As ongoing DA cheating scandals continue to unfold, a pair of key endorsements in the campaign for District Attorney and judge have now been dropped.

Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer is losing his endorsement from his counterpart in neighboring San Diego County, as Spitzer faces accusations from within law enforcement that he improperly dropped the death penalty in a murder case to hide racial statements he made while discussing the case.

San Diego County DA Summer Stephan – who leads prosecutions in California’s second-largest county – rescinded her endorsement Thursday morning, according to Stephan’s campaign consultant.

“I can confirm San Diego DA Summer Stephan rescinded her endorsement of DA Spitzer,” her consultant Dan Rottenstreich said in a statement to Voice of OC.

Spitzer didn’t return a message for comment.

Chapman University professor Fred Smoller, who closely follows OC elections, said it’s “super uncommon” for endorsements to be pulled in DA and judge races.

Stephan was a registered Republican when she was elected in 2017, but later changed to “no party preference” in 2019, saying she was not a very political person.

Also losing an endorsement in recent days is Brahim Baytieh, a senior prosecutor whom Spitzer fired last week, citing an investigation into Baytieh allegedly unraveling a 2010 murder conviction by failing to turn over informant evidence.

Chapman University law professor Mario Mainero told Voice of OC he pulled his endorsement of Baytieh because the investigation report provided sufficient corroboration that Baytieh had failed to turn over evidence he was required to provide the defense in that case.

“I was under the same impression frankly that Todd was a year or two ago, that one of the clean ones, one of the ones who didn’t do anything like that, was Brahim Baytieh,” Mainero said in an interview Friday, referring to improper withholding of evidence.

“So when [Baytieh] asked me for an endorsement, I gave him one. But when an independent investigation suggests that is inaccurate, and when there’s been no response from Baytieh about it, I didn’t think I had a choice, if I was going to maintain my own standard here. So that’s why I pulled it.”

Baytieh didn’t return a message for comment.

Baytieh himself is a central witness to the racial remarks at the center of the death penalty controversy swirling around Spitzer that exploded into public view this week.

Baytieh wrote a pair of memos outlining how prosecutors objected when, during an Oct. 1 discussion on whether to seek the death penalty against a Black man, Spitzer made a comment about Black men advancing themselves by dating White women.

Spitzer has acknowledged making a statement about Black men dating white women during the meeting, but claims it was appropriate in the context of the death penalty discussion.

Yet prosecutors who were in the room considered it inappropriate to bring race into the death penalty deliberations, according to the internal memos.

The controversy over the memos was first reported on by Voice of OC last week. This week, Voice of OC and other media outlets obtained Baytieh’s memos, which were later unsealed by Judge Gregg L. Prickett on Thursday.

Among the documents unsealed Thursday is an explosive letter from the lead detective in one of Orange County’s most high-profile murder cases, in which Jamon Rayon Buggs is accused of murdering two people in Newport Beach in 2019 after breaking up with his White ex-girlfriend.

Newport Beach Lt. Court Depweg wrote that Spitzer had improperly ruined the death penalty case against Buggs, who is Black, by making inappropriate racial remarks and then trying to cover it up.

“It was disappointing that [a prosecutor] and so many of his colleagues would try and cover this matter up as we all know the ‘cover up is always worse than the crime,’ ” Depweg wrote.

“In my twenty plus years of law enforcement experience, I had never heard of an entire district attorney unit being removed from communicating with the lead agency in the prosecution of a homicide,” he added.

Depweg said he’s been told by multiple current and former DA officials that Spitzer “made an unsolicited, derogatory, and racist comment about Black men/persons” at an Oct. 1 meeting on whether to seek the death penalty against Jamon Rayon Buggs, who is Black.

[Click here to read the memos that were unsealed by Judge Prickett on Thursday: Internal DA memos and the letter from the lead police detective in Newport Beach.]

In response, Spitzer said there were legal reasons communication was cut off between the DA’s office and the police department, but would not address the cover-up allegations or how he treated the victim’s families.

“The District Attorney’s Office was very limited in what we could say because we had already gone to the judge and the issue was being litigated in Court,” Spitzer said in a statement provided by his spokeswoman Kimberly Edds.

