investigator

HARRISBURG, Pa. — A yearlong investigation into suspected fraudulent voter registration forms submitted ahead of last year’s presidential election produced criminal charges Friday against six street canvassers and the man who led their work in Pennsylvania.

The allegations of fraud appeared to be motivated by the defendants’ desire to make money and keep their jobs and was not an effort to influence the election results, said Pennsylvania Atty Gen. Dave Sunday.

Guillermo Sainz, 33, described by prosecutors as the director of a company’s registration drives in Pennsylvania, was charged with three counts of solicitation of registration, a state law that prohibits offering money to reach registration quotas. A message seeking comment was left on a number associated with Sainz, who lives in Arizona. He did not have a lawyer listed in court records.

The six canvassers are charged with unsworn falsification, tampering with public records, forgery and violations of Pennsylvania election law. The charges relate to activities in three Republican-leaning Pennsylvania counties: York, Lancaster and Berks.

“We are confident that the motive behind these crimes was personal financial gain, and not a conspiracy or organized effort to tip any election for any one candidate or party,” Sunday said in a news release. Prosecutors said the forms included all party affiliations.

In a court affidavit filed with the criminal charges on Friday, investigators said Sainz, an employee of Field+Media Corps, “instituted unlawful financial incentives and pressures in his push to meet company goals to maintain funding which in turn spurred some canvassers to create and submit fake forms to earn more money.”

The chief executive of Field+Media Corps, based in Mesa, Ariz., said last year the company was proud of its work to expand voting but had no information about problematic registration forms. A message seeking comment was left Friday for the CEO, Francisco Heredia. The Field+Media Corps website did not appear to be operative.

Field+Media was funded by Everybody Votes, an effort to improve voter registration rates in communities of color. The affidavit said Everybody Votes “fully cooperated” with the investigation and noted its contract with Field+Media prohibited payments on a per-registration basis.

“The investigation confirmed that we hold our partners to the highest standards of quality control when collecting, handling and delivering voter registration applications,” Everybody Votes said in a statement emailed by a spokesperson.

Sainz, who managed Pennsylvania operations from May to October 2024, is accused of paying canvassers based on how many signatures they collected. The police affidavit said Sainz told agents with the attorney general’s office earlier this month he was unaware of any canvassers paid extra hours if they reached a target number of forms.

“Sainz had to be asked the question multiple times before he stated he was not aware of this and that ‘everyone was an hourly worker,’ ” investigators wrote.

One canvasser said she created fake forms to boost her pay and believed others did, too, according to the police affidavit. Another told investigators that most of the registration forms he collected were “not real.” A third reported that when she realized she was not going to reach a daily quota, “she would make up names and information,” police wrote, “due to fear of losing her job.”

The investigation began in late October 2024, when election workers in Lancaster flagged about 2,500 voter registration forms for potential fraud. Authorities said they appeared to contain false names, suspicious handwriting, questionable signatures, incorrect addresses and other problematic details.

In a separate but related investigation, authorities in Monroe County late Friday filed voter registration fraud charges against three canvassers who worked for Field+Media Corps last year. All three defendants were charged with forgery, perjury, unsworn falsification, tampering with public records, identity theft and election law violations.

The suggestion of criminal activity related to the election came as the battleground state was considered pivotal to the presidential election, and then-candidate Donald Trump seized on the news. At a campaign event, he declared there was “cheating” involving “2,600” votes. The actual issue in Lancaster was about 2,500 suspected fraudulent voter registration forms, not ballots or votes.

Scolforo writes for the Associated Press.

PARIS — At least two suspects have been arrested in connection with the theft of crown jewels from Paris’ Louvre Museum, the Paris prosecutor said Sunday, a week after the heist that stunned the world.

The prosecutor said that investigators made the arrests Saturday evening, adding that one of the men taken into custody was preparing to leave the country from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport.

France’s BFM TV and Le Parisien newspaper earlier reported that two suspects had been arrested and taken into custody. Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau did not confirm the number of arrests and did not say whether any jewels had been recovered.

Thieves took less than eight minutes Oct. 19 to steal jewels valued at more than $100 million from the world’s most-visited museum. French officials described how the intruders used a basket lift to scale the Louvre’s facade, forced open a window, smashed display cases and fled. The museum’s director called the incident a “terrible failure.”

