George Gascon A Los Angeles County jury found that George Gascon had engaged in retaliatory conduct against a Deputy District Attorney who pushed back against his policies and awarded the plaintiff, Shawn Randolph, $1.5 million in a verdict announced late Monday afternoon. Randolph was the lead prosecutor in the office’s juvenile division and was “reassigned” to the parole division after she raised objections to Gascon’s blanket policy to not charge a juvenile as an adult, no exceptions, which he announced immediately upon taking the oath of office in December 2020. As RedState reported at the time:
Randolph’s attorneys say Randolph told supervisors that Gascon’s directives “violated laws pertaining to victims’ rights and would lead prosecutors to file inaccurate charges in court due to limitations he placed on the types of felonies that could be charged against juveniles.” Local news didn’t report this part of Gascon’s time on the witness stand during the trial last week, but Deputy DA Jonathan Hatami, who has been a vocal critic of Gascon’s policies and was present during Gascon’s testimony, tweeted: The Los Angeles Times reports that several LA County prosecutors were in the courtroom as the verdict was read, and that one said, “Finally,” when it was announced.
The county already settled a lawsuit filed against Gascon by former Deputy DA Richard Doyle, who’d been retaliated against when he refused to drop charges against BLM protesters who were charged with trainwrecking that was caught on video. That suit was settled for a seven-figure sum, according to the LA Times. Gascon was represented at trial by the same law firm involved in investigating Deputy DA Shea Sanna for allegations of misconduct, transphobia, and misgendering that Sanna believes are retaliation for Sanna’s public criticism of Gascon’s directive prohibiting charging juveniles as adults. Sanna was the prosecutor assigned to the case of James/Hannah Tubbs, the man who was 17 when he violently sexually assaulted a 10-year-old girl in the bathroom of a Denny’s restaurant in Palmdale, then claimed to be transgender when he was arrested at age 25 in 2021. Gascon’s spokeswoman, Tiffiny Blacknell, reiterated her boss’s position that they were simply moving around personnel to improve service to the community.
Blacknell was working as a public defender when Gascon was hired, but left that job to join Gascon as one of his top assistants after it was learned that she was behind efforts to intimidate Deputy DA’s and judges who didn’t believe Gascon’s directives were legal and attempted to not follow them.
This isn’t the first time Gascon has been accused of retaliation against a female subordinate. Prior to becoming a prosecutor (a term I hesitate to use, because I’m not sure Gascon has ever first chaired a felony case), he was an LAPD officer for decades. He got his feathers ruffled when he was passed over for the chief job, then left for Arizona. But while he was with LAPD numerous sexual harassment and retaliation claims were raised against him, both formally and informally. As we covered in 2020,
Another woman, a former LAPD detective, told Ali a similar story. Ali notes that the women have no connection to each other but described a “boys club” atmosphere that “allowed the alleged misconduct to thrive.” Here’s her story:
As noted above, more than a dozen additional employment cases have been filed thusfar against Gascon. It might be time for the Board of Supervisors to consider the massive liability Gascon is to the taxpayers, not to mention the public in general, and be as aggressive against him as they have been against former Sheriff Alex Villanueva. |
No comments:
Post a Comment