Edds didn’t have an answer when asked if Spitzer would comment about the cover-up allegations, and why the victims’ families apparently were not informed that he decided against the death penalty, despite requirements under Marsy’s Law.

Voice of OC asked Spitzer and Edds on Friday why Spitzer decided not to pursue the death penalty against Buggs, and when he made that decision. They did not provide an answer.

Nick Gerda covers county government for Voice of OC. You can contact him at ngerda@voiceofoc.org.

sited https://voiceofoc.org/2022/02/cheating-scandals-trigger-dropped-endorsements-for-da-spitzer-baytieh-judge-campaigns%ef%bf%bc/

OC District Attorney Todd Spitzer is facing a new round of misconduct accusations, with a former homicide prosecutor alleging in a court filing that Spitzer lied to a judge to try to hide racially charged comments Spitzer made that impacted a high-profile murder case.

“I have come into possession of emails which reveal what I believe to be a fraud recently perpetrated upon this Court,” states a court filing late last week by Matt Murphy, who was a former star homicide prosecutor at the DA’s office who has now become one of Spitzer’s fiercest critics.

He accuses Spitzer – Orange County’s top prosecutor – of telling lies that violate his duties as an attorney under state law, including hiding the fact he decided to pursue the death penalty against Jamon Rayon Buggs, a Black man, after Spitzer made racially charged remarks to other prosecutors during an Oct. 1 discussion of the decision.

[Click here to read the court filing.]

Spitzer is denying the allegations, saying he was completely honest with the court.

“The District Attorney’s statement to the court was factually accurate and complete and any allegation to the contrary is simply not true,” Spitzer’s office said in a statement this weekend.

The emails Murphy submitted to court reveal Spitzer decided to pursue the death penalty against Buggs as of Oct. 28 – four weeks after his Oct. 1 racial remarks – but then changed course to life in prison after his prosecutors wrote memos in December saying they would have to disclose Spitzer’s racial remarks to the judge.

Murphy alleges Spitzer then lied multiple times to the judge in an effort to keep secret the memos about his racial comments.

Among them was when Spitzer told the court that he made a decision to only seek life in prison but not death after his Oct. 1 racial statements when debating whether to seek the death penalty against Buggs.

“The only subsequent decision that I made after October 1, 2021 was that I would be seeking LWOP in this matter and not death,” Spitzer wrote in a Jan. 30 memo he submitted to Judge Gregg Prickett on Feb. 4.

Yet the newly revealed emails show Spitzer told prosecutors on Oct. 28 he had “made the decision to seek DP” – using a common shorthand for “death penalty.”

Murphy says this shows Spitzer outright lied to the judge – in violation of state law requirements for attorneys to not mislead courts.

“Clearly, Mr. Sptizer’s memorandum was presented in an attempt to persuade the court to keep his racist remarks hidden from Mr. Buggs’ defense lawyers, as well as from the public at large,” Murphy states in his filing.

“The motive for Mr. Spitzer’s lie is obvious,” he continued:

“To try to convince the court that the racially-charged statements set forth in [then-prosecutor Brahim] Baytieh’s narrative were much ado about nothing, instead of what every experienced capital litigator can see that it represents — a blunder of immense magnitude, and a shameful expression of racial bias in a setting of such solemnity and importance, that Mr. Spitzer reversed his position on seeking the death penalty for the sole purpose of keeping the issue hidden from Mr. Buggs’s defense team and the public.”

Asked for Spitzer’s response to the allegations, his office said, “No official decision [was] made on the death penalty until the court was notified on January 28, 2022 that we would not seek the death penalty.”

“We haven’t been served with a copy of the motion,” added the statement, provided by Spitzer’s spokeswoman Kimberly Edds.

“Questions of the defendant‘s mental competency were brought up by the defense and his behavior in court on October 27, 2021 made it clear that it was an issue that needed to be considered,” the statement added.

As for Spitzer’s Jan. 30 memo to the court, Edds said, “The District Attorney made the right decision to inform the court and disclose this situation out of an abundance of caution.”

Murphy accuses Spitzer of telling an additional lie to the court by claiming no one raised any concerns about his Oct. 1 racial remarks until nearly 90 days later, which Spitzer cited to undermine the credibility of concerns about the remarks.

