When George Gascón steps down as district attorney next month, he will leave behind not only a legacy of unpopular criminal justice reforms but also a raft of lawsuits filed by top prosecutors in his office that could cost Los Angeles County millions of dollars.
Two dozen deputy district attorneys are pursuing civil lawsuits alleging they faced retaliation when they defied the progressive Gascón and his lofty reform policies. One suit already has been settled for $800,000 and another led to a jury verdict of $1.5 million.
Resolving the suits will be a top priority for District Attorney-elect Nathan Hochman, a 60-year-old former federal prosecutor who handily defeated Gascón in Tuesday’s election.
“I will work as expeditiously as possible in addressing the lawsuits to help turn the page on the failed social experiment Gascón has wrought on Los Angeles County residents,” said Hochman, who ran on a tough-on-crime platform that gives prosecutors authority to make legal decisions on a case-by-case basis. “It doesn’t lend itself to an easy fix, but it’s a solvable problem that will require a lot of work.”
Nathan Hochman will be sworn in Dec. 2 as district attorney of Los Angeles County. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)
Proud of accomplishments
At the heart of the lawsuits were Gascón’s policy directives, established soon after he took office in 2020, barring prosecutors from charging juveniles as adults, filing sentencing enhancements, attending parole hearings, requiring cash bail for nonviolent offenses and seeking the death penalty.
Gascón has retracted or made exceptions for some of his most controversial directives, which he insisted were necessary to overhaul a broken criminal justice system.
Gascón, 70, said he is deeply proud of his administration’s accomplishments and grateful to communities that are the “heart of criminal justice reform.”
“The rightward shift across America last night is heartbreaking,” Gascón, who fended off two failed recall efforts, said in a statement a day after voters rejected his reelection bid. “Democrats have a long road ahead, but the work is more vital than ever, and our commitment will not waver.”
Praised and vilified
Gascón’s legacy as a progressive reformer will continue long after he leaves office, said Cristine Soto DeBerry, executive director of Prosecutors Alliance Action, a nonprofit organization that advocates for prosecutorial change and policy solutions.
“For more than 40 years, DA Gascón has dedicated his life to public service and worked to keep our communities safe,” DeBerry said. “As time goes on, more and more people will come to adopt the common-sense approaches that he pioneered, from investing in the rehabilitation of young people to resentencing individuals who deserve a second chance to holding police accountable to ending the death penalty to prioritizing diversion programs that address root causes of crime.”
However, Hochman described Gascón as a poor administrator whose office has not reviewed 10,000 cases from law enforcement agencies to determine whether charges should be filed. Before Gascón’s tenure, he said, there was never more than a backlog larger than 100 unfiled cases.
Michele Hanisee, president of the Association of Deputy District Attorneys, said seasoned prosecutors have long warned Gascón that his policies would create a case filing logjam.
“He thought he knew better. He was wrong,” Hanisee said. “But even as the backlog grew, he doubled down. It was only during the last 30 days before the election he began secretly offering valuable overtime hours to a small group of hand-picked prosecutors to help him cover his tracks”.
Hochman noted that the District Attorney’s Office has about 25% fewer prosecutors than when Gascón took office in December 2020, due in part to poor management. He said that on his first day in office, he would rescind all of Gascón’s pro-criminal blanket policies that have “decarceration” as their primary goal.
Gascón, who was elected amid nationwide furor and unrest following the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota, created an uproar almost immediately after he was sworn in by issuing a string of controversial directives, including the elimination of some enhancements that could add time to a defendant’s sentence for such allegations as gun use or gang affiliation.
Within days, the ADDA, which represents about 800 rank-and-file Los Angeles County prosecutors, filed a lawsuit arguing Gascón’s directives were unlawful and violated prosecutorial discretion.
In February 2021, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James Chalfant issued an injunction, ruling that Gascón’s ban on three-strikes enhancements was illegal and violates the rights of prosecutors. The California Second District Court of Appeal upheld the injunction, and the District Attorney’s Office subsequently filed an appeal pending before the California Supreme Court.
Prosecutors revolt
The 24 lawsuits against Gascón and the county allege that not only were prosecutors retaliated against for challenging Gascón, but many were demoted or denied promotions.
The latest suit, filed last month by Deputy District Attorney Tatiana Chahoian, alleges Gascón attempted to “send a message” by dispatching armed investigators to her home — where she was working remotely while watching her young children — with a notice accusing her of policy violations for a February interview with Fox 11 Los Angeles.
Chahoian had expressed concern about a memo she received encouraging prosecutors to downplay cases involving street racing, street takeovers and reckless driving amid the trial of wealthy Los Angeles socialite Rebecca Grossman, convicted of killing two young boys crossing a street with their family.
