Will California’s Top Cop See Anaheim City Hall’s Complete Corruption Probe?

By Hosam Elattar Jul 17, 2023 Updated Jul 18, 2023 VOICE OF OC LINK

Image: A number of signs in favor of the council authorizing additional funding to complete the internal corruption investigation were seen inside city hall during the Anaheim city council meeting on Feb. 28, 2023. (Omar Sanchez / Voice of OC)

As Anaheim residents anxiously wait to see the blacked out results of a $1.5 million independent investigation into alleged corruption at city hall, the city council is expected to consider sending the untouched findings to California Attorney General Rob Bonta.

It comes amid questions from some residents on whether some city council members are interjecting themselves too much into the investigation and just how obscured the version of the report residents will get to see will be. 

At Tuesday’s 5 p.m. meeting, City Council members are also expected to consider publicly releasing a redacted version.

Council members will also consider sending an unredacted version to the FBI, a move proposed by city staff, according to the agenda report.

It’s a report residents say they hope leads to accountability and restored public trust in Anaheim City Hall.

“If it’s heavily redacted, that means that a lot of people internally and externally at the highest levels were involved in this corruption of the city,” former City Councilman Jose Moreno said in a Thursday phone interview.

Moreno, who spearheaded the independent investigation last year and its complete public release, said council members should consider minimal redactions. 

“If it is heavily redacted, then the council must consider some other action,” he said. 

According to a staff report, the final investigation report is 300 pages long and a redacted version will be ready in 2-3 weeks.

Orange County Corruption Scandal

Mayor Ashleigh Aitken said in a Thursday phone interview that the redactions are only intended to safeguard whistleblowers and to protect employee privacy.

“If it seems that information has been left out, or there is an incomplete picture, I will work with the city attorney’s office to make sure that there is a justifiable reason,” she said.

“I will not support any redactions that aren’t for the sake of protecting whistleblowers.”

It’s been about a year since a previous Anaheim City Council hired independent investigators and a retired superior court judge to dig into alleged pay to play schemes at city hall in the fallout of an FBI corruption probe.

[Read: When Will Anaheim Residents Get To See The Results of City Hall Corruption Probe?]

Now city officials will consider giving Bonta a look under the hood of OC’s largest city by sending him the unredacted version of what the investigators have uncovered at the request of Councilwoman Natalie Rubalcava.

“It would be great to send it to a law enforcement agency that actually has subpoena power to review,” Rubalcava said at last Tuesday’s city council meeting.

Rubalcava and the other council members did not respond to requests for comment Thursday.

Aitken said that there will be no cover up on what happened in Anaheim and supports sending the unredacted report to Bonta adding that federal agents and the county district attorney are already involved.

“I would like as many eyes on the past wrongdoings as possible,” she said.

Aitken’s father, Wylie Aitken, chairs Voice of OC’s Board of Directors.

Moreno said he supports getting the complete report in front of Bonta.

“The more eyes from those who we trust to oversee and ensure accountability regarding alleged public corruption is important and critical,” he said.

Rubalcava’s push to send the unredacted investigation report to the state AG comes after sworn affidavits surfaced in May 2022 in which FBI agents painted a picture of a shadowy group of political insiders – including Disneyland area resort interests and lobbyists – setting policy discussion in Anaheim.

In these affidavits, federal agents accused former Mayor Harry Sidhu of trying to ram the Angel Stadium land sale through for up to $1 million in campaign support from ballclub executives – the FBI also alleged Sidhu shared critical information with the club during negotiations. 

Shortly after that bombshell hit, Sidhu resigned and former Anaheim Chamber of Commerce CEO Todd Ament – an alleged ringleader in the shadowy group – pleaded guilty to federal charges.

Sidhu – though his attorney has maintained he committed no wrongdoing – has not been charged with a crime.

The controversial Angel Stadium land sale was also canned in the wake of the federal corruption probe.

Image: California Attorney General Rob Bonta briefly met with hotel workers at the Anaheim strike on July 11, 2023. Credit: ERIKA TAYLOR, Voice of OC.

Bonta is the same state attorney general who last year was willing to allow that stadium land sale to go through, despite stating it violated the state’s surplus land act. 

In April, he fined the city $96 million and was going to let the deal continue as long as the city added additional affordable housing requirements. Anaheim was going to pay that fine into an affordable housing fund by restructuring the back end of the deal.

A month later, Bonta successfully asked an Orange County Superior Court judge to pause on the sale after the FBI informed his office they were investigating the land sale process.

[Read: FBI Corruption Probe Into Anaheim Mayor Sidhu Stalls the Angel Stadium Sale]

Former Councilwoman Denise Barnes said in a Thursday phone interview that Bonta’s decision before the FBI informed his office was a bad call but supports him looking at the findings.

“This would give him a much better clearer look at how the city was being run and the behavior of City Hall at the time. And see if he can’t build a case,” she said.

Are Council Members Meddling in the Investigation?

Moreno and residents like Fred Sigala however have concerns that Rubalcava and council members have interjected themselves into and interfered with the investigation.

Especially after Rubalcava and council members put a gag order on investigators to stop them from speaking to the press.

In a recent OC Register article, Rubalcava said she had heard investigators may recommend making changes to how the city handles ticket disclosures on who gets Anaheim’s free tickets to city owned venues. 

Sigala, a city Parks and Recreation commissioner and a member of the Better Anaheim resident group, reached out to the Register and said they were told Rubalcava had heard it from people who were interviewed by investigators.

“The potential harm caused by Rubalcava discussing investigation interviews before findings are released, then sharing hearsay interview information with the OC Register should be scrutinized further by both the Anaheim City Council and the public,” Sigala wrote in a text.

Aitken refused to comment on the issue.

Moreno said the intent of the investigation was to keep it away from council members and staff as much as possible.

“It’s been inappropriate, frankly unethical, for any council member to interject themselves into the investigation the way that some of these council members have done,” he said.

Moreno adds that council members speaking to people who have been interviewed may shape how others respond to investigators.

“When it comes to this investigation, it seems as a body, they’ve sought to limit the level of transparency, limit the amount of resources that (investigators) needed, and to really limit the independence of this investigation,” he said.

Aitken said she wants to make sure people are confident in the independent investigation they paid for.

“I believe at the end of this process, the public will be really confident that the product that the JL Group has delivered is an independent and thorough analysis of the wrongdoings of the prior administration,” she said.

Image: Anaheim City Council board members listen to comments from the public. Photoed on Feb 28, 2023. Credit: Joel Peterson Credit:JOEL PETERESON, Voice of OC

Moreno also has concerns that all the monthly progress reports from the judge overseeing the investigation have not been made public.

Voice of OC put in a public records request for the progress reports on June 7. 

On July 3, the city refused to share any of the progress reports that weren’t made public earlier this year.

“It would be unfortunate if the Council or the city attorney’s office or the city manager’s office made a unilateral decision outside of the public realm to not disclose those progress reports in public,” he said.

“They were supposed to be in public. That was the intent all along.”

Aitken also said the residents have a right to see the progress reports that have been provided to council.

What Have Investigators Found?

JL Group Investigators Jeff Love and Jeff Johnson were tasked with looking into the now terminated Angel Stadium land deal and other potential pay to play schemes involving previous council members, city staff and business interests.

In their probe, the investigators  – who both have about three decades of law enforcement experience – have publicly told council members they found potential criminal wrongdoing.

Despite this, the current city council in February was hesitant to double the budget for the investigation without investigators going back and limited the scope of their probe despite Love and Johnson stating time and money was needed to build a comprehensive report.

Investigators and Retired Superior Court Judge Clay Smith, hired to oversee the probe, refused to dial their scope back and in the end council members reversed course and fully funded the investigation.

[Read: Anaheim Officials Reverse Course and Fully Fund an Independent City Corruption Probe]

Johnson and Love also said they uncovered issues that may not be illegal but are highly questionable.

Image" Investigators Jeff Love (right) and Jeffery Johnson (left) at the Anaheim city council meeting on Feb. 28, 2023. (Omar Sanchez / Voice of OC)

In an interview with Voice of OC in February, Smith gave perhaps the only real insight on what those criminal violations could be.

“I’ll just say that we have not been able to fully explain the handling of funds and we’re just looking into that very earnestly. It may turn out that there was no misconduct or it may turnout money was mishandled or misused. We’re just going to have to wait and see,” Smith said.

He would not clarify if he was referring to city money or provide further specifics on the potential criminal violations.

[Read: Here Comes The Judge: Meet the Man Overseeing Anaheim’s Corruption Probe]

The investigation has sparked the interest of the Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer who, up until February, didn’t say if he was looking into one of the largest corruption scandals to hit the county.

It was at that time city officials allowed investigators to share information with the DA’s office after they asked to do so.

They also gagged investigators and Smith from speaking to the press.

Meanwhile, Moreno hopes the version of the report residents get to see will provide insight on all the different people involved in the alleged shadowy group of insiders who heavily influence policy making in Anaheim behind the scenes.

“What entities were involved? What influence did that end up having on contract services?” he said. 

“One of the things that I’m most interested in is what the role of the Disney Corporation was in facilitating organizing and funding this just deep corruption of our politics.”

Aitken said that once the report is released, she hopes to come to the next city council meeting with firm recommendations to “improve policies and procedures” in Anaheim.

“My intent is to quickly review the report and at the next possible council meeting, bring forth a discussion and some recommendations about how we can improve the inner workings of our city,” she said.

Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @ElattarHosam.

•••

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From <https://voiceofoc.org/2023/07/will-californias-top-cop-see-anaheim-city-halls-complete-corruption-probe/>

OC District Attorney Confirms Corruption Investigation in Anaheim

By Noah Biesiada Nov 2, 2023, Updated Nov 8, 2023

Image Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer at his re-election campaign launch on Jan. 26, 2022. Credit:JULIE LEOPO, Voice of OC

Anaheim city leaders are facing a new investigation into corruption at city hall, this time from Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer, who after over a year of silence confirmed this week that his office is investigating Anaheim.

Orange County Corruption Scandal

The confirmation comes after a year and a half of turmoil in Anaheim that started when sworn FBI affidavits helped stop the sale of Angel Stadium in May 2022, announcing a corruption probe in a scathing affidavit filed in court that immediately triggered Mayor Harry Sidhu’s resignation and a later guilty plea to a series of corruption charges.

In September, Sidhu admitted to lying to investigators about trying to ram through the Angel Stadium land sale for $1 million in campaign support.

[Read: Ex-Anaheim Mayor Sidhu Agrees to Plead Guilty to Corruption Charges] 

Officials from the California Attorney General’s office won’t “confirm or deny” a corruption investigation into Anaheim. 

So far, all the criminal investigations have been handled by the U.S. Department of Justice, while city leaders also hired independent investigators from the JL Group to conduct their own review of corruption at city hall after the FBI probe became public.

So far, both the FBI and independent investigators essentially came to the same conclusion: City Hall is controlled by Disneyland area resort interests.

Spitzer confirmed the district attorney’s office is officially investigating the concerns raised in Anaheim late Wednesday after saying his office would review the allegations before taking any action in August. 

[Read: Is OC’s Top Prosecutor Too Tame With Insider Lawlessness Across Local City Halls?]

In a response to a request for comment from Voice of OC, Spitzer confirmed through a spokesperson the issue “is being investigated,” but did not clarify anything beyond that.  

Federal prosecutors have already arranged plea deals with Sidhu and former CEO of the city’s Chamber of Commerce Todd Ament, who both pleaded guilty to multiple corruption charges.

Image: Todd Ament (left) the former head of the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce, with Anaheim Mayor Harry Sidhu during a group photo at the Anaheim Business awards in 2020. Credit:ANAHEIM CHAMBER INSTAGRAM

That JL Group’s report highlighted a series of problems at city hall, like special interests allegedly steering $1.5 million of COVID bailout money into a Chamber of Commerce-controlled nonprofit. 

State auditors are currently investigating the potential misuse of tax money. 

[Read: State Auditors to Probe Anaheim’s Rerouting of Federal Funds to Chamber of Commerce]

The report, along with the FBI affidavits and Sidhu’s guilty plea has triggered Anaheim officials to consider a host of reform proposals, including tightening lobbyist regulations this fall and officials in other cities like Irvine, Orange and San Diego to call for similar changes.

[Read: Is Anaheim’s Fall of Reform Going to Freeze Over?]

The JL Group’s investigators said publicly they met with Spitzer and more than a dozen of his staff to discuss their report in March, highlighting what they felt were the best avenues for a criminal prosecution and possible corruption. 

“We revealed information concerning what we believed was a potential criminal conspiracy and a theft/wrongful diversion of $1.5 million dollars of public funds to the Anaheim Chamber,” investigators wrote in their report. 

DA MICKEY MOUSE DON'T CALL BACK

They said Spitzer listened to their concerns and asked questions, but they never heard back after that. 

“JLG has had no further contact with the District Attorney’s staff in relationship to this meeting about the investigation,” investigators wrote in their report published July 1, 2023. 

The JL Group did not respond to requests for comment on Wednesday afternoon on whether they’d heard back since the publication of their report. 

The Anaheim City Council earlier this year also directed staff to send an unredacted version of the JL Group’s investigation to the FBI and the State Attorney General Rob Bonta, as well as Spitzer.

Hosam Elattar assisted in the reporting of this story. 

Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @NBiesiada. 