Beccuau said investigators from a special police unit in charge of armed robberies, serious burglaries and art thefts made the arrests. In her statement, she rued the leak of information, saying it could hinder the work of more than 100 investigators “mobilized to recover the stolen jewels and apprehend all of the perpetrators.” Beccuau said further details will be unveiled after the suspects’ custody period ends.

French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez praised “the investigators who have worked tirelessly, just as I asked them to, and who have always had my full confidence.”

The Louvre reopened last week after one of the highest-profile museum thefts of the century stunned the world with its audacity and scale.

The thieves slipped in and out while museum patrons were inside, making off with some of France’s crown jewels — a cultural wound that some compared with the burning of Notre Dame Cathedral in 2019.

The thieves escaped with eight objects, including a sapphire diadem, necklace and single earring from a set linked to 19th century queens Marie-Amélie and Hortense.

They also took an emerald necklace and earrings tied to Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon Bonaparte’s second wife, as well as a reliquary brooch. Empress Eugénie’s diamond diadem and her large corsage-bow brooch — an imperial ensemble of rare craftsmanship — were also part of the loot.

One piece — Eugénie’s emerald-set imperial crown with more than 1,300 diamonds — was later found outside the museum, damaged but repairable.

News of the arrests was met with relief by Louvre visitors and passersby on Sunday.

“It’s important for our heritage. A week later, it does feel a bit late; we wonder how this could even happen — but it was important that the guys were caught,” said Freddy Jacquemet.

“I think the main thing now is whether they can recover the jewels,” added Diana Ramirez. “That’s what really matters.”

Petrequin and Garriga write for the Associated Press and reported from London and Paris, respectively.

OREM, Utah — Authorities said Thursday they have fresh leads in their massive manhunt for a college-age shooter who killed influential right-wing activist Charlie Kirk with a single bullet as he spoke at a Utah college campus.

No suspects were in custody Thursday, more than 20 hours after the shooting, and officials have yet to identify the gunman. However, Robert Bohls, the special agent in charge of the F.B.I.’s Salt Lake City office, said that investigators recovered the weapon they believe was used to kill Kirk — a high-powered bolt-action rifle they found in a wooded area near the campus — as well as the suspect’s footprints and palm prints.

“We are and will continue to work nonstop until we find the person that has committed this heinous crime, and find out why they did it,” Bohls said.

A close ally of President Trump who founded the conservative youth group Turning Point USA, Kirk was killed Wednesday by a single shot fired from the rooftop of a nearby building as he addressed a question about mass shootings at a Utah Valley University campus in Orem.

Investigators are tracking a suspect who appeared to be college age and blended in on campus, Beau Mason, commissioner of the Utah Department of Public Safety, told reporters Thursday morning. They have scoured dozens of feeds from campus security cameras and collected footwear impressions, a palm print and forearm imprints for analysis.

Video of the crowd captured by an attendee shows a lone figure in black dashing across the rooftop of the Losee Center, a building about 150 yards from where Kirk was speaking.

Mason said investigators “are confident in our abilities to track” the shooter and had “good video footage” that they were not ready to release.

“We are working through some technologies and some ways to identify this individual,” he said.

After scouring camera security footage, investigators believe the shooter arrived on campus at about 11:52 am and moved through the stairwells, up to the roof, across the roof to the shooting location, Mason said.

“We were able to track his movements as he moved to the other side of the building, jumped off of the building and fled off of the campus and into a neighborhood,” Mason said. “Our investigators worked through those neighborhoods, contacting anybody they can, with doorbell cameras, witnesses, and have thoroughly worked through those communities trying to identify any leads.”

Bohls said investigators recovered a high-powered, bolt-action rifle in a wooded area where the shooter had fled. A law enforcement source told The Times a Mauser 30-06 was recovered by investigators. Investigators have not said whether the rifle had been traced to an owner.

The Utah Department of Public Safety said Wednesday night its State Crime Lab is working “multiple active crime scenes” — from the site where Kirk was shot to the locations he and the suspect traveled — with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Utah County Attorney’s office, the Utah County Sheriff’s office, and the local police departments.

Hope for a speedy capture of the suspect faded Wednesday night after the F.B.I. released the man its director, Kash Patel, had said was a subject of the investigation. After thanking local and state authorities for taking into custody “the subject for the horrific shooting,” Patel announced that the man had been released after an interrogation by law enforcement.