The lawsuit states Chahoian was passed over for promotion and alleges intimidation from Gascón exacerbated her existing health conditions, leading to chronic fatigue, severe anxiety and weight loss.
“Gascón punished me for telling the truth — for warning the people I took an oath to serve of societal dangers they have a right to know about,” Chahoian said in a statement. “He attempted to intimidate me into silence and sent law enforcement to the most sacred of places — my home, where my family is supposed to feel most safe. When his attempts to intimidate and silence me failed, he resorted to a systematic campaign of retaliation targeting my reputation, my competence as an attorney and my livelihood.”
Transfers, demotions
Other prosecutors say they, too, have been punished for calling out Gascón’s policies.
Deputy District Attorney Michael K. Matoba alleges in a lawsuit he was transferred in October 2021 from a high-profile post in the Sex Crimes Unit to a less prestigious job in the Elder Abuse Unit because he informed the court that Gascón’s blanket policy to exclude special circumstance allegations was unlawful.
Matoba alleges the retaliation stems from his involvement in prosecuting sexually violent predator Kenneth Kasten Rasmuson for the murders of two 6-year-old boys, Jeffrey Vargo of Anaheim Hills in 1981 and Miguel Antero of Agoura Hills in 1986.
Although Rasmuson was charged with special circumstances enhancements making him eligible for the death penalty under previous District Attorney Jackie Lacey, Gascón moved to dismiss those allegations as part of a mandate prohibiting prosecutors from seeking capital punishment or life in prison without the possibility of parole.
According to the lawsuit, the policy was later changed, but not until Matoba complained about its illegality.
In a separate suit, Deputy District Attorney Shea Sanna alleges he was demoted and transferred for exposing misconduct in the widely publicized case of child molester Hannah Tubbs, who began identifying as a transgender woman after her 2014 arrest for the sexual assault of a 10-year-old girl in Palmdale.
According to his suit, Gascón and his administration pressured Sanna to suppress information about Tubbs’ use of gender identity as a ploy to gain more favorable jail treatment and retaliated against him when he refused to comply.
Tubbs was sentenced to two years at a juvenile facility after Gascón’s office declined to move the case to adult court and, in a separate case, was sentenced to 15 years in adult prison for a killing in Kern County in 2019.
In another suit, Lesley Klein Sonnenberg, former assistant head deputy of the Family Violence Division, alleged retaliation by Gascón after she informed him she would continue to file “strikes” against repeat offenders because she considered his directive illegal.
She claimed the district attorney was relying on faulty statistics that claimed long prison terms created higher recidivism rates, and provided multiple studies that contradicted his prosecution approach.
In response, Sonneberg claimed, she was denied a promotion to acting head deputy after serving as second in command of the Family Violence Division for five years. Additionally, she said she was transferred against her wishes to a “dead-end” position with the office’s Consumer Protections Division in downtown Los Angeles.
The District Attorney’s Office did not respond to requests regarding the retaliation lawsuits.
Kathy Cady, a Los Angeles County prosecutor for 30 years before becoming a victims’ rights attorney, said it is heartbreaking to see former colleagues retaliated against for upholding the law, seeking justice and doing what is ethical.
“These courageous prosecutors are true heroes and have my utmost respect,” she said. “The residents of Los Angeles County owe these men and women a tremendous debt of gratitude for their fortitude and determination in the face of Gascon’s vindictive transfers and other unlawful retaliation.”
Among all the lawsuits, there has been at least one settlement totaling $800,000 awarded to Richard Doyle, a former head deputy district attorney who has since retired. He alleged Gascón retaliated against him for refusing to drop charges against three anti-police protesters accused of attempting to wreck a train in November 2020 in Compton.
Related links
High-ranking prosecutors allege DA Gascón demoted them for complaining about policies
Another prosecutor defies DA Gascón, sues for retaliation over demotion
Jury awards $1.5 million to prosecutor who sued DA Gascón for retaliation
Prosecutor who alleged retaliation from DA Gascón poised to get $800,000 settlement
Gascón retaliated against prosecutor for exposing deception of transgender sex offender, suit claims
Another repudiation of Gascón’s policies came in March 2023, when a jury awarded Head Deputy District Attorney Shawn Randolph $1.5 million in damages for her suit alleging a retaliatory transfer from a prestigious position to a “dead-end” job after complaining about juvenile sentencing policies.
Hanisee noted that while Hochman can settle the retaliation suits, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors controls the purse strings.
“The taxpayers of Los Angeles are going to be paying for George Gascon‘s mistakes for years,” Hanisee said. “Gascón is leaving the county and taxpayers with a mountain of liability in lawsuits because of his managerial incompetence. Most of these lawsuits are based on malicious retaliation against employees who did little more than ask questions about the wisdom of Gascón’s policies.”