“The fact that nearly 90 days had passed, not one person of the [DA] Special Circumstances committee asked to reconvene, or asked me for clarification of my statements, or in any way beforehand communicated any potential issues with my statements was literally mind-blowing,” Spitzer wrote in the opening paragraph of his Jan. 30 memo he submitted to Judge Prickett.

Yet the emails show Spitzer actually was told about the racial bias concerns more than 60 days earlier than he claimed to the court, Murphy states in his filing.

One of those documents shows that on Oct. 28, Spitzer received an email noting that a prior death penalty conversation about Buggs had included discussion of the Racial Justice Act – the racial bias law that prosecutors said requires Spitzer’s comments to be turned over to the defense.

“What’s more, [then-prosecutor Brahim] Baytieh’s email goes on to say that he (Baytieh) ‘relied on [the Racial Justice Act] in making my recommendation [not to pursue the death penalty],’ ” Murphy wrote.

Spitzer responded to that email 17 minutes later without contesting it, writing he had decided to pursue the death penalty against Buggs, according to the documents Murphy filed in court.

“Mr. Spitzer’s unabashed attempt to perpetrate a fraud on the court—by claiming that no one who heard the racially biased comments on October 1 protested until December 22 (and thus, Mr. Spitzer argues, the racially biased statements must not have been made at all)—relied on the erroneous belief that nobody else maintained copies of this email exchange,” Murphy wrote.

“Fortunately, he was mistaken.”

Spitzer’s statement did not address this allegation.

Murphy’s contention of a cover-up of Spitzer’s racial remarks are supported by a lead detective in the Buggs murder case and the mother of one of the victims.

“It was disappointing that [a prosecutor] and so many of his colleagues would try and cover this matter up as we all know the ‘cover up is always worse than the crime,’ ” Newport Beach police detective Court Depweg wrote in a Feb. 3 letter to Judge Prickett.

Murphy also contends Spitzer lied to the court about “walling off” from the case everyone from the Oct. 1 meeting – including himself – to address the concerns that he made racial biased comments.

“This was intended to convey the impression that he would no longer take any action that might affect the case,” Murphy wrote in his filing.

But two days later, Spitzer informed Newport Beach’s police chief that people can talk to him about the Buggs case, according to Depweg’s Feb. 3 letter to the judge – something Spitzer later confirmed in a statement to reporters.

That makes Spitzer’s “walling off” statements to the court a “deception,” Murphy alleges.

Spitzer’s statement did not address this allegation.

Murphy contends Spitzer violated state law, which requires all attorneys to use “means only as are consistent with truth, and never to seek to mislead the judge or any judicial officer by an artifice or false statement of fact or law.”

“I believe that the submission of such a false writing to the court violates an attorney’s statutory and ethical duty ‘never to seek to mislead the judge’ through the use of ‘any false statement of fact or law,’ ” Murphy wrote in his filing.

The county’s top prosecutor has tarnished the integrity of the justice system, he alleges.

“In all of this, we respectfully submit that Mr. Spitzer has disgraced himself, betrayed the victims, the justice system, and the community at large, and further sullied the esteem of the office he was elected to lead,” the filing states.

“In short, Mr. Spitzer has attempted to perpetrate a fraud on this court, and we had a clear ethical duty to provide the attached documents.”

Nick Gerda covers county government for Voice of OC. You can contact him at ngerda@voiceofoc.org.

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sited https://voiceofoc.org/2022/02/emails-fuel-new-claim-da-spitzer-lied-to-court-about-his-death-penalty-decision-in-homicide/

Between San Diego and Los Angeles is Orange County, California. With more than 3 million residents, it’s larger than 21 states. If Orange County were a separate country, its economy would be the 45th largest in the world. Now known for Disneyland, the county may soon be known for having one of the most corrupt justice systems in the world. The width and depth and duration of the corruption truly boggles the mind. A case that should’ve been open and shut has blown the lid off some deep secrets.

Now known for Disneyland, the county may soon be known for having one of the most corrupt justice systems in the world. The width and depth and duration of the corruption truly boggles the mind. A case that should’ve been open and shut has blown the lid off some deep secrets.

