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Four months after California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta introduced a slew of felony fees in opposition to a high advisor to the Los Angeles County district lawyer, state prosecutors this week dropped three of the 11 counts however nonetheless pushed ahead towards a trial.
Diana Teran, a former Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department advisor who later oversaw ethics and integrity operations on the D.A.’s workplace, is accused of illegally utilizing confidential personnel information. State prosecutors allege Teran broke the regulation three years in the past when she flagged a number of sheriff’s deputies’ names for potential inclusion on an inner district lawyer’s database of officers accused of misconduct.
According to state prosecutors, Teran solely knew the deputies’ names and alleged misdeeds in her position on the D.A.’s workplace as a result of she’d accessed their information in 2018 whereas nonetheless working on the Sheriff’s Department.
Last month, Teran pleaded not responsible on all counts. According to her lawyer, James Spertus, the deputies’ information had been already public in courtroom circumstances and different information.
Though the 2 sides have sparred in dozens of authorized filings over the previous couple of months, a preliminary listening to will decide whether or not there’s sufficient proof to maneuver forward to trial — the primary actual face-off in courtroom.
The listening to was scheduled to start Wednesday, however prosecutors stated they weren’t prepared and hadn’t requested their witnesses to indicate up. On Thursday, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Sam Ohta voiced his skepticism concerning the state’s theories and questioned the purpose of pursuing the case in any respect.
“I don’t see this sort of factual scenario repeating all this often,” he stated. “Part of criminal law is to deter criminal conduct in the future so what are we trying to deter here?”
The allegations on the middle of the case date again to 2018 when Teran labored as a constitutional police advisor for then-Sheriff Jim McDonnell. Part of her standard duties included accessing confidential deputy information and inner affairs investigations.
The division used secret monitoring software program that saved information of the greater than 1,600 personnel information she looked for and reviewed, in response to an affidavit state prosecutors filed in courtroom earlier this yr.
After leaving the Sheriff’s Department in late 2018, Teran joined the district lawyer’s workplace, the place state prosecutors allege in 2021 she despatched an inventory of 33 names and supporting paperwork to a different prosecutor for potential inclusion in a so-called Brady database, which comprises officers with problematic disciplinary histories. The identify is a reference to a landmark 1963 U.S. Supreme Court resolution that requires prosecutors to show over any proof favorable to a defendant, together with proof of police misconduct.
The affidavit says a number of of the names Teran emailed to fellow prosecutor Pamela Revel had been deputies whose information she had accessed whereas working on the Sheriff’s Department. After looking information articles and public information requests, a state investigator discovered that 11 of the names hadn’t been talked about in public, which led to the allegation that Teran wouldn’t have been capable of determine them had been it not for her particular entry working on the SheriffDepartment.
For months, the state has resisted releasing the names of the 11 deputies, asking for protecting orders at each step. When Bonta’s workplace agreed to launch data earlier this yr, prosecutors nonetheless left 9 of the names redacted. Only the names of Liza Gonzalez and Thomas Negron — former deputies who courtroom information present had been fired for dishonesty — had been made public, a transfer the state has not defined.
This week, when Bonta’s workplace filed an up to date model of the felony criticism, the costs had been dropped regarding Gonzalez, Negron and one different deputy, recognized solely as Deputy Doe 11 in courtroom filings. Prosecutors didn’t clarify why they dropped these three fees, and the DOJ didn’t reply to an emailed request for remark.
After courtroom, Spertus informed The Times that Deputy Doe 11 was a civilian worker, not a deputy.
The decide, Ohta, stated in courtroom that state prosecutors had additionally added “aggravating factors” to the criticism, however courtroom workers informed The Times the doc wouldn’t be accessible in courtroom information till subsequent week. The DOJ didn’t reply to a request for a replica of the doc.
Much of Thursday’s listening to was dedicated to listening to testimony from Deputy Todd Bernstein, who spoke extensively about which information Teran had accessed throughout her time on the Sheriff’s Department and which of them she’d obtained details about in emails.
He additionally testified that the majority Sheriff’s Department data is confidential underneath coverage and that public data — together with public courtroom information — can be thought of confidential as soon as despatched to the division, equivalent to in an e-mail attachment.
To Spertus, that testimony revealed how “legally untenable” the state’s place seems.
“Their view of the case is when someone from outside the Sheriff’s Department emails a public record to someone inside the department it becomes a private record,” he informed The Times afterward. “It is uncontroverted that the data allegedly taken was from Los Angeles Superior Court pleadings emailed to someone at LASD, which then became LASD data.”
Those emailed public courtroom information, he stated, are the supplies Teran is accused of flagging for inclusion within the Brady database.
One line of questioning in courtroom Thursday echoed among the allegations raised in the same case that Bonta’s workplace declined to prosecute earlier this yr. As The Times reported final month, after Alex Villanueva was elected L.A. County sheriff in December 2018, his administration launched an investigation into leaked information and allegedly stolen personnel information.
One a part of that probe included claims that each Teran and officers with the Office of Inspector General had downloaded a lot of deputy personnel information — together with these of Villanueva and several other of his shut associates — within the last days earlier than Villanueva took workplace. The 306-page Sheriff’s Department case file reviewed by The Times didn’t make clear why that may be thought of a criminal offense.
At one level a authorized advisor for the county referred to as the probe “not legally viable” and over the course of a number of years state and federal prosecutors repeatedly turned it down, in response to the paperwork reviewed by The Times. But in 2021 the division once more floated the matter to state prosecutors, sending them a letter and case file outlining allegations that Teran, her assistant Alan Wang, two oversight officers and a Times reporter had participated in a number of felonies. In May of this yr Bonta’s workplace formally rejected the case and declined to file fees.
On Thursday, although, state prosecutors requested Bernstein a number of questions on information Teran had accessed within the last days earlier than Villanueva took workplace.
“There were a number of cases viewed and accessed by Ms. Teran that were for high-level department executives that had not been in the field for years,” Bernstein stated. “It defies logic as to why one would need to look up cases that are 20 years old for someone that is a department executive or are not even employed by the department.”
When questioned about whether or not he’d ever requested Teran why she’d accessed so many information, Bernstein stated he had not.
“Without talking to her,” Spertus stated, “how do you know what she needs to do her job?”
Toward the tip of the testimony, Spertus requested Bernstein whether or not he had participated in referring the case to the lawyer normal, and Bernstein stated that he had not.
But a Times assessment of the case file confirmed that, as one of many division’s expertise and computing consultants, Bernstein had a key position within the investigation. According to the case file, he was one of many members of the Villanueva transition group that found “abnormalities” whereas reviewing personnel information and finally sparked the felony investigation despatched to the state Department of Justice.
Bernstein, whose personnel information had been amongst these allegedly accessed by oversight officers, didn’t reply to an emailed request for remark Thursday night.
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