•••

Is OC’s Top Prosecutor Too Tame With Insider Lawlessness Across Local City Halls?

Aug 1, 2023 CA Attorney General, FBI To See Complete Corruption Probe Into Anaheim City Hall

2023jULY23 Will California’s Top Cop See Anaheim City Hall’s Complete Corruption Probe?

From <https://voiceofoc.org/2023/11/oc-district-attorney-confirms-corruption-investigation-in-anaheim/>

California DA rips 'woke' prosecutors including LA's Gascon for crime surge: 'It is out of control'

Orange County district attorney warns 'soft on crime' polices are spreading across the country

 By Fox News Staff | Fox News  April 19, 2022 

District attorney for Orange County, California, Todd Spitzer warned against soft on crime policies on 'America's Newsroom' as the effort to recall L.A. County DA George Gascon continues to gain steam.

Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer warned America's crime surge is "out of control" on "America's Newsroom," Tuesday, as "woke" officials with "soft on crime" policies like Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon are being elected across the country.

TODD SPITZER: This is happening all over the country. We're electing woke judges, woke prosecutors. Look, in my county, they've recruited an individual to run against me from George Gascon's team. People need to go to ToddSpitzer.com and help me fight back this wokeness. It is, Dana. We've got to stop this. Thank goodness for Fox News and the fact you are actually telling people about what's going on in our communities. It is out of control. 

From <https://www.foxnews.com/media/california-gascon-la-los-angeles-crime-distict-attorney>

Ducking Racism Scandal, Orange County DA Turns to Dog Whistles

This California election pits a prosecutor who is warning of crime outside his county to a challenger who blames him for deflecting from the OC’s own problems.

Piper French    | May 24, 2022

From <https://boltsmag.org/orange-county-district-attorney-election/>

The ad, titled “Gotham,” is grim: homeless encampments in Downtown Los Angeles, grainy security camera footage of a robbery, a bullet falling to the ground in slow motion. A news anchor recites crime statistics as an LAPD siren wails in the background and the words LA was destroyed by radical policies flash across the screen.

You’d be forgiven for assuming that this was an ad for a Los Angeles-based candidate. In fact, it was made by Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer; the ad goes on to compare Spitzer’s reform-minded opponent, Pete Hardin, to the progressive Los Angeles DA, calling him a “[George] Gascón clone.” This focus has been central to Spitzer’s reelection strategy. From his rhetoric down to his campaign hashtag, #NoLAinOC, Spitzer’s narrative is consistent: he’s the only person who can stop Orange County from transforming into its neighbor to the north.

These references to LA are explicitly about crime and criminal justice policy, but they carry deep racial and economic undertones. Orange County politicians have long juxtaposed OC and LA, says LA Times columnist and former OC Weekly editor-in-chief Gustavo Arellano.“It’s always happened for decades,” he told Bolts, “ever since Orange County got its sense of being ‘Orange County,’ which is to say not urban, not Black, and not poor—and also not liberal.” But demographic changes over the last few decades have made OC more like LA, both racially and politically: the county, once reliably Republican, is moving to the left. 

Spitzer has made his campaign a proxy for the culture wars over Black Lives Matter and the national struggle over criminal justice, betting that this will galvanize rightwing stalwarts while seizing on more moderate voters’ fears of crime. Hardin, meanwhile, has focused outreach efforts on immigrant communities and communities of color in Orange County, going door-to-door with allies like the progressive Latinx organization Chispa. To critics like Hardin, Spitzer’s focus on the specter of Los Angeles—and everything that it invokes—is an attempt to distract from the economic and racial injustices and rising crime that undercut Orange County’s image as a pristine coastal paradise. Jodi Balma, a professor of political science at Fullerton College, calls his invocations “dog whistles.” 

Spitzer’s rhetoric comes in the wake of a scandal over racist comments the DA made last year. In February, the Voice of OC reported that Spitzer had brought up Black men’s dating practices, and what he described as their tendency to date white women to advance their social standing, in an October meeting where prosecutors were deciding whether to seek the death penalty against a Black male defendant.

Spitzer lost endorsements from a number of fellow California prosecutors, and the Orange County NAACP chapter called for his resignation, tying these statements to a broader pattern of racially disparate treatment documented by a recent study of the DA’s office. 

Undeterred, Spitzer is seeking a second term next month against three opponents. Although the election is technically nonpartisan, Spitzer is endorsed by the county Republican Party and the county Democratic Party has endorsed Hardin. Also running are Bryan Chehock, an attorney at the Drug Enforcement Administration, and Mike Jacobs, a retired prosecutor. If no one gets over 50 percent in the June 7 primary, the top two candidates will advance to a November general election. 

Spitzer is asking voters to indulge in seductive binaries: OC vs. LA, “woke” vs. law and order, us vs. them. But the election is also testing which vision of Orange County will win out: the old ‘Orange County’ that defines itself in opposition to liberal, diverse urbanity or the new Orange County, an increasingly multicultural place of shifting identities and affiliations where old-school dog whistles may no longer resonate.

—

Spitzer cultivates a bombastic public presence, frequently appearing on Fox News, where he excoriates “woke” DAs like Gascón and San Francisco’s Chesa Boudin. “Todd Spitzer will slice you open if you try to home in on his camera time,” said Balma. 

Behind the camera, Spitzer’s tenure as DA has been marked by internal discord—and, occasionally, scandal. In addition to the death penalty hearing comments, he promoted a prosecutor he allegedly knew to be a “pervert,” who was later accused of multiple instances of sexual harassment towards female subordinates—and who happened to be the best man at Spitzer’s wedding.

His office is rife with retaliatory internal investigations, inappropriate remarks about race, and poor treatment of crime victims, according to a recent BuzzFeed News investigation that interviewed 11 of his current and former employees. These improprieties have, at times, affected who the office chooses to prosecute—as in the case of Grant Robicheaux, a Newport Beach surgeon and reality TV star accused of conspiring with his girlfriend to drug and sexually assault local women; Spitzer dropped all charges after inheriting the case from his predecessor.

Spitzer’s time as DA is fairly consistent with his public face as a tough-on-crime prosecutor. He continues to consider the death penalty despite California’s moratorium on capital punishment, and charges minors as adults despite indicating when he took office that he wished to end the practice. The ACLU of Northern California recently released a report finding that the Orange County DA’s office charges Black people at a much higher rate, and is less likely to offer Black defendants diversion; the report used data from Spitzer’s predecessor’s time in office because Spitzer refused to turn over data from his own tenure, but the report remarks that “all available evidence suggests that the office’s policies and practices have not shifted substantially” under Spitzer.

Spitzer responded to the report with his signature deflection, calling it “the ACLU’s playbook for the failed policies of Los Angeles and San Francisco.”

Spitzer’s communications director initially indicated that Spitzer would answer questions for this article, then said the DA didn’t have time after Bolts sent a list of queries. When Bolts followed up about the campaign’s reliance on contrasts with Los Angeles, the spokesperson said in an email that Spitzer “is specifically talking about pro criminal policies in Los Angeles and nothing else.” 

To Spitzer’s critics, his constant denigration of criminal justice reformers is undercut by the fact his district is experiencing rising crime despite being helmed by  a DA who styles himself as tough-on-crime. Homicides and aggravated assaults have increased in Orange County, as they have elsewhere in the state, and hate crimes and property crime are also on the rise locally; and a recent attempted mass shooting at a Taiwanese American church has crystallized fears about gun violence and racist attacks. 

“I think conservative voters and liberal voters alike are ready to have a conversation about how we address the underlying drivers of crime instead of just playing whack-a-mole,” Hardin said, which “creates an endless cycle of crime and homelessness and violence.”

Spitzer is “sending young adults to prison, he’s done nothing about police violence and excessive force,” said Santa Ana council member Johnathan Hernandez, who supports Hardin. “He has not made Orange County safer. His punitive approach to justice isn’t working.”

Hernandez suggested that Spitzer’s demonization of LA is consistent with his dismissive attitude towards communities that don’t live up to the white, wealthy, suburban promise of ‘Orange County’—which extends even to communities within OC. “If he were so concerned about what’s happening in our community, he’d come to our neighborhood,’ he said. “He’d talk to the people, he’d knock on their doors.”

“These moms are impacted by those types of policies,” Hernandez added. “You see it through their heartbreak and anguish when their kids are torn apart from them, and they’re thrown to the prison system for not going to school or for driving with a broken taillight… Nobody here is born a criminal, but it is a narrative that we are struggling to move away from when we’re constantly hyper policed and not properly resourced.”

—

Hardin, a former federal prosecutor who worked for a brief time as a deputy DA in Orange County, is running on a platform of “modernization”: if elected, he pledges to forswear the death penalty, stop charging minors as adults in most cases, and expand eligibility for diversion in cases that involve addiction, homelessness, and mental illness. But he is also focused on ending corruption and bringing “integrity and accountability and transparency” to the DA’s office, which he stressed are nonpartisan values. His own shot across the bow was the release of a 244-page document of opposition research on Spitzer that starts with an explicit content warning. And he has tried to reach conservative voters as well, touting his background as a Marine and prosecutor, though he conceded that endorsements in this race have fallen pretty cleanly along party lines. 

Leery of Spitzer’s relentless comparisons, Hardin has tried to distance himself from Gascón: in conversation, he avoided associations with the ‘progressive prosecutor’ movement. “Spitzer conflates me with Gascón even though we are significantly different, and then argues against Gascón instead of arguing against my policies,” Hardin told Bolts. He noted that he diverges with the Los Angeles DA on sentencing enhancements and the presence of deputy DAs at parole hearings, both of which Gascón forbade in his department; and a blanket ban on charging minors as adults, a policy that Gascón has only just reversed after criticism. “Philosophically, I’m opposed to blanket policies in the criminal justice system,” Hardin said.

Hardin’s moderation is carefully calibrated to the county he’s running in. Orange County, once a bastion of Reagan-era conservatism, has become more and more liberal over the years as its immigrant communities have grown, and longtime Republican voters find themselves ill-fitting in Donald Trump’s GOP, Balma told Bolts. In 2016, with Trump leading the Republican ticket, Hillary Clinton became the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry Orange County since FDR did in 1936; two years later, Gavin Newsom flipped the county in a governor’s race. These days, many groups like VietRISE, Resilience Orange County, and Chispa are working to organize communities of color across Orange County around progressive policies.

Hernandez grew up in Santa Ana in the 1990s, in the Chicano and Latino neighborhood Artesia Pilar. Back then, his family and friends never had the sense that the political system cared about them. “We have gotten so used to not having a seat at the table,” Hernandez told Bolts. Today, he said, that’s finally starting to change—but there’s a long way to go. 

“Cities like Santa Ana,” Hernandez added, “we’re just being asked to be treated equally. And to see us for the hope that people see every day in our city—not through the lens of despair and danger that our current DA sees our city.”

 https://boltsmag.org/orange-county-district-attorney-election/

Letter

https://voiceofoc.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/DA-prosecutor-questions-sent-to-Todd-Spitzer-on-Feb-22-2022.pdf

DA Faces New Racial Bias Accusations as ACLU Analyzes Who Gets Prosecuted

by Nick Gerda Mar 1, 2022 | LINK VOICE OF OC

As District Attorney Todd Spitzer faces accusations of racial bias from his own prosecutors, a local civil rights group says his office is continuing to perpetuate “vast racial disparities” in who gets prosecuted for crimes, as well as criminalizing mental illness and poverty.

Black people are much more likely to face criminal charges in Orange County than the rest of the population – and less likely to be offered diversion programs to avoid jail time – according to the ACLU.

The group cited figures that Black people are 2% of OC’s population but almost 6% of those who face criminal charges.

Among other measures, the ACLU is calling on DA Todd Spitzer to commit to “blind charging,” which bans prosecutors from seeing the race of potential defendants before making a decision on whether to charge them with a crime.

IMAGE: Orange County DA Todd Spitzer stands in front of camera crews during an interview on March 23, 2021. Credit: JULIE LEOPO, Voice of OC

[Click here to read the ACLU’s summary of their report, the report and their news release about it.]

Spitzer criticized the ACLU study – saying their report is part of a campaign that would endanger Orange County residents by weakening prosecutions in the style of LA and San Francisco.

“This report is the ACLU’s playbook for the failed policies of Los Angeles and San Francisco, resulting in soaring homicide and violent crime rates,” Spitzer said in a statement.

“The job of a District Attorney is to keep our communities safe. Orange County is the safest large county in California and I am proud of that fact,” he continued.

“I have been very clear that I will hold violent offenders accountable while demonstrating empathy and compassion by reducing recidivism and partnering with mental health services to provide those who are suffering from substance use disorders and mental illness treatment and a pathway out of the criminal justice system,” Spitzer said.

But the ACLU says that despite those promises, Spitzer’s office has been pursuing low-level charges just like his predecessor.

“Of the more than 259,000 charges made by the Orange County DAs office in 2017 and 2018, nearly 64% were the type of low-level offenses that should have been either considered decline-to-charge or diverted to community based programs, including those for addiction and mental illness,” the ACLU wrote.

“It is clear that the trend of filing low-level charges continues under the current OCDA’s direction.”

The ACLU cited what it called a troubling lack of transparency by Spitzer about who his office is prosecuting.

While the ACLU requested data on criminal charges, Spitzer would only provide numbers from his predecessor Tony Rackauckas’ time in office – despite Spitzer promising to be more open than Rackauckas – according to the ACLU.