California – Go figure…Read More Here

this post site from https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2015/05/29/1388819/-Judge-disqualifies-all-250-prosecutors-in-Orange-County-CA-because-of-widespread-corruption?detail=facebook_sf

https://komornlaw.com/judge-disqualifies-all-250-prosecutors-because-of-widespread-corruption/

A wave of lawsuits from Orange County prosecutors against their own boss over his handling of workplace harassment issues continues to mount.

This week, three more prosecutors stepped forward, with one adding fuel to previous claims by another prosecutor that DA Todd Spitzer used racially-charged language that complicates criminal prosecutions.

To date, eight lawsuits have been filed by DA prosecutors – represented by two different attorneys, one of whom is a former prosecutor himself – alleging Spitzer enabled his friend Gary LoGalbo to harass female subordinates at the DA’s Office.

Two separate prosecutors allege in those lawsuits that Spitzer made racially inappropriate remarks.

Spitzer has denied the allegations, saying his racial comments were appropriate and that he acted immediately to protect LoGalbo’s victims.

Yet prosecutors told county HR investigators that Spitzer initially tried to retaliate against a victim who had come forward, and the HR investigator found Spitzer to be “not credible” in his denial.

This week, three more of LoGalbo’s alleged victims filed lawsuits saying Spitzer promoted LoGalbo – who had been the best man at Spitzer’s wedding – into powerful DA positions three times in one year despite warnings from his executives.

In one of those suits, a high-ranking 20-year DA prosecutor says LoGalbo and Spitzer both made “racially harassing” comments when handling cases.

“Mr. LoGalbo made statements to Plaintiff that cases should be assigned based on the race of the defense attorney, prosecutor, and defendant,” states the lawsuit by the prosecutor, who is identified as “Jane Roe Three” and served as a high-ranking leader on the DA’s Special Prosecutions Unit.

“Mr. Spitzer also accused Plaintiff of being afraid to prosecute a defendant simply because of the defendant’s race,” the new lawsuit adds.

[Click here to read the three new lawsuits: Jane Roe One, Jane Roe Two, Jane Roe Three.]

In response, Spitzer’s office provided a statement defending his handling of the LoGalbo harassment allegations, but not addressing the new racial comment claim.

“The allegations of harassment were sustained against Gary LoGalbo,” said the statement from Spitzer’s spokeswoman, Kimberly Edds.

“The allegations that District Attorney Spitzer protected LoGalbo in any way or retaliated against anyone who reported harassment was completely unfounded by the outside investigator,” she added.

“In fact he did everything he could do to not only support the victims of LoGalbo and encourage any and all victims of harassment to come forward.”

The outside investigator, however, did not clear Spitzer of attempting to retaliate against one of LoGalbo’s harassment victims, noting testimony from DA staff who said they refused to go along with Spitzer’s wishes.

The allegations add to a string of allegations of racial bias by Spitzer – including remarks he made during in a death penalty meeting that drew red flags from proscutors in the room.

In mid-February, documents emerged showing Spitzer ignited a firestorm of concern from prosecutors and a lead detective after he made racial remarks about Black men dating White women when deciding whether to seek the death penalty against a Black defendant.

Voice of OC was the first news agency to report on the concerns and the memos at the center of it.

Spitzer ultiamtely acknowledged that at the Oct. 1 death penalty meeting, he asked prosecutors about the race of the defendant’s former girlfriends and said he had “seen Black men date White women in certain circles in order to have others around them be more accepting.”

In a scathing letter to the judge, the lead detective in the Buggs case wrote Spitzer ruined the death penalty case by making the racial remarks and then trying to cover them up by removing all the existing prosecutors from the case and dropping the death penalty effort.

Newport Beach Detective Court Depweg wrote to the judge that he had been told by multiple current and former DA officials that Spitzer “made an unsolicited, derogatory, and racist comment about Black men/persons” at the Oct. 1 meeting.

As for LoGalbo’s alleged harassment, a county HR investigation confirmed he preyed on multiple female subordinates at the DA’s office.

That county probe found Spitzer was “not credible” when denying he had attempted to retaliate against the first female prosecutor who had come forward about LoGalbo.

The ongoing storm of lawsuits allege Spitzer’s actions enabled sexual harassment by promoting the best man from his wedding into a senior position overseeing the DA’s branch court staff, despite knowing LoGalbo was a “pervert” in his personal life.