“Our investigation continues,” Patel said.

Another man who was taken into custody a few hours earlier was later released after being booked by Utah Valley University police on suspicion of obstruction of justice.

Speaking at the Pentagon Thursday at an event commemorating the Sept. 11 attacks, President Trump said he would posthumously award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Kirk.

“Charlie was a giant of his generation, a champion of liberty and an inspiration to millions and millions of people,” Trump said.

The shooter is believed to have fired about 20 minutes after Kirk began speaking Wednesday on a grassy campus courtyard under a white canopy emblazoned with the slogan “PROVE ME WRONG.” The event, attended by about 3,000 people, was the first stop on Kirk’s American Comeback Tour of U.S. campuses.

Some experts who have seen videos believe that the assailant probably had experience with firearms, given the precision with which the single shot was fired from a considerable distance.

Videos shared on social media show Kirk sitting on a chair, taking questions in front of a large crowd of people.

“Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last 10 years?” an audience member asks.

“Counting or not counting gang violence?” Kirk responds.

Almost immediately, a shot rings out. Kirk falls back, blood gushing his neck. Video show people screaming and fleeing from the event.

The killing — the latest incident in a spate of violent attacks targeting American politicians on the left and the right — led to swift condemnation of political violence from both sides of the ideological divide. But it also led to a blame game.

After President Trump celebrated Kirk as a “patriot who devoted his life to the cause of open debate” and “martyr for truth and freedom,” he said in an evening video broadcast from the Oval Office that “‘radical left” rhetoric was “directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today.”

Trump — who did not mention recent acts of political violence against Democratic lawmakers — called for a crackdown on leftwing groups.

Even as the House of Representatives observed a moment of silence for Kirk Wednesday when he was still in critical condition, the floor descended into chaos when some Democrats pushed back on a Republican legislator’s request that someone lead the group in prayer.

Florida Representative Anna Paulina Luna, a former conservative influencer and close friend of Kirk, pointed angrily at Democrats. “You all caused this,” she shouted.

Kirk, 31, was one of the Republican Party’s most influential power brokers.

The founder of the influential conservative youth organization Turning Point USA, Kirk had a vast online reach: 1.6 million followers on Rumble, 3.8 million subscribers on YouTube, 5.2 million followers on X and 7.3 million followers on TikTok.

During the 2024 election, he rallied his online followers to support Trump, prompting conservative podcast host Megyn Kelly to say: “It’s not an understatement to say that this man is responsible for helping the Republicans win back the White House and the U.S. Senate.”

Just after Trump was elected for a second time to the presidency in November, Kirk frequently posted to social media from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, where he had firsthand influence over which MAGA loyalists Trump named to his Cabinet.

Kirk was known for melding his conservative politics, nationalism and evangelical faith, casting the current political climate as a state of spiritual warfare between a righteous right wing and so-called godless liberals.

At a Turning Point event on the Salt Lake City campus of Awaken Church in 2023, he said that gun violence was worth the price of upholding the right to bear arms.

“I think it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the 2nd Amendment to protect our other God-given rights,” he said. “That is a prudent deal. It is rational.”

Kirk also previously declared that God was on the side of American conservatives and that there was “no separation of church and state.” In a speech to Trump supporters in Georgia last year, he said that “the Democrat Party supports everything that God hates” and that “there is a spiritual battle happening all around us.”

NORFOLK, Va. — A Virginia man pleaded guilty Friday in a federal case that accused him of stockpiling the largest number of finished explosives in FBI history and of using then-President Biden’s photo for target practice.

Brad Spafford pleaded guilty in federal court in Norfolk to possession of an unregistered short-barreled rifle and possession of an unregistered destructive device, according to court documents. Each count carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. His sentencing is scheduled for December.

Federal authorities said they seized about 150 pipe bombs and other homemade devices last fall at Spafford’s home in Isle of Wight County, which is northwest of Norfolk.

The investigation into Spafford began in 2023 when an informant told authorities that Spafford was stockpiling weapons and ammunition, according to court documents. The informant, a friend and member of law enforcement, told authorities that Spafford was using pictures of then-President Biden for target practice and that “he believed political assassinations should be brought back,” prosecutors wrote.