“The lack of transparency with respect to charging data under the current OCDA’s tenure is particularly concerning, given that the current OCDA ran on a platform of transparency,” the ACLU wrote in a summary of their report.

“All available evidence suggests that the office’s policies and practices have not shifted substantially under the current OCDA.”

Faced with that roadblock, the ACLU analyzed court case data Voice of OC obtained last year.

That data showed that the most-prosecuted crime in Orange County is possession of paraphernalia for using drugs, such as meth pipes, according to local court data Voice of OC requested obtained and published. 

“Although the current OCDA’s office refused to provide updated information for 2019 and 2020, the local news outlet Voice of OC received records from the OC Superior Court that include charging data from the first year and a half of his tenure,” the ACLU wrote.

“It is clear that the trend of filing low-level charges continues under the current OCDA’s direction. Seven of the top 10 charges from 2017 and 2018 remain in the 10 most frequent charges across FY 2017–18 and FY 2019–20,” the ACLU wrote.

The civil rights group pointed to the most frequent charges – like DUI, possession of meth, petty theft, driving under a suspended license and being under the influence of drugs – as “low level” charges where defendants should be offered alternatives to criminal prosecution, such as treatment programs.

Doing so would “would eliminate more than half of the DA’s caseload,” the report states.

In response, Spitzer pointed to new units he created to reduce reliance on jail in mental health cases.

“We cannot incarcerate our way out of mental illness, which is why I created a Mental Health Unit and a Recidivism Reduction Unit,” Spitzer said in his statement responding to the ACLU report.

“I have worked to reduce the jail population with prudent, risk-based bail assessments that protect the community while ensuring those who don’t need to be incarcerated aren’t,” he continued.

“I am also in the final planning stages of rolling out a pre-filing diversion partnership in conjunction with our law enforcement partners.”

Racism allegations – including from his own prosecutors – are something Spitzer has spent the last couple of weeks trying to shake.

In mid-February, documents emerged showing Spitzer was accused by his staff of making inappropraitae racial remarks when deciding whether to seek the death penalty against a Black defendant, Jamon Rayon Buggs.

Then, a judge unsealed a letter in which the lead detective in the Buggs case says Spitzer ruined the death penalty case by making inappropriate racial remarks and then trying to cover it up.

Newport Beach Detective Court Depweg wrote to the judge that he had been told by multiple current and former DA officials that Spitzer “made an unsolicited, derogatory, and racist comment about Black men/persons” at an Oct. 1 meeting on whether to seek the death penalty against Buggs.

Ahead of an all-staff meeting Spitzer held last week, DA prosecutors put forward scathing questions to Spitzer about whether he’s destroyed criminal cases and faith in the justice system by injecting race and politics into law enforcement decisions.

“In recent media interviews…you refuse to recognize that your comments were inappropriate, offensive and racist,” the prosecutors wrote, referring to Spitzer’s comments in the Buggs case.

“In fact, you doubled down on your comments as appropriate,” the prosecutors wrote in their letter, which included 7 pages of detailed questions.

During his response at an all-staff meeting Friday, Spitzer reportedly ​​gave a tearful address in which he said he’s not a racist, noting he was born Jewish and once traveled to Selma, Alabama.

Spitzer also reportedly doubled down on saying he had no idea until 90 days later that there was a problem with his language about Black men at the Oct. 1 death penalty meeting – which allegedly contradicts emails filed in court last week.

And Spitzer reportedly added that DA staff are lucky to have him fighting for them and Orange County so we don’t turn into the next LA or San Francisco, adding he’s a “badass” and a “fighter.”

Asked about this account, Spitzer’s spokeswoman said it’s “not entirely accurate” but did not respond when asked what’s correct and what is not.

`“The District Attorney asked for an all-staff meeting so that his staff could hear directly from him without misinformation or anything being misconstrued,” Edds wrote in a statement to Voice of OC.

“Unfortunately, the information you were provided out of that staff-only meeting of the largest law firm in Orange County is not entirely accurate. The staff heard the information directly from the District Attorney and it does not warrant further interpretation.”

Spitzer is now facing accusations from a former homicide prosecutor that he lied to the court to try to hide his racially charged comments – which Spitzer denies.

As for the ACLU report, Spitzer says the civil rights group doesn’t care about public safety and is trying to dismantle law enforcement.

“The ACLU is no friend of law enforcement and this report based on outdated data is nothing more than another way to defund the police and jeopardize public safety,” he said in his statement.

“One only has to look at the disastrous policies adopted by George Gascon to see that blanket directives do not work. Every case must be assessed on its specific facts and while the ACLU might not care about the safety of the community I serve, I do.”

In response, the ACLU says they stand by their analysis and questioned why Spitzer didn’t release the data from his administration.

“If DA Spitzer is so proud of his record, why did he refuse to release details of the results to his policies, revealing only those of his predecessor?” said Jennifer Rojas, a senior policy advocate and organizer at the ACLU of Southern California, in a statement provided by the civil rights group.

“We stand by our assessment of his administration and his tenure, during which he has done far too little to relieve the racial and economic disparities that result from his office’s charging practices, while not building toward declination and diversion programs that are proven to work. Orange County residents do not need more fearmongering, they need community-driven results.”

Nick Gerda covers county government for Voice of OC. You can contact him at ngerda@voiceofoc.org.

https://voiceofoc.org/2022/03/da-faces-new-racial-bias-accusations-as-aclu-analyzes-who-gets-prosecuted/

2022 Elections Crime Elections OCDA Pete Hardin Politics Todd Spitzer

OCDA Spitzer tries to change the subject to the crime mess in L.A.

ByEditor

 Feb 17, 2022 (ORANGE COUNTY, CA) – Today, Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer’s reelect campaign launched its second paid ad of the cycle. The ad is titled “Gotham” and highlights failed pro-criminal policies that are destroying once great places like Los Angeles, and the fact that Spitzer’s opponent, Pete Hardin, is running as a clone of Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon.

(ORANGE COUNTY, CA) – Today, Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer’s reelect campaign launched its second paid ad of the cycle. The ad is titled “Gotham” and highlights failed pro-criminal policies that are destroying once great places like Los Angeles, and the fact that Spitzer’s opponent, Pete Hardin, is running as a clone of Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon.

The initial ad buy is targeted to reach voters across the political spectrum and throughout Orange County televisions and mobile devices using voter matched targeting.

“At its core, this election comes down to one issue – will Orange County remain the safest major county in California or are we going to fall asleep at the wheel and allow a Gascon clone to turn us into another Los Angeles?” said Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer.

“The effort to destroy our beautiful and safe County is a very real and present danger, and the people who are trying to do it know that I am thing only thing standing in their way,” Spitzer continued. “That means they will do or say anything about me to gain power – but I am never going to let that happen and voters are not going to be fooled.”

“As District Attorney, I have aggressively prosecuted violent criminals, hate crimes, thefts, and more, and implemented reforms within the office to ensure a more fair, accountable, and transparent criminal justice system. Unsurprisingly, the individuals who are attacking me now and vying to control Orange County’s criminal justice system are opposed to all those things,” Spitzer concluded.

Spitzer’s first paid ad of the cycle, “Predator”, will continue to run from now through election day. The ad highlights his opponent’s pro-criminal policies and disturbing history of sexual misconduct that resulted in him losing his job twice, both as a Marine and at the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.

From <https://newsantaana.com/ocda-spitzer-tries-to-change-the-subject-to-the-crime-mess-in-l-a/>

#DA #Spitzer #video

GOTHAM

OC district attorney’s billboards send message to criminals: Stay away

March 23rd 2024

By Tony Saavedra | tsaavedra@scng.com | Orange County RegisteR  LINK

'Sacramento may be rolling out the red carpet for thieves, but here in Orange County we’re throwing the book at criminals,' said Todd Spitzer

A billboard put up by the Orange County District Attorney’s office that says, “crime doesn’t pay in Orange County. If you steal, we prosecute” stands on the southbound 710 Freeway near Del Amo Boulevard in Long Beach, CA, on Monday, March 11, 2024. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

PUBLISHED: March 12, 2024 at 4:00 p.m. | UPDATED: March 13, 2024 at 5:29 p.m.

Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer is sending thieves and robbers a message via Southern California billboards, buses and bumper stickers: “Crime doesn’t pay in Orange County. If you steal, we prosecute.”

The advertising campaign is in response to the rash of widely publicized smash-and-grab robberies in Southern California and other headline-generating commercial burglaries. Prosecutors note that many property crimes in Orange County are committed by crooks coming from other areas.

Of the 141 alleged robbers and burglars prosecuted in the first nine months by the district attorney’s new HEIST unit, only one was from Orange County, officials said.

“Sacramento may be rolling out the red carpet for thieves, but here in Orange County we’re throwing the book at criminals who come here to steal,” Spitzer said in a prepared statement, referring to perceived lenient policies by reform-minded state legislators. “If you steal, we will prosecute. It’s that simple.”

Spitzer continued: “When the risk is far less than the reward, it’s no surprise that criminals are committing smash and grabs, residential burglaries, and simply walking out the front door of stores with arms full of stolen merchandise, while you’re standing in line waiting to pay for your items.”

The campaign, expected to last four weeks and reach 38 million people, is funded by federal dollars raised through seizing criminal assets. Federal rules allow the money to be used to pay for anti-crime advertising.

Spitzer spent $150,000 to buy space on 10 static and electronic billboards along major freeways heading into Orange County from Los Angeles and Riverside counties, as well as on signs throughout Orange County, including one at The Outlets in Orange.

Public buses in Los Angeles, Long Beach, Norwalk and Glendale also will be draped with the anti-crime slogan. Additionally, up to $75,000 will be used on digital marketing advertising targeting cellphone users in Orange, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego and Imperial counties. Bumper stickers also will be circulated.

“We know where these people are coming from, we know what they’re doing here and we hope they get the message, it’s not worth it,” said Kimberly Edds, the district attorney’s public affairs director.

While the ad campaign is arguably a conversation starter, the jury is still out on whether it may do more to reassure Orange County residents than to scare off would-be criminals.

“Maybe it makes residents here feel more comfortable,” said Jodi Balma, a political science professor at Fullerton College. “I don’t think somebody planning a crime suddenly changes their mind because they see a billboard.”

Already, the criminals are responding. One billboard on the way into Orange County from Los Angeles County has been vandalized by a tagger to read: “Crime does pay in Orange County.”

“We’re leaving it up (that way) as a symbol of exactly what we’re fighting against, a widespread sentiment among some that crime does pay,” Spitzer said.

From <https://www.ocregister.com/2024/03/12/oc-district-attorneys-billboards-send-message-to-criminals-stay-away/>

Senator Archuleta and OCDA Spitzer take steps to crack down on serial thieves

ByEditor

 Jan 18, 2024

From <https://newsantaana.com/senator-archuleta-and-ocda-spitzer-take-steps-to-crack-down-on-serial-thieves/>

Norwalk, CA – Senator Bob Archuleta (D-Pico Rivera) is proud to announce the introduction of SB 923, which would increase penalties for repeat theft offenders by re-implementing serial theft provisions that were eliminated by Prop 47. The bill ensures that, beginning on a third offense, serial thieves are charged with between 6 months and three years’ imprisonment. This will end the current practice of repeat offenders being released without jail time. As a former law enforcement officer, Senator Archuleta has seen first-hand the damage that California’s inability to prosecute serial offenders has created.

“Rampant theft and property crime has created a national narrative that crime goes unpunished in California. We must take steps to ensure that law enforcement has every tool available to them to keep our communities safe,” Senator Archuleta said. “While well intentioned, it is clear that areas of Prop 47 require reform. SB 923 will improve California’s ability to stop organized, professional groups of thieves that target California’s neighborhoods.”

California continues to suffer from an unprecedented increase in all types of theft, including organized retail theft, smash and grabs, and vehicle thefts that negatively affect crime victims, consumers, and business owners. Passed in 2014, Prop 47 made certain property crimes under $950 a misdemeanor as well as removed Penal Code 666.1 dealing with Serial Theft. SB 923 would re-implement serial theft provisions prior to Prop 47 while leaving the $950 threshold as is. In doing this, SB 923 specifically targets enforcement efforts at repeat criminals who continue to steal after multiple prior convictions.

“Repeat offenders aren’t accidental criminals. They know they are breaking the law by stealing and they do it anyway because current law makes the risk far less than the reward,” Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer. “There has to be a consequence for breaking the law and repeat offenders have to be subjected to those consequences. Theft is not a victimless crime. Every item stolen out of a business results in higher prices for law-abiding residents and makes the cost of doing business that much higher for hardworking business owners. I want to thank Senator Archuleta for his efforts to stop the theft epidemic in California by making it clear that crime doesn’t pay.”

Senator Bob Archuleta currently represents the 30th Senate District, which includes portions of Los Angeles County and Orange County. He is the Chair of the Senate Committee on Military and Veterans Affairs, and a member of the Business, Professions and Economic Development Committee, Government Organization Committee, Transportation Committee, as well as the Joint Legislative Committee on Emergency Management. Website of Senator Bob Archuleta: https://sd30.senate.ca.gov/.

