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SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA RECORD

Saturday, November 2, 2024

Jury awards L.A. County prosecutor $1.5M in lawsuit alleging Gascón retaliated for opposing policies minimizing juvenile prosecutions

Lawsuits
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District Attorney George Gascón was a defendant in Shawn Rudolph's lawsuit. | Facebook

A Los Angeles jury has awarded a county prosecutor $1.5 million in damages, concluding that District Attorney George Gascón demoted her in retaliation for her questioning of Gascón’s policy decisions to minimize prosecutions of juvenile offenders, no matter how violent, in the name of social justice.

The jury on March 6 found in favor of Deputy District Attorney Shawn Randolph, who had been supervising juvenile justice cases in the L.A. County District Attorney's office. Randolph had argued in her lawsuit that Gascón’s policies flew in the face of victims’ rights laws.

The decision adds to Gascón's legal woes, as his office faces the prospect of hanging taxpayers will millions of dollars in legal costs to end potentially dozens of lawsuits from prosecutors who claim they were mistreated by Gascón for believing the D.A.'s office should continue enforcing the law.

The District Attorney’s Office said officials are now reviewing their legal options.

“We are disappointed by the jury's verdict and stand by our decision to reassign this and other attorneys to new positions within the office,” the office’s spokesman, Greg Risling, said in an email to the Southern California Record. “As any manager will tell you, moving around personnel in order to improve the level of representation this community receives is absolutely critical to a functioning office.”

Randolph had testified that her transfer from her head deputy district attorney job to the office’s parole unit was punitive and in retaliation for her challenge to Gascón’s policies.

The Association of Deputy District Attorneys said more than a dozen similar lawsuits against Gascón’s policies are in the pipeline, leading the office to spend mounting taxpayer funds on legal costs.

“Since he took office in December 2020, Gascón’s incompetence and vindictiveness have cost Los Angeles County taxpayers at least $2.5 million in judgments,” Eric Siddall, the association’s vice president, said in a statement.

Siddall noted that Gascón had testified during Randolph’s weeklong trial, but the jury ultimately wasn’t persuaded by his arguments.

In 2021, Los Angeles County had to pay out $1.1 million to another prosecutor, Richard Doyle, who had challenged Gascón’s decision to dismiss a train-derailment case. Doyle was subsequently removed from his position, according to Siddall.

Sixteen similar lawsuits are pending against the District Attorney’s Office, potentially adding to the office’s legal defense bills, Siddall said.

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