said in a deposition. “He’s investigating me while he’s making a major campaign contribution to my opponent? That’s not objective.”