How Do the OC DA Candidates See Safety, Justice Reform and the Death Penalty? Here Are Their Answers

by Nick Gerda   Jun 1, 2022

Image: District Attorney Candidates Peter Hardin (left), Bryan Chehock (center left), Mike Jacobs (center right) and District Attorney Todd Spitzer (right) at a debate on May 4, 2022. Credit: JULIE LEOPO, Voice of OC

Editor’s note: Ahead of next week’s election, Voice of OC is publishing a series of candidate surveys for the various races. Click here to see all of the surveys that have been published so far.

To help voters compare candidates in the June primary election, Voice of OC asked readers what they wanted to know from the candidates vying for what many consider Orange County’s most powerful position: district attorney.

Below are the answers all four candidates gave to a wide variety of questions generated by Voice of OC and our readers – on topics ranging from public safety, evidence scandals, transparency, the death penalty, homelessness and whether candidates believe last presidential election was stolen.

To keep the total length reasonable, each candidate was allowed a maximum 50 words per answer.

Here are their answers:

1. What do you see as the biggest problem facing the criminal justice system today? What will you do about it? And what if anything have you done so far to show you’re serious about tackling it?

Todd Spitzer: “Woke prosecutors are refusing to enforce the law or prosecute criminals.  As a result, places like Los Angeles and San Francisco are being destroyed. As your District Attorney, public safety is my number one priority, and I will never turn a blind eye to crime.”

Pete Hardin: “Failing to address underlying drivers of crime has created a revolving door leading to more crime and victims. We jail the mentally ill, addicted, and homeless instead of applying modern approaches that break the cycle. Spitzer’s approach has exacerbated homelessness and the behavioral health crisis on our streets.”

Bryan Chehock: “A lack of trust in, and respect for, the justice system. I have spent 23 years in the federal justice system fighting to deliver justice for all. I will enforce the law in a fair, equal, and transparent manner, while conducting all activities ethically and respectfully.”

Michael A. Jacobs: “Presently, I see the biggest problem facing the criminal justice system today as having at least three main components: a progressive legislature, a deranged governor, and Propositions 47 and 57. To combat the situation: Support local police in efforts to employ aggressive but fair enforcement of the laws.”

2. What will you do as DA to keep Orange County communities safe?

Spitzer: “Orange County is the safest major county in California for a reason – I enforce the law and hold criminals accountable. My office goes after hard core gangs, sex offenders, human traffickers, drunk drivers, skin heads, animal abusers, smash and grab crews, and others with the full force of the law.”

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Hardin: “I will prioritize the prosecution of violent crime while addressing the root causes of low-level offenses that plague our communities. I will invest in mental health services, substance use treatment, and employment training. I will expand victims services and support victims regardless of case outcomes.”

Chehock: “I will vigorously enforce the law while distinguishing between those who deserve imprisonment and those who merit a different approach. Alternative courts (e.g., veterans or CARES) serve the community well and should be made more widely available. However, communities are safer when violent criminals are removed from our streets.”

Jacobs: “Bring back the focus of the DA’s Office to the investigation and prosecution of important cases, employ new strategies to successfully prosecute human trafficking as well as international drug cartels, recruit new and experienced attorneys.”

3. There is a crisis of confidence in Orange County’s criminal justice system, with repeated disclosures of prosecutors failing to turn over evidence. How would you address that crisis of confidence? What would you do on that front? If you’re the incumbent, what have you done on that front and what will you do?

Spitzer: “Since taking office, I’ve implemented major reforms to ensure integrity in prosecutions, fired unethical prosecutors, held bad cops accountable, investigated evidence booking issues, closed the door on my predecessor’s snitch scandal, and overturned ill-gotten convictions as a result.  We’ve ended the ‘win at all costs’ mentality in the office.”

Hardin: “I’ll enhance transparency through an unprecedented effort to disclose prosecutorial data. I’ll meet with the community, victims, and law enforcement alike with regularity, and I’ll be available to the media. When there are mistakes I will own them instead of covering them up. I’ll implement an open discovery policy.”

Chehock: “Prosecutors who fail to follow the law and intentionally withhold exculpatory evidence will be terminated and referred to the State Bar. Along with outside experts, I will review all policies and procedures to ensure the timely disclosure of all information and the office will practice open-file discovery.”

Jacobs: “As far as crisis of discovery issues in DA’s Office, [the] only practical remedy is training. Ethical and experienced prosecutors are necessary to supervise and implement this. There has recently been a marked exodus of such attorneys from the Office.”

4. What, if anything, will you change about how the DA’s Office handles defendants who have a mental illness, addiction, and/or are homeless?

Spitzer: “I’ve launched a comprehensive program to reduce recidivism by connecting individuals who commit low-level crimes with mental health and substance abuse services before charges are filed. The program requires individuals complete treatment for the underlying issues to have charges reduced. We have also fully staffed the mental health courts.”

Hardin: “When minor offenses result from mental illness, addiction, and/or homelessness, incarceration should be a last resort as it tends to exacerbate these issues when we need to treat them. I’ll eliminate arbitrary barriers to diversion as recommended by watch dogs which will reduce reoffending and increase safety.”

Chehock: “Ultimately the solutions to these issues reside outside the justice system. However, we are facing a crisis and the use of alternative courts and outreach programs must be expanded to reach all of our vulnerable communities. These programs are effective, cost efficient, and the right thing to do.”

Jacobs: “There are a number of programs presently available for defendants who have mental illness, addiction, and/or are homeless. Most promising is the Care Court program which matches a social worker with a public defender to try to divert defendants from the justice system.”

5. Do you support the death penalty? Why or why not?

Spitzer: “I support the death penalty for the most heinous offenders.  There are people who commit such horrific acts of violence they cannot live in our society, and we cannot risk having unilateral changes by the state legislature or the governor to allow these monsters to once again be free.”

Hardin: “I will punish the most heinous capital murders with life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. I will not seek death. Seeking the death penalty drags victims through decades of appeals and costs taxpayers millions – all for a sentence that will never be carried out and doesn’t prevent crime.”

Chehock: “Although a death sentence is unlikely to ever be carried out in California, there are certain horrific crimes that deserve such a sentence. Ultimately, I would consider seeking the death penalty only in rare circumstances where guilt is not an issue and all immediate family members support such a sentence.”

Jacobs: “Yes. I support the death penalty. I have seen many cases where the crime involved was so atrocious that even the ultimate penalty did not seem sufficient. Arguments against the death penalty for it being racially applied, too costly, inhuman, and not serving a valid purpose seem based more upon dogma than fact.”

6. What, if anything, will you do to proactively identify wrongful convictions? What is your track record on this?

Spitzer: “In addition to investigating the evidence booking and informant scandals – and instituting reforms and overturning convictions as a result – I created a specific conviction integrity unit with the District Attorney’s office to ensure due process and equal treatment under the law.”

Hardin: “Experts estimate that at least 2% of all criminal convictions are of innocent people meaning thousands of innocent people are currently behind bars in California. As DA, I will expand and strengthen the Conviction Integrity Unit by working with experts to change the approach and staffing of the unit.”

Chehock: “A Conviction Integrity Unit is of paramount importance to an effective justice system because it addresses the original miscarriage of justice of a wrongful conviction and often identifies misconduct responsible for the wrongful conviction. By addressing these systemic failures, we actually increase public confidence in the justice system.”

Jacobs: “In 2002, while working for OCDA, I created the Orange County Innocence Project. The project distributed forms to all California state prisons for inmates to fill out and send back if they felt they had been wrongly convicted. I don’t believe the program still exists. It should be resurrected.”

7. What should happen to prosecutors who fail in their duty to to turn over exculpatory evidence to defendants?

Spitzer: “They no longer have a job at the District Attorney’s office.”

Hardin: “DA Spitzer has allowed a ‘win at all cost’ mentality to continue and that destroys public trust in our criminal justice system. Prosecutorial misconduct will not be tolerated and prosecutors that do not meet their obligations under the law will be disciplined.”

Chehock: “Every instance of such conduct should be fully and immediately investigated. Prosecutors who fail to follow the law and intentionally withhold exculpatory evidence will be terminated and referred to the State Bar. Prosecutors who make an honest mistake will receive additional training and supervision.”

Jacobs: “If the exculpatory evidence was discovered, knowingly withheld, and not turned over to the defense in a timely fashion, that should be grounds for termination.”

8. There’s been a lot of talk about criminal justice reform during the campaign. What kinds of specific reforms do you see as needed? And if you’re the incumbent, what specifically have you instituted?

Spitzer: “I do not accept failed social experiments like what has been done in Los Angeles.  Instead, I’ve implemented common sense and appropriate reforms that do not jeopardize public safety, including increased job training, mental health and addiction treatment, and the creation of conviction integrity and recidivism reduction units.”

Hardin: “My campaign is centered on criminal justice reform, as reform and public safety go hand-in-hand. I strongly support policies that will expand victims’ services, combat violent crime, increase transparency and accountability, and end mass incarceration. You can find a comprehensive list of reforms at my website: PeteHardin.com”

Chehock: “The single most effective strategy for reforming the justice system is to make it more reflective of the community it represents. This applies equally to the DA’s office, law enforcement, and judges. I will also create a multi-cultural community council to serve as an advisory board to the District Attorney.”

Jacobs: “In regard to criminal justice reform, many such laws have already enacted, not always to the benefit of the criminal justice system. Additionally to a number of legislature changes to requirements for felony murder and juveniles arrested for prostitution, Propositions 47 and 57 may have tipped the scales too far.”

9. The DA’s Office often takes weeks to turn over basic public records in response to Public Records Act requests, even though the law requires prompt disclosure. What steps, if any, will you take to make DA records more quickly disclosed in response to public records requests?

Spitzer: “As District Attorney, I have made it a priority to be transparent, and to always be available for the public and press.  I have also made sure the public understands where I stand on the prosecution of crime, woke criminal justice policies, and other important issues of the day.”

Hardin: “I pledge to make the DA’s office one of the most transparent in the country. I will create a publicly available data portal that tracks office data so information like arrests presented, prosecution rates and more are readily accessible.”

Chehock: “I will respond promptly to all requests for information. Furthermore, I will release statistical information (e.g., types of cases prosecuted, race of defendant, etc.) on a publicly accessible website without waiting for a records request. My office will be dedicated to transparency and accountability.”

Jacobs: “Not only is the DA’s Office untimely in fulfilling Public Records Act request they also, on many occasions, refuse to provide information, hiding behind discretionary exemptions such as the investigation exemption. Remedy: get a new District Attorney.”

10. DAs can send warning letters to local agencies on violations of open meeting laws, which it has done in the past with bodies like the Capistrano Unified school board and the Laguna Beach City Council. How do you plan to exercise that enforcement?

Spitzer: “Enforcing public transparency and corruption laws is an important aspect of my role as District Attorney.  Cities under my jurisdiction know that I have taken, and will continue to take, appropriate action when necessary, which is a useful deterrent in and of itself.”

Hardin: “Integrity, transparency, and accountability are integral to democracy. I will take all necessary action to ensure that public meetings remain public and accessible.”

Chehock: “I will use warning letters to educate local agencies about their legal obligations. I will send such letters to the relevant board, as well as legal counsel. Each letter would include links to published California Department of Justice guides regarding open meeting laws.”

Jacobs: “The Brown Act governs meetings conducted by all local agencies. The Act provides criminal misdemeanors for certain violations where members deprive the public of information to which the public is entitled. The Act also provides for civil remedies: (1) injunctions or declaratory relief and (2) actions to void past acts.”

11. Do you believe the last presidential election was stolen?

Spitzer: “This is the most irrelevant question ever asked on a DA questionnaire.  More relevantly – District Attorney’s races across the country are being bought and paid for by the woke criminal justice movement, and it is destroying public safety in America.  My opponent Pete Hardin is part of that radical movement.”

Hardin: “No.”

Chehock: “No.”

Jacobs: “Yes. I believe the last presidential election was stolen. The book and articles regarding Hunter Biden’s laptop and the new documentary regarding ‘2000 Mules’ has convinced me.”

12. Do you see public corruption as a problem in Orange County? And what would you do to combat it?

Spitzer: “Orange County is not Los Angeles when it comes to public corruption, but that does not mean it never happens.  When and if we do identify evidence of corruption, my office will never hesitate to act and will always hold those accountable with the full force of the law.”

Hardin: “Todd Spitzer is a 25-year career politician facing allegations of pay-to-play corruption, money laundering and more. As a first-time candidate, I bring a degree of independence the OCDA’s office hasn’t seen for decades. I will prosecute corruption and demonstrate that no one is above the law.”

Chehock: “Public corruption is a significant problem that actively erodes public confidence in the very institutions designed to serve the community. I would seek to reestablish the joint anti-corruption task force with the FBI and publicly encourage government employees and the public to submit all concerns to the OC Fraud Hotline.”

Jacobs: “Yes. I do see public corruption as a problem in Orange County. There have been claims made regarding corruption in the DA’s Office and other police agencies. The only viable solution is to have an independent agency conduct investigations. A problem here: the California Attorney General’s Office is basically worthless…” [Jacobs exceeded the 50 word limit]

13. Currently the OC sheriff refers more people to ICE than any other department in the state. Would you change that? Or do you support it?

Spitzer: “We should enforce our immigration laws and ensure dangerous criminals are turned over to ICE when appropriate.”

Hardin: “Building trust between immigrant communities and law enforcement is a public safety imperative. When local law enforcement engages in federal immigration enforcement, immigrant communities are less likely to report crimes and cooperate. Prosecutors must consider immigration consequences and I’ll encourage the Sheriff to abide by the Trust Act.”

