Donecia Augustus was among the disgruntled probate court litigants who rallied outside of the mayoral and sheriff candidate’s debate last month calling for an investigation into Los Angeles Superior Court.
The debate was co-hosted by Fox News, Univision, the LA Times, the Skirball Cultural Center, Loyola Marymount University, and other media outlets and took place at the Skirball Cultural Center on Sept. 21.
Sheriff incumbent Alex Villanueva debated retired Long Beach police chief Robert Luna while mayoral candidate Karen Bass, who is currently a Democratic Congresswoman representing Culver City, debated Democratic businessman Rick Caruso, campaigning for mayor.
“We ended up talking to Karen Bass about our issues,” said Augustus who organized the protest. “I talked to Rob Luna, the sheriff candidate, and he gave me a thumbs up as to what I was talking about in terms of the Superior Court needs to be investigated.”
Augustus alleges that her daughter, Sasha Milan Augustus, was wrongfully seized in 2018 after her husband, Mark Augustus, was cleared twice of accusations that he had engaged in inappropriate touching of his daughter seven years prior.
“Something's going on there that somebody's missing and it makes no sense what's going on,” Augustus told the Southern California Record.
The Augustuses sued the county of Los Angeles, the state of California, court-appointed attorney William Spiller, Jr, and Shaunta Montgomery, who is the sister of Donecia Augustus, in the Western Division of the Central District of California last year alleging civil rights violations as well as intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
“The fact that Mark Augustus had been exonerated in the Department of Children and Family Services Report five days prior to the Temporary Guardianship Order clearly implies that this crucial information was deliberately withheld from the Court, and constitutes fraud upon the court,” wrote G. Scott Sobel, attorney for the Augustus family, in their Sept. 27, 2021, complaint. “Committing fraud upon the Court for the purpose of creating a false pretext upon which to seize children is the policy and custom of County as executed by Mr. Spiller and Ms. Montgomery.”
On Aug. 31, U.S. District Judge Fernando L. Aenelle-Rocha referred the case to Magistrate Judge Rozella A. Oliver for settlement proceedings, which are scheduled to end on Oct. 13, 2023.
Neither Spiller nor Montgomery responded to requests for comment.