Two weeks after the assassination attempt of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump in 2024, Spafford told the informant, “bro I hope the shooter doesn’t miss Kamala,” according to court documents. Former Vice President Kamala Harris had recently announced she was running for president. On around the same day, Spafford told the informant that he was pursuing a sniper qualification at the local gun range, court records stated.

Numerous law enforcement officers and bomb technicians searched the property in December.

Spafford stored a highly unstable explosive material in a garage freezer next to “Hot Pockets and frozen corn on the cob,” according to court documents. Investigators also said they found explosive devices in an unsecured backpack labeled “#NoLivesMatter.”

Spafford has remained in jail since his arrest in December. U.S. District Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen ruled against his release in January, writing that Spafford has “shown the capacity for extreme danger.” She also noted that Spafford lost three fingers in an accident involving homemade explosives in 2021.

Spafford had initially pleaded not guilty to the charges in January. Defense attorneys had argued at the time that Spafford, who is married and a father of two young daughters, works a steady job as a machinist and has no criminal record.

Defense attorney Jeffrey Swartz said at Spafford’s January detention hearing that investigators had gathered information on him since January 2023, during which Spafford never threatened anyone.

“And what has he done during those two years?” Swartz said. “He purchased a home. He’s raised his children. He’s in a great marriage. He has a fantastic job, and those things all still exist for him.”

Investigators, however, said they had limited knowledge of the homemade bombs until an informant visited Spafford’s home, federal prosecutors wrote in a filing.

“But once the defendant stated on a recorded wire that he had an unstable primary explosive in the freezer in October 2024, the government moved swiftly,” prosecutors wrote.

Finley writes for the Associated Press.

UNITED NATIONS — The Trump administration announced Wednesday that it is issuing sanctions against an independent investigator tasked with probing human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories, the latest effort by the United States to punish critics of Israel’s 21-month war in Gaza.

The State Department’s decision to impose sanctions on Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, follows an unsuccessful U.S. pressure campaign to force the international body to remove her from her post. It also comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is visiting Washington this week to meet with President Trump and other officials about the war in Gaza and more.

It’s unclear what the practical impact the sanctions will have and whether the independent investigator will be able to travel to the U.S. with diplomatic paperwork.

Albanese, an Italian human rights lawyer, has been vocal about what she has described as the “genocide” by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza. Both Israel and the U.S., which provides military support to its close ally, have strongly denied that accusation.

The U.S. had not previously addressed concerns with Albanese head-on because it has not participated in either of the two Human Rights Council sessions this year, including the summer session that ended Tuesday. This is because the Trump administration withdrew the U.S. earlier this year.

Albanese has urged countries to pressure Israel

In recent weeks, Albanese has issued a series of letters urging other countries to pressure Israel, including through sanctions, to end its deadly bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

She has also been a strong supporter of the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants against Israeli officials, including Netanyahu, for allegations of war crimes. She most recently issued a report naming several large U.S. companies as among those aiding what she described as Israel’s occupation and war on Gaza.

“Albanese’s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted on social media. “We will always stand by our partners in their right to self-defense.”

Liz Evenson, international justice director at Human Rights Watch, said the U.S. government’s decision to sanction Albanese for seeking justice through the ICC “is actually all about silencing a U.N. expert for doing her job — speaking truth about Israeli violations against Palestinians and calling on governments and corporations not to be complicit.”

“The United States is working to dismantle the norms and institutions on which survivors of grave abuses rely,” Evenson said in a statement. “U.N. and ICC member countries should strongly resist the U.S. government’s shameless efforts to block justice for the world’s worst crimes and condemn the outrageous sanctions on Albanese.”

Albanese’s July 1 report focuses on Western defense companies that have provided weapons used by Israel’s military, as well as manufacturers of earth-moving equipment that have bulldozed Palestinian homes and property.

It cites activities by companies in the shipping, real estate, technology, banking and finance and online travel industries, as well as academia.

“While life in Gaza is being obliterated and the West Bank is under escalating assault, this report shows why Israel’s genocide continues: because it is lucrative for many,” her report said.

A request for comment from the U.N.’s top human rights body was not immediately returned.

Israel strongly refutes Albanese’s allegations

Israel’s diplomatic mission in Geneva, where the 47-member Human Rights Council is based, called Albanese’s report “legally groundless, defamatory, and a flagrant abuse of her office” and having “whitewashed Hamas atrocities.”

