Orange County Supervisors are asking their staff to look at possibly changing how they handle District Attorney staff harassment complaints after they lost a $3 million dollar lawsuit over DA Todd Spitzer’s treatment of whistleblowers in his office.
It’s the first time supervisors have publicly addressed any type of consequences for Spitzer following a $3 million judgement against the county earlier this month for how he harassed Tracy Miller, formerly the top female prosecutor in his office, after she helped other women report sexual harassment.
[Read: OC Supervisors Don’t Answer Calls For Action Against DA For Harassment of Female Prosecutors]
There are half a dozen other ongoing cases from other female prosecutors who say they were first sexually harassed by Gary LoGalbo, the best man at Spitzer’s wedding and formerly one of his top aides, before later facing retaliation from Spitzer for reporting LoGalbo to county HR.
In court, Miller said Spitzer told her to “baby-sit,” various projects, repeatedly screamed at her both in person and over the phone, and once asked her in the middle of a meeting what sized tampons she wears, actions that she argues should carry a penalty from county supervisors.
“There are things they can do. They can get a grand jury in there. They can sanction him. They can make public comments,” Miller said at a press conference earlier this month after winning her case. “Not speaking anything, not saying anything, that speaks volumes.”
This week, county supervisors spoke up.
And called up Spitzer.
During a discussion on the county’s HR department at the supervisors’ Tuesday meeting, Supervisor Doug Chaffee asked for county staff to look at merging HR departments or adding more staff to the DA’s team “in light of some litigation.”
“I want that to be studied,” Chaffee said. “It would free up the district attorney to do what he does really well.”
Spitzer said he’s already looking for ways to get people to report more to HR, and that he’d brought in an outside law firm to help review his existing policies.
“Certainly the goal has always been that people feel safe reporting,” Spitzer said. “These are all very important issues to me.”
But Supervisor Katrina Foley urged Spitzer to stay out of the process, saying they would help with a survey of the DA’s employees to find a better path forward for the HR department.
“For the employees to feel this is an objective survey that’s meaningful and real, it needs to come from our HR department not connected to your office,” Foley said. “Ultimately the board is going to be the ones, on behalf of the county, who have to be responsible for anything that happens in the DA’s office.”
Spitzer agreed that he would stay out of the way of any county plans, adding that the board meeting was the first he’d heard of the board taking any action.
“My goal unequivocally, unequivocally is to get out of the way,” Sptizer said. “I’m completely open to all of that.”
Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org.