Chehock: “State law specifically authorizes the Sheriff to transfer certain serious and serial offenders to ICE. In 2021, the Sheriff transferred 143 inmates (out of 199 with ICE detainers). While each individual transfer must be consistent with state law, I fully support removing dangerous individuals from the community.”

Jacobs: “I would not attempt to change the OC Sheriff’s practice in referring illegal immigrants to ICE. He is simply enforcing federal law. California immigration/sanctuary laws conflict with federal immigration laws. Under the Supremacy Clause, federal laws should prevail.”

Nick Gerda covers county government for Voice of OC. You can contact him at ngerda@voiceofoc.org.

Oct 27, 2022

Orange County Voter Guide: November 2022 Election

Oct 27, 2022

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Tagged: Bryan Chehock, Candidate surveys for June 2022 election, June 2022 primary election, Mike Jacobs, Orange County District Attorney, Peter Hardin, Todd Spitzer, Voice of OC

From <https://voiceofoc.org/2022/06/how-do-the-oc-da-candidates-see-safety-justice-reform-and-the-death-penalty-here-are-their-answers/>

Election 2022: DA incumbent Todd Spitzer…

Election 2022: DA incumbent Todd Spitzer battles 3 challengers calling for reform

Candidates outline their priorities for the Orange County prosecutors office as June 7 primary election approaches

From left, candidates for the Orange County district attorney, incumbent Todd Spitzer, Pete Hardin, Bryan Chehock, and Michael Jacobs.

By Tony Saavedra | tsaavedra@scng.com | Orange County Register

PUBLISHED: May 4, 2022| UPDATED: May 9, 2022

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Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer is battling for a second four-year term against three challengers who are united in one proposition: the office can’t go on as it is.

The campaigning leading up to the June 7 primary election has been so focused on drama, scandals and doomsday predictions that little has been said about the accomplishments and platforms of Spitzer and his opponents.

Spitzer’s political career has taken him from Brea Olinda school board to the county Board of Supervisors to the state Assembly and now Orange County’s top law enforcement post. Among the changes he says he has brought to the office is the end of the “win-at-all-costs” mentality forged under former District Attorney Tony Rackauckas.

He downplays the scandals over sexual harassment suits against one of his former administrators and his use of racially charged language in public and during an internal meeting, which critics say endangered cases and cost him several endorsements from top prosecutors throughout California.

Spitzer’s closest opponent, former prosecutor Pete Hardin, calls himself a “servant leader,” committed to integrity, accountability and transparency. To that end, Hardin, a former U.S. Marine Corps judge advocate, said he will establish a system to ensure prosecutors turn over to defense attorneys evidence favorable to the defendants. He says former district attorney Rackuackas and Spitzer have failed to do so.

Hardin also downplays his own scandals — that he was forced out of the Marines for breaking the corps’ adultery standard, that he was counseled for “womanizing” while working for a short time at the Orange County District Attorney’s Office and that his progressive leanings run counter to a large conservative voting bloc in Orange County.

Candidate Bryan Chehock, an attorney for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency with 23 years as a federal lawyer, is running a mostly low-key campaign devoid of any political baggage. Chehock said one of his major initiatives would be to treat the Public Defender’s Office and defense attorneys not as the enemy, but as an integral part of the justice system — as important as law enforcement and judges.

Another candidate, Michael Jacobs, is a retired Orange County prosecutor with 30 years of experience, 13 of them on the homicide team. With 141 trials under his belt, Jacobs touts himself as the only candidate with the front-line, local experience needed to lead this group of 300 lawyers.

Jacobs was fired from the District Attorney’s Office in 2001 after reporting Rackauckas to state prosecutors for allegedly shutting down investigations into cronies. Jacobs won back his job in 2003 with full back pay and retired three years later.

All four candidates responded to an Orange County Register questionnaire on key issues in the campaign.

On the current state of the DA’s Office

Spitzer said he rejects the notion that his agency is still troubled, insisting he has “cleaned up the messes” left by Rackauckas.

Those “messes” include the improper use of jailhouse informants to secure confessions in major criminal cases — violating the defendants’ constitutional right to have an attorney present. That practice prompted a judge to block the District Attorney’s Office from handling the prosecution of the worst mass killer in Orange County history. Furthermore, the judge took the death penalty off the table in sentencing confessed shooter Scott Dekraai to multiple terms of life in prison for killing eight people at a beauty salon in Seal Beach in 2011.

“I’ve implemented major reforms to ensure integrity in prosecutions, fired unethical prosecutors, held bad cops accountable, investigated evidence booking issues, closed the door on my predecessor’s snitch scandal once and for all, and overturned ill-gotten convictions as a result,” Spitzer said.

Spitzer added that he created a hate crimes unit that has filed more cases in the first two years of his administration than in the past 25 years under previous administrations.

He said: “I have also rejected failed social experiments like what has been done in Los Angeles. Instead, we have implemented common sense reforms to the criminal justice system that do not destroy public safety, including increased job training, mental health and addiction treatment, and the creation of conviction integrity and recidivism reduction units.”

Hardin accused Spitzer of creating exponentially more scandals and lawsuits than Rackauckas did in 20 years.

“For the sake of justice, equity, and fiscal responsibility, we must end this circus,” Hardin said.

To get the office back on track, Hardin said he would “work with my team to implement an open-discovery system which will require automatic disclosure of all nonprivileged information in the prosecution team’s … file.”

He said he also would bolster transparency and accountability in the office and would work with his team and the Office of Independent Review watchdog agency to create a reporting system by which employees can safely and, if desired, anonymously report workplace grievances.

Chehock said the killer of constructive change is the phrase, “That’s the way we’ve always done it.” He said he would look to offer more opportunities to work remotely. And he would keep personnel issues confidential.

“On my first day, I will let everyone know that I will never litigate internal employee discipline in the media,” Chehock said. “Although my office will place a premium on transparency, the media is not the appropriate venue to litigate/justify employment decisions.”

He said he would require that his staff respect all components of the justice system.

“I believe that the justice system in this country is a four-legged stool — prosecutors, law enforcement, public defenders/defense bar, and judges,” Chehock said. “What is abundantly clear is that the entire justice system suffers when the public confidence is diminished in any individual leg.”

Jacobs said he would create a task force to coordinate with other police agencies to fight human and drug trafficking. He also plans to reestablish a culture of professionalism, ethics and civility among all employees; reorganize office management and recruit new and experienced attorneys; bring back meritocracy; and refocus and place an emphasis on the prosecution of serious crimes.

On the death penalty

Spitzer said he supports the death penalty for the worst of the worst offenders.

“There are people who commit such horrific acts of violence they cannot live in our society and we cannot risk having unilateral changes by the state Legislature or the governor to allow these monsters to once again be free,” Spitzer said.

Hardin said the moratorium on capital punishment placed by Gov. Gavin Newsom will not likely be lifted.

“Few things garner media attention like tough — but ultimately empty — talk about seeking the ‘ultimate justice’ following a horrific crime,” he said. “That’s because prosecutors who seek the death penalty do so knowing full well it’s a sentence that will never be carried out.”

Chehock agreed that, in California, the death penalty is largely symbolic.

“Although I personally believe there are individuals deserving of the death penalty, the symbolic nature of the penalty … would caution against imposition of the penalty without complete support from direct family members of the victims,” he said. “Given the years of death penalty appeals, there is little point to seeking such a symbolic sentence without such universal support.”

Jacobs said the death penalty could be reinstated in the future and Orange County should be prepared.

“In spite of the present moratorium, as recently as 2016 by Proposition 66 California voters have approved of the death penalty,” he said. “Objections as to its application being racist, too expensive, and a non-deterrent appear to be based more on progressive dogma than fact.”

On charging juveniles as adults

Spitzer says charging juveniles in adult court is an option that should be retained, but used judiciously.

“When a 17-and-a-half-year-old commits a violent robbery, rape, or murder, prosecutors should absolutely have the discretion to charge them as an adult,” he said. “While it may not be appropriate in all circumstances, a ban on prosecuting juveniles as adults is a dangerous and irrational policy.”

Hardin said he opposes prosecuting juveniles as adults for moral and public safety reasons, except in extreme circumstances and only where public safety demands it.

“Modern science demonstrates what parents have always known, that the human brain doesn’t fully develop cognitively until about 25 years of age and that children have an incredible ability to learn and adapt,” he said. “It should surprise no one that kids who are imprisoned with adults are often abused. When they get out, they lash out.”

Chehock acknowledged the research on the brain growth of juveniles. “Even so, I believe most juveniles are capable of understanding right from wrong,” he said. “While the presumption is definitely that a juvenile should be tried as a juvenile, some violent crimes merit a different approach.”

Jacobs said that under Proposition 57, judges retain the decision on whether to try juveniles as adults.

However, he added, “regardless of their youthful age, there are cases where the atrocity and severity of the crimes … warrant a juvenile being charged as an adult. The individual may still be in the formative stage of his or her life, but the nature of the crimes … may at times call out for the need for punishment to carry more weight than the emphasis on rehabilitation.”

On mass incarceration

Spitzer said dangerous individuals need to be behind bars, but acknowledged that incarceration has been improperly used to deal with the mentally ill and substance abusers.

To that end, Spitzer said he launched a pilot program, First Point, aimed at reducing recidivism by connecting low-level offenders with mental health and substance abuse services before criminal charges are filed.

“The difference between programs like this and what George Gascon is doing in Los Angeles is that we are connecting people with services, and there are obligations that must be fulfilled to reduce charges,” Spitzer said.

Hardin noted that Americans constitute 5% of the world’s total population, yet this country houses 25% of the world’s incarcerated.

“If mass incarceration was the key to public safety, America would be the safest country in the world. Clearly, we are not,” Hardin said.

“To address mass incarceration I will make sure enhancements are only charged when necessary to advance public safety, and that kids are kept in the juvenile system barring exceptional circumstances,” he said. “I will make sure we eliminate arbitrary barriers to diversion programs proven to break the cycle of crime.”

Chehock said the reduction of California’s prison population, already lowered by court order and COVID-19, should be a universally shared goal.

“We must continue efforts to employ smarter criminal justice practices. For example, nonserious, nonviolent/sexual crimes need to continue to be diverted to county jail, probation, or diversion programs,” Chehock said.

Jacobs said there is a reason that the United States has a high number of people incarcerated.

“In view of the exploding crime rate across the nation, presently the problem may be that not enough people are being incarcerated,” he said. “It is true that the total population of incarcerated Americans is much higher than many other countries. But America also has a much higher percentage of serious or violent crime than most other Western-style democracies.”

On the district attorney’s DNA database

Spitzer, after initially opposing one of the nation’s only DNA collection systems managed by prosecutors, now heralds it as an effective crime-fighting tool “that is used to catch rapists and murderers and keep Orange County safe. Defendants who provide their DNA have a 43 percent reduction in recidivism.”

Hardin said he would terminate the DNA collection program and turn over the existing database to the California Attorney General’s Office.

“Coercing people accused of petty offenses — like walking their dog without a leash — into giving up their personal DNA to an unregulated local database is unethical and potentially unconstitutional,” he said. “The OCDA’s vast, secretive DNA collection program, known as “Spit and Acquit,” is the only known DNA database in America run by local prosecutors. The program is hardly voluntary, presenting a false choice to people being threatened with serious prosecution for minor infractions.”

Chehock said the district attorney’s DNA program should not continue to exist as currently structured.

“The near universal requirement to submit DNA, when combined with the requirement that the defendant waive the right to challenge the legality of the DNA collection, creates a perception of coercion,” he said. “There is no state law specifically authorizing such a program and the rules for collection, use, and retention are left solely to the discretion of the district attorney.”

Chehock also noted the district attorney’s DNA operation does not use a state-qualified lab and its samples do not meet the basic requirement to be included in the FBI’s national database.

Jacobs said he doesn’t support the district attorney’s DNA collection program and believes it should be “closed down.”

“It has limited application to solving cases because most of the samples do not qualify to be submitted to the nationwide CODIS DNA database. I see some constitutional issues with “spit” to “acquit” and dislike how it has been used to plea bargain cases.”

On new initiatives

Spitzer and his counterparts in San Bernardino and Riverside counties are among the first to file murder charges against dealers who sell fentanyl-laced drugs resulting in death. He also initiated an aggressive hate crimes unit and recently announced a program focused on street racing.

Hardin said he would establish a new intelligence-driven crime data analysis unit to tie repeat offenders to more crimes.

“Five percent of offenders commit 50% of crime, but all too often these offenders are arrested and prosecuted for single criminal acts,” he said. “By leveraging law enforcement tools at our disposal to develop and analyze intelligence, we can connect those offenders to multiple crimes.”

Hardin added he would work with his team “to create a list of low-level misdemeanors that prosecutors would either decline to prosecute or automatically refer to diversion programs for first-time offenders.”

Chehock said he would create a local “overdose response team,” partnering with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and DEA to investigate fentanyl deaths and decide how to respond. He also said he would seek an agreement with every law enforcement agency in the county allowing the D.A.’s Office to conduct an investigation whenever their members are involved in a shooting.

“No department should be able to investigate its own personnel in these cases and I would seek to establish clear and transparent guidelines related to investigative responsibilities,” Chehock said.