Spitzer has called those statements “untrue” in a text message to Voice of OC, but wouldn’t elaborate in response to further questions.

The new lawsuits note a second county HR investigation found Spitzer violated workplace policies by sending the original harassment investigation – which contained details that can identify the victims – to every employee in his office, and by trashing one of the victims in an interview with Voice of OC.

“The investigator concluded that Mr. Spitzer ‘flagrantly’ violated County [equal employment opportunity] and Abusive Conduct policies and acted with ‘malice’ towards Plaintiff and the other victims of Mr. LoGalbo, which created a hostile and offensive work environment, and ‘caused unjustified embarrassment and indignity to [Plaintiff],’ ” states the new lawsuits.

“Mr. Spitzer, himself, admitted the release of the report will create a ‘chilling effect’ on future victims of harassment within the OCDA,” the suits adds.

While the county’s independent investigator confirmed in two separate probes that women were subjected to harassment by men at the top of the DA’s office, the county Board of Supervisors has failed to take action, the lawsuit states.

“The Board has not taken a single corrective or preventative action towards Mr. Spitzer, their former colleague,” states the new lawsuits.

“The Board’s inaction has sent a clear message to Plaintiff, to County employees, and to all citizens of Orange County that harassment, discrimination, and retaliation when engaged in by politically well-connected men will be tolerated by the current members of the Board of Supervisors,” they continue.

“The Board’s inaction also has real work consequences to the employees in the OCDA. Some managers within OCDA, who now believe there are no consequences for their workplace behavior, have felt emboldened to publicly accuse Mr. LoGalbo’s victims of lying about their experiences, despite the clear findings of a third-party investigator.”

The five county supervisors either declined to comment or did not respond – citing the pending litigation – while Supervisor Katrina Foley added that she is “deeply concerned” about the new allegations.

Spitzer has touted his influence with county supervisors when talking with DA staff, according to the new lawsuits.

“He recently told OCDA employees that because of his prior tenure on the Board, he has a close personal relationship with, and ‘access’ to, all current Board members, intimating he can influence how they vote and how they govern,” the new lawsuits state.

Days before Spitzer was elected DA in 2018, one of his supervisor colleagues publicly warned him that they have a host of disparaging information about each other they could use against each other if they wanted.

Pointing to what he alleged was an effort by Spitzer to extort a county contractor for campaign money, Supervisor Andrew Do cautioned Spitzer that more of that type of information could come to light if he upsets his colleagues again.

“Now, I knew that information. I could have called out the maybe alleged hypocrisy, if not extortionary tactics performed on the dais right here. But I didn’t,” Do said at an October 2018 supervisors’ meeting, after expressing frustration at Spitzer for distributing a memo to reporters that upset Do.

“I just wanted to make sure that people don’t think that just because we don’t say things up here, that we don’t have information that we can use every day, in every meeting, to smear each other. Okay?” Do added.

The new lawsuits by DA prosecutors also allege Spitzer’s No. 2 executive at the DA’s office Shawn Nelson – who is running for judge – minimized LoGalbo’s harassment in order to protect Spitzer.

“Shawn Nelson, Mr. Spitzer’s second-in-command, declared to managers, in front of Mr. Spitzer, that ‘Gary doesn’t have any real victims,’ ” states one of the new lawsuits.

“Mr. Nelson also referred to Mr. LoGalbo’s female victims as ‘chicken’ for not coming forward earlier, even though everyone knew of Mr. Spitzer’s close relationship with Mr. LoGalbo.”

Nelson, who was a supervisor with Spitzer and Do until he was termed out in 2018, is considered the frontrunner in the judge seat he’s running for in the June election, having raised over $200,000 for the race and running with a “Chief Assistant District Attorney” job title on the ballot.

Nelson didn’t respond to a message for comment.

He is the only judicial candidate endorsed so far by the Orange County Republican Party.

Nick Gerda covers county government for Voice of OC. You can contact him at ngerda@voiceofoc.org.

BY NICK GERDA source

Claim alleges Todd Spitzer knew of his friend’s bad behavior but promoted him to one of the highest positions in the office

By TONY SAAVEDRA | tsaavedra@scng.com | Orange County Register

A fourth sexual harassment claim has been filed against a retired high-level prosecutor in Orange County, alleging that District Attorney Todd Spitzer witnessed the misbehavior but protected and even promoted the offender.