Outside experts, such as Albanese, do not represent the United Nations and have no formal authority. However, they report to the council as a means of monitoring countries’ human rights records.

Albanese has faced criticism from pro-Israel officials and groups in the U.S. and in the Middle East. The U.S. mission to the U.N. issued a scathing statement last week, calling for her removal for “a years-long pattern of virulent anti-Semitism and unrelenting anti-Israel bias.”

The statement said Albanese’s allegations of Israel committing genocide or apartheid are “false and offensive.”

Israel’s ambassador to the U.N., Danny Danon, celebrated the U.S. action, saying in a statement Wednesday that Albanese’s “relentless and biased campaign against Israel and the United States has long crossed the line from human rights advocacy into political warfare.”

Trump administration’s campaign to quiet criticism of Israel

It is a culmination of a nearly six-month campaign by the Trump administration to quell criticism of Israel’s handling of the war in Gaza. Earlier this year, the administration began arresting and trying to deport faculty and students of U.S. universities who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations and other political activities.

The war between Israel and Hamas began Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel and killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 people captive. Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed over 57,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which says women and children make up most of the dead but does not specify how many were fighters or civilians.

Nearly 21 months into the conflict that displaced the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, it is nearly impossible for the critically wounded to get the care they need, doctors and aid workers say.

“We must stop this genocide, whose short-term goal is completing the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, while also profiteering from the killing machine devised to perform it,” Albanese said in a recent post on X. “No one is safe until everyone is safe.”

Amiri writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.

July 9 (UPI) — The United States has sanctioned an independent investigator of human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories, in latest move by the Trump administration targeting critics of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

Francesca Paola Albanese, the 48-year-old Italian-born U.N. special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, was sanctioned by the State Department on Wednesday.

The sanctions come as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Washington, D.C., and follow the publication of a recent report by Albanese calling for punitive measures to be imposed against Israel over what she describes as its “genocide” of the Palestinian people, while criticizing dozens of businesses for profiting off the conflict.

The State Department issued its secondary sanctions on the grounds of Albanese’s support of the ICC.

The Trump administration sanctioned the ICC last month after the court opened an investigation into the actions of U.S. personnel in Afghanistan and issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on allegations of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in their widespread, systematic assault on Gaza.

Albanese has called on countries to comply with the ICC arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said her support of the ICC is “a gross infringement on the sovereignty” of the United States and Israel, as neither party is a member of the international court.

“The United States has repeatedly condemned and objected to the biased and malicious activities of Albanese that have long made her unfit for service as a special rapporteur,” Rubio said in a statement.

He also chastised her recent report for naming dozens of companies that she described as complicit in and profiting from Israel’s war.

“While life in Gaza is being obliterated and the West Bank is under escalating assault, this report shows why Israel’s genocide continues: because it is lucrative for many,” the report states, while urging the ICC to investigate and prosecute corporate executives complicit in the conflict.

Rubio said the report makes “extreme and unfounded accusations.”

“We will not tolerate these campaigns of political and economic warfare, which threaten our national interests and sovereignty,” he said.

“The United States will continue to take whatever actions we deem necessary to respond to lawfare, to check and prevent illegitimate ICC overreach and abuse of power, and to protect our sovereignty and that of our allies.”

Without directly mentioning the sanctions, Albanese said on X that “on this day more than ever: I stand firmly and convincingly on the side of justice, as I have always done.”

“I come from a country with a tradition of illustrious legal scholars, talented lawyers and courageous judges who have defended justice at great cost and often with their own life. I intend to honor that tradition,” she said.

Amnesty International rebuked the United States’ sanctions as “a shameless and transparent attack on the fundamental principles of international justice.”

“Following the recent sanctions against the International Criminal Court, the measures announced today are a continuation of the Trump administration’s assault on international law and its efforts to protect the Israeli government from accountability at all costs,” Agnes Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general, said in a statement.

“They are the latest in a series of Trump administration policies seeking to intimidate and silence those that dare speak out for Palestinians’ human rights.”

The war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza began on Oct. 7, 2023, when the Iran-backed militant group killed 1,200 people and took another 251 hostage during a surprise attack on Israel.

In the 21 months since, Israel has destroyed Gaza and killed more than 57,600 Palestinians and injured more than 137,000 others.

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.