Jacobs did not propose any new initiatives he would offer, but focused on two proposed legislative reforms that have been shot down.

“An effort to increase penalties for fentanyl trafficking was voted down in an Assembly committee in April 2022 by a 3-2 vote. Assembly Bill 2246 would have re-classified fentanyl as a Schedule 1 drug along with heroin and cocaine,” he said. “Under the proposal, dealers would have faced 20 years to life in prison for fentanyl distribution of two grams or more that resulted in death.”

Jacobs added, “Assembly Bill 1599 would have repealed changes made by Proposition 47, a 2014 measure approved by the voters. Proposition 47 reclassified certain drug possession and theft charges from felonies to misdemeanors.”

Editors note: This article has been updated to include answers from candidate Michael Jacobs. Because of an error on his part, his answers were sent but not received prior to the article’s original publication.

From <https://www.ocregister.com/2022/05/04/election-2022-da-incumbent-todd-spitzer-battles-3-challengers-calling-for-reform/>

Todd Spitzer Has A Long, Documented History Of Problematic Behavior. Now He Faces A New Lawsuit Alleging Illegal Workplace Retaliation.

Orange County Watch

Dec 06, 2021

When Todd Spitzer was elected District Attorney, he promoted Gary LoGalbo, his one-time roommate and the best man at his wedding into senior leadership, raising serious questions about his fitness to lead. 

LoGalbo is a self-professed “walking HR violation” whom women in the Orange County District Attorney’s Office refer to as “Scary Gary”. 

Before LoGalbo abruptly resigned last year, four women accused him of both physical and verbal sexual harrassment, including by hanging a “sperm” replica in another prosecutor’s office, asking at least one woman to sit on his lap, and saying to several women about to be on maternity leave: “You ladies need to duct tape it up.” 

In addition to the sexual harrassment, an independent audit by a law firm investigating the allegations also found that “derogatory comments made by LoGalbo were motivated by racial, ethnic or national origin animus and bias, and also constituted harassing conduct as defined by” the county’s policy. These remarks included, for example:

• Joking that he would put a men’s porno magazine on the desk of another male prosecutor, whom he apparently believed to be homosexual;

• Calling an attorney who is Muslim a “terrorist”; and

• Publicly ruminating on why an Asian prosecutor should be responsible for prosecuting an Asian defendant. 

The Gary LoGalbo scandal is only the latest in a long string of head-scratchingly bizarre behavior from Spitzer. 

The most infamous incident, which involved a preacher, fish tacos, and a handgun, happened on a Good Friday back when Spitzer was on the Orange County Board of Supervisors. When a preacher started talking to Spitzer about Jesus and quoting from The Bible at a Wahoo’s Fish Taco restaurant, Spitzer walked out to his car, retrieved a gun and handcuffs, walked back into the restaurant, and made a “citizen’s arrest.” 

Orange County later had to pay out a six-figure settlement related to the case. Spitzer, however, maintained that he was “incredibly proud of how [he] handled the situation”, that he “would do it again,” and that he would have been justified in using “deadly force” against the preacher. When pushed as to why deadly force would have been reasonable to use, Spitzer said the preacher looked at a serrated steak knife on the table. A sheriff’s deputy later clarified that the knife in question was actually a butter knife. Moreover, the restaurant’s manager said that the preacher “was very solid, very calm, and at no point did [he] see him being threatening or anything.” The manager also said that Spitzer handcuffed the preacher simply because the man kept looking at Spitzer. 

XXX

In another incident that occurred during the time he served on the County Board of Supervisors, Spitzer was the lone dissenting vote on a proposal to use county funds to help people experiencing homelessness obtain shelter.

An enraged Spitzer proceeded to travel from city to city across Orange County, lamenting how the homeless are “sex offenders and drug addicts” with “terrible, terrible problems.”

One of Spitzer’s colleagues on the Board of Supervisors called his behavior “outrageous” and “totally inappropriate.” A state senator who represents one of the cities on Spitzer’s anti-homeless road trip called him “polarizing” and accused him of “creating wedges between communities and leaders.”

Spitzer’s mercurial approach has spurred wrongful termination lawsuits from multiple former employees.

In one case, a former aide who sued and won $150,000 after Spitzer fired her said that he has a “raging temper.” “No one leaves Spitzer unless they’re fired,” Spitzer allegedly said before firing the aide. The former aide, Christine Richters, said that Spitzer used “fear and aggression” as his primary tools of management. As part of the lawsuit, Richters produced a memo that Spitzer wrote which, as the Orange County Register characterized it, “threatened to dock workers’ pay if they failed to respond to a text message within 15 minutes.” 

Last year, Melanie Eustice, who served as Spitzer’s chief public affairs officer at the District Attorney’s office, filed a claim against Spitzer which included an allegation that Spitzer ran an abusive workplace. Ultimately, the county paid $75,000 to settle the claim in addition to a $65,000 severance payment. 

XX

Like a magnet, Spitzer attracted controversy from the moment he decided to run for Orange County District Attorney. In the weeks before Spitzer’s name was formally put on the ballot, he used his county budget as an Orange County Commissioner to send 768,000 promotional mailers to constituents, something that he had not done a single time in the previous five years in office. A government ethics expert called Spitzer’s behavior, “thumbing his nose at the law” and said it’s “legal but it’s not ethical.”

During his campaign, Spitzer touted that he had a “100% conviction rate” as a prosecutor. But then a victim’s rights advocate sued him, accusing him of fabricating that record.

Spitzer later downgraded his conviction rate to “92%” in future retellings. Spitzer also boasted about being “voted” Orange County’s “top prosecutor.” But the Orange County Prosecutors Association pushed back publicly saying that the only potentially relevant award was when he was voted “prosecutor of the year” over a quarter-century earlier in 1992. 

As the Gary LoGalbo scandal demonstrates, there’s been no less controversy around Spitzer’s relationship with the truth since he took the helm of the Orange County District Attorney’s Office in 2019. Despite Spitzer’s insistence that his friendship with LoGalbo played no role in his managerial decision-making, Orange County is staring down yet another Spitzer-related lawsuit. 

XX

A deputy district attorney who still works in Spitzer’s office claims that after she endured LoGalbo’s race and sex discrimination, her boss, Todd Spitzer, “embarked on a campaign of retaliation against [her] and others for blowing the whistle on his ‘best’ friend.” The prosecutor, who is Muslim and an Afghan-American war refugee, alleges that LoGalbo made inappropriate ethnic and religious comments about her father and repeatedly referred to another Muslim attorney as a “terrorist”. 

The lawsuit also describes how one evening, as she was walking to her car after work, she saw “a car approaching slowly from behind” and then heard a voice call out--“Hey baby how much do you charge?” When she looked toward the voice, she saw it was LoGalbo who, “blew several kisses to her in an exaggerated fashion and drove away.” In another incident, LoGalbo stared directly at the woman’s legs while chastising her over a minor mistake, saying “If you do that again I’ll have to spank you.” On yet another occasion, LoGalbo asked the woman for a ride, and when she told him her car was messy, LoGalbo said: “Are your panties in the car? Because if they are, I’ll wear them on top of my head like a hat.”

LoGalbo said and did all of these things, the lawsuit alleges, while repeatedly boasting to anyone in the office that would listen that he was “Todd’s best friend.”

“It's appalling that Todd Spitzer, who has a responsibility to protect victims, would endanger them,” Ada F. Briceño, Chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Orange County, told OC Watch. “Spitzer's actions have proven he is incapable of providing the leadership the office demands,” Briceño said. “In turning a blind eye to his best friend's indefensible behavior, Spitzer knowingly empowered this person” and allowed him to interfere “with the minds and lives of women merely trying to do their jobs.”

In a statement to OC Watch, Spitzer said that he was “disturbed” by LoGalbo’s behavior which he claimed was “perpetrated unbeknownst” to him and his executive management team. “We fully support the victims of harassment by this manager. The behavior he engaged in at the workplace is nothing short of vile. The Orange County District Attorney’s Office does not tolerate harassment of any kind in the workplace. We have and will continue to support anyone who believes he or she has been harassed.” Spitzer also told OC Watch that he “took immediate action as soon as [he] was made aware of these accusations and the breakdown in the system that resulted in this behavior going unreported.”

There are reasons to doubt Spitzer’s attempt to deflect responsibility, however. 

Rather than express remorse or deny the allegations, LoGalbo said: “Oh, well, whatever. I’m not going to change. I’ll just retire.” More damning for Todd Spitzer, LoGalbo sent a text message that read: “I am who I am. Todd knew that going in.”

Indeed, one of the women who filed a sexual harrassment complaint against LoGalbo, later told the independent auditor, that Spitzer acknowledged to her in a phone conversation that LoGalbo was his “best friend” and that he “knew Gary was a pervert in his personal life but did not know he was one in his professional life.” 

Spitzer admitted to the auditor that he did call the women, but he claimed “I don’t know what I said” but also that he would have said that his personal relationship with LoGalbo would not have impacted his decision-making and if he had known that LoGalbo was a pervert in the office, he would “have been put on admin[istrative] leave or been out of here in two seconds.”

Spitzer also allegedly protected LoGalbo from these allegations, and floated the idea of retaliating against the victims who made them. The supervisor of one of the women who filed a complaint against LoGalbo told an independent auditor that Spitzer told her to “write up” the woman for a negative performance evaluation. Both that supervisor and another prosecutor in Spitzer’s office sent the evaluation over to Spitzer with a Post-it note making clear that they “both disagree[d]” with that decision. 

Spitzer offered a different version of events, but the independent auditor found Spitzer’s version “not credible”.  Spitzer told OC Watch that “the independent investigation flatly rejected any allegation of retaliation by me or any of my executive managers” and “cleared everyone of any wrongdoing with the exception of Mr. LoGalbo[.]” 

Spitzer’s statement is technically correct. The independent audit found the retaliation claim related to this incident to be “unsubstantiated.” But it’s a little more complicated than that. 

The auditor could not substantiate the claim not because she believed Spitzer’s version of events (indeed, she found them “not credible”), but because establishing the claim requires a “formal adverse employment action”.

Spitzer said he wanted the negative evaluation, but he did not “order” it on the spot. Instead, he left the door open for further discussion. Ultimately, after the pushback from others in senior leadership within the office, Spitzer approved a positive evaluation. In other words, the auditor believed that Spitzer intended for the woman to receive a negative evaluation and that he made the request to the woman’s supervisor, but because he was talked-out of his bad behavior before making a final decision about it, no “formal adverse employment action” occurred. 

More broadly, it’s hard to imagine Spitzer didn’t know what was happening. Spitzer told the independent auditor that he has known Gary LoGalbo for 25 years. Spitzer even met his wife, Jamie Morris Spitzer, through LoGalbo, at LoGalbo’s first wedding. Jamie and Gary have been friends since they attended the same middle-school. Todd and Gary barbequed together. They went to the river together. They fished together. 

Ask yourself, how likely is it that a man who allegedly greeted a female subordinate at the Orange County District Attorney’s Office by knocking on her office door and asking--“Knock, knock, are you naked in there? Are you clothed or are you naked?”--didn’t make similarly inappropriate remarks over the course of years of friendship and spending time together at weddings, dinner parties, and hanging out at the river?

That’s why Briceño, the Democratic Party Chairwoman, requested an independent audit by the County Board of Supervisors and the California Attorney General. She also urged the Orange County Office of Independent Review to perform an audit fully independent of the OCDA “in order to root out any and all possible harassing behavior under District Attorney Todd Spitzer.” 

Elected prosecutors are entrusted with unmatched power and discretion to decide the fate of people’s lives. Each day brings with it life or death decisions about whether and when to bring criminal charges, to seek long prison terms, or to demand that people sit in jail — separated from their home, job, and family — while they wait for their day in court. It’s a job that requires sound, rational judgment, a sober temperament, and unimpeachable character. 

Briceño said that through a pattern of perpetuating and permitting abusive behavior, “Spitzer has proven that he is not fit to hold office.” She also said that the District Attorney’s “attempts to condemn his best friend's behavior can not take away from the fact that Spitzer hired a man who he knew would harm women, and who did.” 

California NAACP Calls For Spitzer’s “Immediate Resignation"

Earlier today, Rick Callender, President of the California State Conference of the NAACP, told OC Watch that the organization is calling for the…

Feb 19, 2022 

Leaked Memos Quote DA Todd Spitzer On Why Black Men Date White Women

OC Watch has obtained three memos describing a high-level meeting that took place between Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer and some of his…

Feb 16, 2022 • 

Newly Surfaced Video Shows Spitzer Repeating The N-Word Three Times, Arrives On Top of Still Growing Racism Scandal.

In a recent meeting of the Iranian American Bar Association, Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer dropped the N-word three times during his…

From <https://orangecountywatch.substack.com/p/todd-spitzer-has-a-long-documented>

jail inmates

OCDA Spitzer laments the release of half the O.C. jail inmates

ByEditor  newsantaana.com

 Dec 14, 2020 courts, Crime, OC Jails, Todd Spitzer

From <https://newsantaana.com/ocda-spitzer-laments-the-release-of-half-the-o-c-jail-inmates/>

SANTA ANA, Calif. – Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer released the following statement criticizing a court ruling in Campbell et. all v. Barnes that requires Sheriff Don Barnes to reduce the inmate population in the Orange County jail system by 50%:

A judge’s ruling to reduce the inmate population in the Orange County jail system by half will release dangerous and violent criminals back into our neighborhoods to commit more crimes and victimize more people.