The newest claim, filed Tuesday, against Spitzer and former Senior Assistant District Attorney Gary Logalbo — Spitzer’s former roommate and best man at his wedding decades ago — typically is a precursor to a lawsuit. Attorney Matt Murphy, a former prosecutor, is representing the four claimants, all deputy district attorneys. Murphy spends much of the latest document blasting Spitzer for promoting to management his so-called best friend — known among veteran female employees as “Scary Gary.”

The claim says Spitzer’s tough talk against harassment in the workplace doesn’t apply to those closest to him and alleges he tried to retaliate against one of the four Jane Does who filed claims.

‘Denials’ and ‘victim blaming’

The accusations have been met with an “angry tone, denials and overt victim blaming” by Spitzer, said the claim.

“The reason people were so deeply reticent to complain of this behavior was not fear of Mr. Logalbo, but because they feared, and continue to fear, the well-documented wrath of Todd Spitzer,” said the document, which like the first three seeks unspecified damages.

Kimberly Edds, a spokeswoman for Spitzer, responded that the claim mischaracterizes the district attorney.

“We are incredibly disturbed by the allegations being made by several women in the Orange County District Attorney’s Office. No one should have to suffer in silence and these women will be protected,” Edds wrote in a prepared statement Wednesday. “As soon as allegations of misconduct and inappropriate behavior came to our attention, we handled them immediately and lawfully. This fact is indisputable. … We do not need lawsuits to tell us to do the right thing. The right thing is already being done.”

Spitzer added that no official complaints were made against Logalbo — nor were any in his employment file — until November.

Logalbo was first promoted to management in 2019 and then to senior assistant district attorney in early November. Shortly afterward, the allegations against him began to surface, Spitzer has said. Logalbo resigned abruptly on Dec. 11. Spitzer has acknowledged his personal relationship with Logalbo, but denies he is his “best friend.”

Teen intern harassed?

The claim mentions another unnamed, extra-help prosecutor — a former volunteer in Spitzer’s 2018 election campaign — who allegedly harassed a 16-year-old intern. Jane Doe 4 witnessed the harassment and reported it to management, but Spitzer interceded on behalf of the prosecutor, the claim says. The alleged harasser was later “released from OCDA employment” after failing a second background check, Murphy wrote.

“Two men, each with personal relationships to the district attorney, acted with impunity when it came to the pervasive sexual harassment of at least four adult women and one teenage girl,” the document said.

The system worked

Edds responded that the system worked and the extra-help lawyer was let go.

As far as Logalbo, Jane Doe 4 describes one incident in which she was discussing a child annoyance case with him when he said, “Talking about all this sex stuff makes me horny.”

The document alleges that Chief Assistant District Attorney Shawn Nelson and Spitzer witnessed Logalbo’s misconduct but did nothing. Spitzer even raised Logalbo to the highest management post in the office, despite protests from supervisors aware of his antics, the claim said.

Before he left, Logalbo was allowed to conduct a promotion interview of one of the claimants, Jane Doe 2. She didn’t get the job.

Murphy, in the claim, also accused Spitzer of sidestepping government procedure and leaking the first three claims to the media in an effort to “control the narrative.” Edds, however, said the claims are public documents that must be released upon request. They were filed with the county and therefore public, Spitzer said.

BY JAMES QUEALLY STAFF WRITER 

Nearly five years have passed since a lawyer representing the man who slaughtered eight people inside a Seal Beach salon first raised questions about the way investigators used informants inside Orange County’s jails.

The accusation — that sheriff’s deputies planted a prolific snitch in the cell of confessed killer Scott Dekraai in the hopes of eliciting information without his lawyer present, and then covered up their unconstitutional actions — seemed outlandish at the time. But jailhouse records soon proved otherwise, and the Orange County district attorney’s office and Sheriff’s Department found themselves embroiled in a national scandal.

The state attorney general’s office opened an investigation into both agencies in 2015; the U.S. Department of Justice followed suit the next year. Orange County prosecutors were kicked off Dekraai’s case, and a judge cited the informant scheme in sparing him a place on California’s death row. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit accusing authorities of having deployed “professional” informants for decades.