Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer’s tab with the taxpayers has reached nearly $18 million after county supervisors approved another round of settlements in cases questioning his conduct and several of his top lieutenants last week.
They’re the latest payouts in a long line of judgements and settlements to former investigators and prosecutors alleging a litany of misconduct by Orange County’s top law enforcement officer and his lieutenants, including whistleblower retaliation, harassment and botched prosecutions.
Orange County supervisors chose to settle most of those lawsuits out of court, meaning there was never an official court decision on many of the allegations in the suits.
County supervisors have largely gone silent on the ongoing scandal, and there hasn’t been any disclosure on how much the county spent defending itself from those lawsuits before they paid out to close them.
Spitzer has publicly disputed that the blame rests on him in those lawsuits, pointing the finger at county counsel or denying the allegations altogether in several of the suits, pointing out most of them were settled before any decision on his culpability was made.
“Scary Gary” and Spitzer’s Retaliation
Most of the lawsuits against the county center on Gary LoGalbo, the best man at Spitzer’s wedding who later took over a top role in the DA’s office under him.
LoGalbo sexually harassed multiple female prosecutors according to the lawsuits and the county’s own investigation, earning him the nickname “Scary Gary,” which led to his departure from the DA’s office in 2020 amid multiple investigations.
But many of the women who were harassed by LoGalbo later sued the county, alleging that after LoGalbo left, Spitzer and his then-right hand man Shawn Nelson mounted a retaliation campaign against women who reported their harassment.
Tracy Miller, one of the highest ranked prosecutors in the DA’s office, sued the county and Spitzer and won, stating that after she helped other women report LoGalbo she personally faced retaliation from Spitzer.
During her deposition under oath during the trial, Miller shared how 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.
She received $3 million from a jury decision in June that found Spitzer did retaliate against her, along with an additional $1.5 million in attorneys fees.
In their decision, jurors found that Spitzer participated in the harassing conduct against Miller and that his conduct was a “substantial factor in causing harm.”
Following the verdict against him in Miller’s case, Spitzer issued a statement that he had been dissatisfied with her work performance and that his “good faith effort to clean up the public corruption in the Orange County District Attorney’s office,” had been misinterpreted.
“It is no secret that there was a lot of frustration on my part with her lack of performance in handling these very serious matters,” Spitzer wrote. “In hindsight, I realize that I was not as sensitive to the issues Ms. Miller was facing at the time as I should have been, and for that I am truly sorry.”
Six other women who worked in the DA’s office alleged that Spitzer retaliated against them after they reported against LoGalbo, and received a combined $5.1 million in settlements from the county.
The only lawsuit to not include Spitzer’s conduct was brought by Bethel Cope-Vega, who still works as a prosecutor at the DA’s office.
She initially claimed Spitzer mounted a retaliation campaign against her, but dropped those claims, with Spitzer later appearing as a witness in her defense as part of her case.
She received $3.5 million when she won her court case against the county, which stated she faced harassment from LoGalbo at work that the county failed to prevent.
No decision has been made yet on her attorneys fees, which the county would also be responsible for paying.
In a statement after the last round of settlements, Spitzer pointed blame at the county’s lawyers and LoGalbo, saying they outed many of the women who reported LoGalbo against their wishes.
“These settlements are about the harassment engaged in by a former Senior Assistant Deputy District Attorney; it is also a condemnation of the actions of County Counsel,” said Kimberly Edds, Spitzer’s spokesperson, in a written statement. “We are not in any way surprised by these settlements or the dollar amount since County Counsel broke its promises to these women and betrayed their trust.”
Voice of OC did not find filings showcasing that any of the other women removed their allegations against Spitzer.
When asked about the women who reported they faced retaliation from Spitzer in the last round of settlements, Edds pointed out how he was a witness in Cope-Vega’s case and denied any wrongdoing.
“The DA has been nothing but supportive of these victims and any allegation to the contrary is false,” Edds wrote. “None of the allegations alleged in these three lawsuits were proven in a court of law.”
Former Investigators Paid Out After Alleging DA Corruption
County supervisors last week paid out $2.75 million to Jennifer Kearns, an investigator in the DA’s office, who claimed that Spitzer intentionally tanked the prosecution of Grant Robicheaux, a Newport Beach doctor who was charged with sexually assaulting seven women.
Ultimately, he pleaded guilty to a felony gun possession charge and a misdemeanor drug possession charge, which only happened because Spitzer interfered in the case according to Kearns, who was the lead investigator.
[Read: Orange County’s Top Prosecutor Could See Another Trial Over Alleged Employee Retaliation]
The case was set to go to trial in May, but is no longer moving forward.
In a statement on Kearns case, Edds called the prosecution of Robicheaux an “election ruse,” by former DA Tony Rackauckas that was “absolutely and patently false.”
“After five years of protracted litigation to correct Rackauckas’ unethical pursuit of the sex charges, what the Spitzer administration said from the very beginning was absolutely true – the sex charges could not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt against Robicheaux and Riley,” Edds wrote.
County supervisors paid out another $2 million to Damon Tucker, a former investigator who alleged that Spitzer improperly fired him after Tucker began investigating him, claiming in his lawsuit that OC’s top law enforcement official may have engaged in crimes like money laundering and solicitation of bribes.
Tucker’s lawyers initially offered a $1.2 million settlement offer to the county, with county supervisors initially turning it down but eventually settling just days before the trial.
[Read: Could OC’s District Attorney Office Be Facing A Jury Trial Like Never Before?]
County Supervisors Take Limited Action
The only repercussions Spitzer has faced outside of court came when county supervisors removed his HR department, setting it up to run through the county CEO’s office instead.
[Read: OC Supervisors Don’t Answer Calls For Action Against DA For Harassment of Female Prosecutors]
County Supervisor’s Chairman Doug Chaffee, said they were largely powerless over Spitzer in a Thursday interview.
“The county has no power to take any action against him, he’s a separate elected official,” Chaffee said. “He has the right to run his office as he sees fit…even though we may disapprove.”
He also said he would not call on Spitzer to resign, stating he didn’t think the rest of the board would support it.
“I don’t think it matters cause he’s not going to resign, he’s made that pretty clear, and I don’t think I have a majority of the board who would support that request,” Chaffee said. “I’m not happy with it, but I’m not quite clear on what I can do to change things. I don’t know that I can. I just have to hope this has all worked its way through.”
Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org.