This is not fearmongering; it is a fact.

The jail population, through the implementation of $0 bail and early release by the Sheriff, has been reduced by more than 33% since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The District Attorney’s Office has been keeping statistics in order to understand the impact of these court orders. Orange County inmates released early before serving their full sentence or on $0 bail went out and committed new crimes at rates at nearly triple normal recidivism rates: 44% for early release inmates and 38% for $0 bail defendants.

A sample of their crimes: auto theft, burglary, robbery, assault, weapons, theft and narcotics.

And a 23-year-old man who stabbed his 17-year-old ex-girlfriend four times, killing her. He had been released on $0 bail 3 ½ weeks earlier.

These are not just new crimes. These are new victims.

The rise of coronavirus cases is not relegated to the jail system; Orange County and nearly all of California are seeing disturbing increases in new cases.

Nothing, not even a pandemic suspends the rule of law.

The solution is simple: don’t break the law and you won’t end up in jail.

If the Sheriff appeals this ruling – and I hope he does – the District Attorney’s Office will file an amicus brief with our data which demonstrates just how dangerous this decision is.

Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes and his staff have taken a proactive approach to balancing the health and safety of the inmates, his deputies, and jail staff with protecting the community from being further victimized. Inmates who were let out before serving their full sentence – many who are medically vulnerable – were determined to be the lowest risk – and they still went out and committed more crimes at alarming rates.

Nearly 350 convicted defendants who were sentenced to state prison remain in the Orange County jail system because the state refuses to accept them. Four months ago, Sheriff Barnes and I sent letters to the governor asking for these state prisoners to be transferred. Freeing up hundreds of beds would alleviate at least some of the strain on the County jail system.

Throwing open the jail doors and releasing dangerous and violent inmates back into our communities where they will no doubt continue to commit new crimes is not the answer. It is not in the interest of the criminal justice system, it is not in the interest of the public, and it is not in the interest of safety.

Will the Real Todd Spitzer Please Stand Up?

R. Scott Moxley| Posted onSeptember 9, 2010 OCWEEKLY

Though one of Orange County law enforcement’s most powerful jobs was at stake, the 2010 race for district attorney didn’t produce one debate, not a single exchange of hostile campaign mail. That’s because, for the second time, incumbent District Attorney Tony Rackauckas faced no challenger. Yet, even before Rackauckas is sworn in for his next four-year term in January, the 2014 race for the job is already a bloodbath.

Count Todd Spitzer as the first casualty. On Aug. 27, the DA fired Spitzer, the now-former high-ranking prosecutor who had been presenting himself as the anointed successor to the now-67-year-old Rackauckas. The ambitious Spitzer—whose jobs have included county supervisor, state assemblyman and school-board trustee, with two stints as a local prosecutor—is crying foul.

According to Spitzer, he was canned on a “pretext” excuse in a plot to thwart his chances of replacing Rackauckas after the 2014 election. “I thought everything was going fine,” he says.

Rackauckas’ allies dismiss the notion of a conspiracy and claim Spitzer had committed a series of poor-judgment blunders—nothing illegal or immoral, but acts of arrogance that increasingly annoyed the DA. “It takes a lot to frustrate Tony,” said Susan Kang Schroeder, Rackauckas’ chief of staff. “Todd managed to pull it off. He can blame only himself.”

The mention of Schroeder’s name probably makes Spitzer clench his fists. His post-firing explanations point to a malignant power over the DA’s office: Not Rackauckas, but Schroeder and her husband, Mike, the onetime California Republican Party boss and Santa Ana chiropractic-insurance king who is Rackauckas’ closest adviser.

A clearly angry Spitzer told KFI’s Bill Handel on Aug. 31 that the Schroeders are “political operatives . . . people with very disreputable reputations.” He credited the couple with being “critical in Mike Carona’s fall from grace.” Indeed, Mike Schroeder served as top adviser to both Rackauckas and Carona before FBI and IRS agents arrested the county’s top cop for corruption in 2007.

“So while Mike Carona is on his way to state, uh, federal prison after running the sheriff’s department into the ground, these are the same people trying to run the Orange County district attorney’s office into the ground,” said Spitzer, who, like the Schroeders, is a Republican.

Weekly readers know that in the past year, I’ve written about rumors that Susan Schroeder was considering a 2014 run for DA. She has steadfastly dismissed the claim, but now Spitzer is calling her a phony. He speculates that she orchestrated his firing to enhance her own chances. “She has made it very clear she wants to be the district attorney,” Spitzer told Handel.

“He’s crazy,” Susan Schroeder fired back during a telephone interview with me from Hawaii, where she is on vacation. “He’s lost it. I’m not running for DA.”

Says her husband, “Susan has absolutely no plans to be DA, period.”

Six days into this scandal, Rackauckas declared he’ll run again in 2014. Frankly, I doubt his sincerity. It’s likely the announcement was an attempt to end the embarrassing bickering.

Despite 18 months of the awkward grooming arrangement, the DA and Spitzer couldn’t be more opposite. Rackauckas often looks like he’d be content to quietly watch paint dry. In his view, only liberals use the word “reform.” His wardrobe is bland, and his speeches are often plagued with odd silences. The natty, articulate Spitzer notoriously can neither sit still nor keep his mouth shut, and the notion of enacting bureaucratic reforms probably arouses him.

In this latest episode, Spitzer is determined to focus attention on the Schroeders. But the real story in this case isn’t the Corona del Mar power couple. Sure, they relish destroying political opponents and bask in pride when their wounded enemies call them the personification of evil. There’s nothing new here about who the Schroeders are or how they operate.

But the whole episode has showed us something none-too-pleasant about Spitzer’s character.

In October 2004, I wrote about my unannounced visit to then-Assemblyman Spitzer’s speech to a Rush Limbaugh Club. In response to a question from an audience member, he called OC’s law-enforcement community “poisoned.” He wasn’t talking about then-Sheriff Carona (who was still three years away from his federal-grand-jury indictment). He was speaking about Rackauckas—and the Schroeders.

“The people of this county want and deserve a DA who is fair, just and above reproach,” Spitzer said while hinting that he might challenge Rackauckas in the 2006 race. “We know that the DA has intervened on behalf of his friends, fouled up cases, and there’s been an ongoing issue of retaliation against deputies who haven’t politically supported Tony Rackauckas.”

Spitzer even singled out Mike Schroeder as a nefarious character with questionable ties to both the DA and sheriff.

“Let all that sink in for a minute,” he said.

In response, Susan Schroeder dismissed the remarks as evidence that Spitzer’s m.o. was “ready, fire, aim.”

Ultimately, Spitzer decided not to run, and in 2008, after running into term limits in the state assembly, he joined his old nemeses in the DA’s office. At the time, I questioned Susan Schroeder on the move, given their long animosity.

“Todd has changed,” she said then. “He’s become a Christian”—he was Jewish—“and he finally understands why so many people didn’t like him before. I’m willing to give him a second chance.”

For Spitzer, joining Rackauckas and the Schroeders wasn’t selling out to the dark side. But he no longer wanted to talk about allegedly corrupting elements that hadn’t left the DA’s office. In fact, he celebrated Susan Schroeder as a moody but decent person. “She’s a friend,” he told me last year. The Schroeders confirm that Spitzer has been a frequent, regular caller for advice, even in recent weeks.

So let’s recap Spitzer’s stances:

In 2004, the Schroeders are evil folks wrecking the DA’s office, and Rackauckas is a gullible moron.

In 2008, the Schroeders are wonderful people who’ve kindly helped him get a high-ranking prosecutor’s job, and Rackauckas is his trusty mentor.

In 2010, he’s fired, and the Schroeders are once again satanic and the DA their moronic puppet.

I know all the parties in this affair and can safely report that Rackauckas hasn’t changed. Love them or hate them, the Schroeders haven’t changed. The only person who seems to have changed—or is continually changing—is Spitzer, which is sad because he has portrayed himself as an unblemished government reformer more than any other OC candidate for 15 years.

Perhaps Spitzer is right that the Schroeders brought him into the DA’s office to prevent him from using his $1 million campaign fund to challenge Rackauckas in 2010, and then axed him after the June election. Perhaps Susan Schroeder has already chosen the blood-red drapes she’ll hang in the office when she’s DA. But there’s no doubt Spitzer has undermined his stature.

Spitzer told KFI he’d returned to the DA’s office “with my eyes wide open,” but was it really with a self-serving wink? It looks as if he was willing to stop crying corruption in exchange for a well-paying deputy DA job. Or, alternatively, he was a crafty troublemaker who parlayed false, sensational criticisms into a well-paying deputy DA job. Whichever version is right, a question arises: How many times is Spitzer allowed to flip-flop?

rs**********@oc******.com

R. Scott Moxley

CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.

From <https://www.ocweekly.com/will-the-real-todd-spitzer-please-stand-up-6413775-2/>

U.S. Marshal Ian Diaz Indicted for Anaheim Love Triangle Plot Against Michelle Hadley

By Pilar Melendez | Daily Beast  May 14, 2021

A Deputy U.S. Marshal was indicted this week for allegedly orchestrating a wild scheme with his then-wife to frame an innocent ex-girlfriend as a rape predator and have her thrown in jail for months.

Ian R. Diaz, a 43-year-old from Brea, California, was hit with a slew of charges on Wednesday, including conspiracy to commit cyberstalking, the Department of Justice said in a Friday news release.

Prosecutors allege that Ian and Angela Maria Diaz, who has not been indicted but is named a co-conspirator, created a fake online persona for Ian’s ex-girlfriend Michelle Hadley in 2016, and used it to send themselves “harassing and threatening” messages and post online ads inviting people to engage in “rape fantasies” against Angela.

The newly unsealed indictment alleges the pair even used the profiles to set up a fake sexual assault on Angela Diaz, and then tried to conceal their bizarre scheme by using a fake email account, virtual private networks, and even talking to each other on encrypted messaging apps.

“Diaz and his then-wife then reported this conduct to local law enforcement, falsely claiming that [Hadley] posed a genuine and serious threat to Diaz and his then-wife,” the news release said.

Local officials arrested Hadley at the time and detained her in jail “for nearly three months for conduct for which they framed her and in fact perpetrated themselves.”

The scheme seemed to quickly fall apart after Hadley’s arrest. While the indictment doesn’t detail how the ruse came to light, Angela Diaz, 32, was arrested in 2016. She was later sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to multiple charges. (It is not immediately clear why it took another four years for Ian Diaz to be indicted.)

Two years later, Hadley sued the city of Anaheim, the Anaheim Police Department, and the Diazes, alleging officers initially ignored a mountain of evidence that showed the couple was framing her. Wednesday’s indictment also charges Diaz with perjuring himself in a 2019 deposition for the lawsuit. (The city settled the suit for an undisclosed amount last month.)

“Almost five years ago our client reported that her ex-boyfriend was stalking and impersonating her online,” Maggie McLetchie and Carrie Goldberg, who represented Hadley in her civil suit, said in a statement to The Daily Beast. “Instead, it was our client who was arrested after her ex and his wife framed her in an elaborate, but shoddily executed plot. The most basic competence with digital evidence and intimate partner violence would have revealed to Anaheim police officers that she was being framed.”

While Hadley was exonerated of the “dozen sex crime felonies” she was accused of, “her ex was never held accountable until today,” they said.

“It was our client’s bravery and diligence in bringing her civil suit...that exposed the holes in Anaheim’s investigation and the cover-up of the cover-up. Let this be a lesson to all abusers—the law will catch up to you. Even if you are a law enforcer.”

Michelle Hadley was wrongfully arrested (left) but later fought back by filing a civil suit and sharing her story publicly.

Orange County District Attorney's Office/Carrie Goldberg and Maggie McLetchie

According to Diaz’s indictment, he and Hadley—who is identified as “Jane Doe” in the filing but who later identified herself in a BuzzFeed story and the civil suit—jointly bought a condo in Anaheim when they were dating in June 2015 but they broke up two months later. Despite Hadley financing the down payment, she moved out and, by January, Diaz was living there with his new fiancée.

Prosecutors state Hadley and Diaz were in the middle of an “ongoing dispute” over the condo when the plot to “harass and intimidate her” by framing her took shape. Diaz wanted, in part, to dissuade her from kicking him out of the condo, the indictment says.\

The Diazes allegedly created online accounts using fake names—some using Hadley’s name or variations of it, prosecutors state. The couple, who had by now married, then sent themselves harassing and threatening emails—several of which “contained express or implied threats to harm” Angela.

Some of those messages, the indictment says, contained “threatening language and photos of dead fetuses.”

The indictment says that, on June 13, 2016, the Diazes also posted personal ads on Craigslist seeking people to come to the condo “and engage in a ‘rape fantasy’” with Angela. Their hope was “to stage a non-consensual sexual assault on [Angela] with the other party believing that the sexual encounter would be consensual.”

That same day, Ian Diaz communicated with at least one potential participant—then called the police. The indictment states that the couple told the cops they were scared for their safety, insisting that Hadley was harassing them and “needs to be in fucking cuffs and in a padded room.”

“[Ian Diaz told police he] investigates threats made to federal judges and prosecutors as part of his work as a Deputy United States Marshal and that he has ‘never seen anything like this.’”

Ian Diaz told local police that he “investigates threats made to federal judges and prosecutors as part of his work as a Deputy United States Marshal and that he has ‘never seen anything like this,’” the indictment states.

“At what point does this girl get arrested for sending this shit and hiring guys off Craigslist to rape [Angela Diaz],” Ian Diaz told police in another interview. He urged officers to arrest her, saying she was “hiding out” at her parent’s house.

The next day, the indictment states, Ian Diaz allegedly texted another Craigslist user in an attempt to lure him to the condo to further prove Hadley should be arrested.

The Diazes also allegedly “staged one or more hoax sexual assaults and hoax attempted sexual assaults,” including one false alarm in which Angela called 911 to report that she’d been sexually assaulted outside the condo and Hadley was responsible, causing Hadley to be arrested.

According to news reports about Angela Diaz’s case, she had red marks on her neck and breast to make the false assault look real.

Even after initial Hadley’s arrest, the Diazes kept posting “rape fantasy” ads on Craigslist. Ian even used his personal cell phone to “authenticate and approve” one of the posts, then canceled his cell service the next day, the indictment states.

Hadley was reportedly released on a $100,000 bond but was arrested again in July, 2016, and remained in custody until about October. Authorities eventually dropped the charges when an investigation proved Hadley was not involved.

To conceal their plan, Ian Diaz allegedly created another email address for a different former girlfriend to communicate in secret with Angela. He even used that account on “his work cell phone assigned to him by the United States Marshals Service,” prosecutors say.

When the conspiracy began to unravel in late 2016, Diaz threw his then-wife under the bus, stating she was “solely responsible for framing [Hadley],” the indictment says.

“Diaz represented to local law enforcement officials that he initially became suspicious of [his wife] in or about early August 2016, when he received emails from the account he in fact created on July 31, 2016, and that he previously accessed using his work phone,” the indictment states.

The indictment does not say if the Diazes divorced but refers to Angela as Ian’s then-wife.

In a statement to The Daily Beast, the U.S. Marshals Service said they are “aware of the arrest and indictment of Deputy U.S. Marshal Ian R. Diaz” and are “cooperating fully with the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General’s investigation of the matter.”

“We take seriously any allegation of misconduct by our personnel. The alleged actions of this employee do not reflect the core values of the U.S. Marshals Service, and Diaz has been relieved of his operational duties and placed on administrative leave,” the statement added.

An attorney for Diaz did not immediately respond for comment.

Senior Reporter

@kbriquelet

kate.briquelet@thedailybeast.com

https://www.thedailybeast.com/us-marshal-ian-diaz-indicted-for-anaheim-love-triangle-plot-against-michelle-hadley

Woman Falsely Accused of Impersonating Ex-Boyfriend’s Pregnant Wife With Rape Ads, Cops Say

TWISTED PLOT

Officials say a woman set up a love rival by creating fake Craigslist rape fantasy ads.

Kate Briquelet | Daily Beast

Updated Jul. 29, 2020  | Published Jul. 21, 2016

From <https://www.thedailybeast.com/woman-falsely-accused-of-impersonating-ex-boyfriends-pregnant-wife-with-rape-ads-cops-say>

Ex-girlfriend cleared in Craigslist ‘rape fantasy’ case sues couple accused of framing her

OC Register 18 July 2017

Michelle Hadley addresses the media after being cleared of all charges in a complicated plot to frame her in Fullerton, California, January 9, 2017. Hadley was arrested and charged last year for allegedly stalking her ex-boyfriend's pregnant wife, Angela Diaz, and impersonating the woman in rape fantasy ads on Craigslist. The DA now says the woman who was claiming to be the victim, Angela Diaz, set the whole thing up to target Hadley. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Michelle Hadley addresses the media after being cleared of all charges in a complicated plot to frame her in Fullerton, California, January 9, 2017. Hadley was arrested and charged last year for allegedly stalking her ex-boyfriend’s pregnant wife, Angela Diaz, and impersonating the woman in rape fantasy ads on Craigslist. The DA now says the woman who was claiming to be the victim, Angela Diaz, set the whole thing up to target Hadley. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Kelly Puente, NB Daily Reporter

By KELLY PUENTE | kpuente@scng.com | Orange County Register

PUBLISHED: July 18, 2017 at 4:50 p.m. | UPDATED: July 19, 2017 at 10:19 a.m.

An Ontario woman who spent 88 days in an Orange County jail before she was exonerated in a bizarre Craigslist “rape fantasy” plot that grabbed national headlines is suing the city of Anaheim, saying police failed to thoroughly investigate her case.

Michelle Hadley, now 30, was arrested by Anaheim police last year for allegedly stalking her ex-boyfriend’s pregnant wife, Angela Diaz, 32.

At the time, . . .

https://www.ocregister.com/2017/07/18/ex-girlfriend-jailed-for-craigslist-rape-fantasy-posts-sues-anaheim-couple-accused-of-framing-her/

Law Offices of Tony Rackauckas

Tony Rackauckas

Decades of experience - District Attorney, private attorney and judge

At the Law Offices of Tony Rackauckas, our expertise is built upon Tony’s decades of legal experience.   With twenty years of experience as the Orange County District Attorney and nine years serving as a judge, Tony Rackauckas has been involved with literally hundreds of trials.  His vast experience in litigation and settlement negotiations is a tremendous asset to clients who have high profile and sensitive matters.

A key strength of the Law Offices of Tony Rackauckas is our ability to handle high profile and sensitive matters.  Having served for nearly three decades in the public sector, Tony knows how to handle these issues for his select clients.  The firm can be trusted to serve at the highest level of advocacy for our clients.

Tony brings to the table a team of highly-qualified attorneys serving as Of Counsel to help with a wide range of litigation and transactional matters.  Our Litigation Practice builds upon Tony’s experience with literally hundreds of trials.  Of equal importance, the firm’s Business Transactions Practice offers effective contract negotiations and preparation.

PERSONAL BACKGROUND

Tony Rackauckas is grateful for the privilege to have spent his life serving the public. As the Orange County District Attorney, he was often called “a tough, no-nonsense DA” by national television talk show hosts, colleagues, and citizens.

Tony’s maternal grandparents immigrated to Arizona from Mexico around 1921. As the second of six children, Tony primarily spoke Spanish for the first three years of his life. Tony enlisted in the U.S. Army as a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) and served on active duty from 1962 to 1964 and remained in the U.S. Army Reserve for four more years. After his military service, Tony studied political science at California State University, Long Beach. “I was grateful to work nights as a security guard. It allowed me to take classes during the day and support my young, growing family.” He went on to earn his Juris Doctor from Loyola Law School, Los Angeles in 1971. 

His passion and motivation for his job stem from the patriotism and philanthropy he learned as a child growing up in a military family in East Los Angeles.  From 1968 to 1972, Tony worked as a social worker in the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services.  In 1972, Tony joined the Orange County District Attorney’s Office as a deputy district attorney. Over the next 15 years, he conducted over 40 homicide jury trials and over 100 felony jury trials including rape, robbery, arson, assault, burglary, fraud, narcotics, and child molestation. After briefly working in private practice, he was appointed in 1990 as a municipal court judge and three years later was appointed Tony to the superior court, and he was named Presiding Judge of its Appellate Department in 1996.  In June 1998, Tony ran for District Attorney and was overwhelmingly elected by the citizens of Orange County, and was then re-elected four times in 2002, 2006, 2010, and 2014.

Recent News

1202, 2019

Announcement – Tony Rackauckas opens law practice

Tony Rackauckas is pleased to announce the opening of his law practice. With twenty years of experience as the Orange County District Attorney and nine years serving as a judge, Tony Rackauckas has been involved [...]

Contact Info

310 W. First Street

Tustin, CA 92780

Phone: 714.665.0200

Email: info@rackauckas.com

Web: rackauckas.com

https://rackauckas.com/

DA’s Office Worked to Frame Newport Beach Doctor as Serial Rapist

R. Scott Moxley| Posted onNovember 13, 2019 ocweekly

Image Susan Kang Schroeder in the hot seat: Have you no decency, madam? (Illustration by Federico Medina)

What prompted journalists around the globe to preposterously report in September 2018 that a Newport Beach doctor and his girlfriend had drugged, then videotaped themselves raping 1,000 women?

In July, Susan Kang Schroeder—the media flack for Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas until his defeat in the 2018 election—sat for a sworn Irvine deposition in a related civil case and tried to conjure up explanations to exonerate herself as well as her boss for the lies told about Dr. Grant Robicheaux and Cerissa Riley.

Philip Cohen, Robicheaux’s defense attorney, asked Schroeder if she considered headlines such as “Reality TV Surgeon and His Lover Appear to Have Drugged and Raped Up to a Thousand Women On Camera After Luring Them From Bars and Festivals” had been accurate. 

Even though the Weekly first revealed a year ago that there is no evidence of a single recorded rape, Schroeder stunningly defended the false, sensational report as correct.

Cohen followed up, probing for her rationale.

“Because it was feared [sic] to have drugged, raped up [to a thousand women],” she answered coyly. “It doesn’t say they did in fact.”

Cohen mentioned other misleading reports, including an NBC News article headlined, “California Surgeon, Girlfriend Accused of Rape; Possibly Preyed on More Than a Thousand Victims.”

Schroeder pointed to the word possibly and argued the headline was “not inaccurate.” She then implied it was reasonable to believe there were a thousand victims. She also appeared baffled by the identity of anyone who could have inspired reporters to push the assertion.

But there’s no mystery who sold People v. Robicheaux and Riley as a legitimate bombshell criminal case. Schroeder deleted all of her emails after questions were raised about her conduct. Sadly for her, some records were recovered and proved her office had unambiguously pushed the “thousand victims” line to reporters behind the scenes. 

The guilty here were truly hiding in plain sight. Rackauckas and Schroeder conducted numerous press conferences on the case; produced a 2.5-minute film showcasing the couple’s good looks as a way to demonstrate, as they claimed, that not all monsters are ugly; issued multiple misleading press releases; and repeatedly called everyone from ABC’s Good Morning America to The New York Times to The Howard Stern Show. They even prompted a special episode of Dr. Oz, in which the defendants were convicted on-air as worthy of direct trips to state prison—before there was even a real trial.

The timing of the Rackauckas/Schroeder media blitz wasn’t coincidental. About a month earlier, private professional polling revealed that their hated nemesis, Todd Spitzer, was poised to win an upset victory that would boot them out of office after a scandal-scarred, 20-year stint. Schroeder, who managed her boss’ public image as Mr. Law and Order and served as his de facto campaign manager, needed a miracle that might hit Spitzer with a whammy: winning massive, free pre-election publicity selling Rackauckas as a heroic champion of sexual assault victims in an election when the turnout of female voters was expected to surge. 

Enter sucker-punched victims Robicheaux and Riley, who became forced campaign fodder.

There were obvious signs of hanky-panky in the prosecution from the outset of the case 13 months ago. First, detectives inside the Newport Beach Police Department (NBPD) had thoroughly investigated two 2016 rape complaints against the couple, concluded the accusations were baseless and officially closed the files as non-crimes. It was those complaints that Rackauckas dredged up as genuine and publicized while trying to fight off Spitzer. To help explain away the time gap, the DA put out a September 2018 press release with a timeline of the case that oddly omitted NBPD’s conclusions. 

During a June deposition, Cohen asked Rackauckas to explain the omission.

“I don’t think it’s important,” he replied. “I don’t see the relevancy of it.”

The DA’s timeline was also crafted to make reporters believe that a 2018 cold-case DNA hit on a Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) database had strengthened his prosecution of the couple, an allegation spread around the planet by the media. But here, too, was another glaring, unforgivable doctoring of the record. The vaginal DNA match, which had been collected shortly after one professed victim claimed she’d been raped, wasn’t tied to either Robicheaux or Riley. It belonged to the woman’s boyfriend.

Cohen pressed Rackauckas on this point, too, asking, “Would it be fair to say that the cold-case hit that came back did not strengthen a case against Robicheaux and Riley?”

The chagrined ex-DA replied, “I think that would be fair to say,” but later insisted, “There was no attempt to do any misleading.”

After hours of questions, Rackauckas conceded to Cohen that he’d seen the case as a vehicle for publicity and re-election.

Image Swallowing tainted Rackauckas Kool-Aid: Gulp, gulp, gulp

As the Weekly reported last week, an alarmed Spitzer digested the depositions and wrote a letter to California Attorney General Xavier Becerra accusing Rackauckas and Schroeder of “shamelessly exploiting” the case as a campaign stunt. 

“The former DA and [Schroeder] repeatedly engaged in prosecutorial misconduct by exploiting pretrial publicity for re-election purposes,” Spitzer wrote in a letter unsealed by a judge on Nov. 6. “In doing so, they each further victimized the victims in this case and prohibited the [Orange County district attorney’s] office from exercising its sacrosanct duty to ensure a fair trial and its duty to seek justice.”

The new DA added, “This is not a close call. It is a blatant abuse of power and misuse of government resources for personal gain by the former administration of this office. This office cannot suffer any more credibility setbacks given its history of prosecutorial abuse.”

Officials plan a December criminal court hearing in a mess that should be studied in law schools across the nation as a frightening example of warped, self-serving prosecutors in action.

R. Scott Moxley

CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.

From <https://www.ocweekly.com/susan-kang-grant-robicheaux/>

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