Los Angeles Sexual Assault Lawyer Blog

A bipartisan effort has led to the formation and U.S. Senate passage of a new immigration reform bill, which will now go before the House of Representatives.

While it's uncertain whether the measure will gain enough support to pass, our Los Angeles Sexual Assault Lawyers know that its success thus far has given countless undocumented immigrants across California and the nation a reason to celebrate.

For too long, these individuals have been without a voice, subject in many employment arrangements to some of the worst treatment: long, grueling hours, disparate pay and even sexual harassment and sexual assault.

The latter is a major problem that has existed for many years. And for many years, these victims, mostly female, felt as if they had no choice but to endure. They were threatened with the loss of jobs they desperately needed to feed their children. They were threatened with being reported to immigration authorities. And sometimes, they were threatened with further violence.

Sexual harassment and sexual assault are under-reported crimes. When these actions are thrust upon undocumented farm workers, such wrongdoing is even less likely to be reported. Many are uneducated, in a foreign country where they don't speak English and with little understanding of what sexual harassment is, let alone what rights they have to end it, or to seek justice for what they have endured.

In some cases, the abuse is verbal. Other times, that's just the beginning.

One female farm worker from Salinas, a 40-year-old grandmother who has been toiling in extreme conditions throughout her adult life, is one of the few to speak up. Seven years ago, she was raped by her supervisor. That was the culmination of months of sexual harassment that began with him making sexual innuendos toward her. She tried her best to ignore him. He would ask her for a massage. When she refused, he would try to humiliate her in front of her coworkers.

Then one day, he told her he needed to pick up some boxes as they were headed back from the fields. He turned off into a secluded section of the farm. That, she says, is where he attacked her.

She describes feeling numb, saying she couldn't scream because she was stunned and unsure of how to react.

When it was over, she was afraid to report it to her supervisors. She was forced to see and interact with her rapist daily. Finally, she spoke out and filed a complaint. She was subsequently fired.

She responded by filing a civil lawsuit against the grower. The settlement that was ultimately reached was confidential, meaning she is barred from naming the grower or the amount she was paid.

But she won. She refused to stay silent or back down.

The immigration reform bill is a chance for more undocumented workers to come out of the shadows, to find their voices and to seek justice.

We can help.

Continue reading "California Farm Workers Face Severe Sexual Harassment, Assault Threat" »

Despite a mountain of employment litigation piled year after year against the Los Angeles Police Department, the agency has apparently failed to correct the underlying practices that lead to such action, according to a recent audit.

Our Los Angeles Sexual Assault Lawyers understand that the 10-page report, delivered by the L.A. Police Commission's inspector general, was a stinging one. Among the allegations:

• The police department routinely takes action to destroy case files;


• The agency keeps incomplete and inaccurate information on lawsuits;


• The department lacks a system that would help to identify recurring issues that result in problems among officers.

In other words, despite shelling out sometimes millions of dollars per case, the agency has made little or no effort to make any meaningful changes that would prevent sexual harassment and various kinds of discrimination. As the audit worded it, department administrators "failed to take even basic steps" to reduce the number of lawsuits or, what's more, improve the safety and quality of working environment for the men and women who dedicate their heart and soul - and sometimes sacrifice their lives - to this work.

The inspector general's office tabulated that the city has paid somewhere in the neighborhood of $31 million over the past 5 years to resolve employment-related cases. Those have involved LAPD members who alleged they were victims of retaliation, harassment, discrimination and other forms of misconduct. That portion accounted for nearly one-third of the total $110 million paid out during that timeframe for all LAPD lawsuits. The other two-thirds were for complaints stemming from allegations of excessive force and negligence in traffic crashes.

We don't know what the total liability was in each case because neither the LAPD nor the city attorney's office took the time to track how many hours both attorneys and investigators worked on each case. So while we know the amounts paid out in verdicts and settlements, the actual cost per case is much higher.

Among the recommendations made as a result of the audit was the suggestion to start a mediation program that would involve not only members of LAPD, but also the city attorneys' office and members of the union. The union has said it would be completely on board with such a program, but the agency has yet to announce its support (or rejection) of such a measure.

Another recommendation was that the agency immediately cease its practice of shredding case files as soon as a civil lawsuit is closed. This would help improve the accuracy of the information stored in the agency's case-tracking database, which had been identified as another problem by the inspector.

The agency was also advised to use the lessons learned from lost employment litigation to identify potential pitfalls that often lead to lawsuits. With that information, supervisors should be trained how to handle these kinds of specific problems, should they arise. Generally teaching a course on sexual harassment is a start, but taking a case-in-point, actual issue that the agency recently dealt with and showing how things might have been done differently might be more effective.

Continue reading "LAPD Lawsuits Stack Up, Audit Scolds Failure to Reduce Liability" »

Corruption is top-down and widespread at the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, according to a lawsuit recently filed by a 10-year veteran of the agency, who claims she lost her job when she made the mistake of telling the truth.

Our Los Angeles sexual assault attorneys understand the allegations in this case are serious, but unfortunately, not altogether surprising.

The claimant worked for more than a decade at the agency. She would have had every reason to remain loyal to the force, as she was a fourth-generation member of law enforcement. Growing up with that kind of background had emboldened her to take on a role rarely pursued by female deputies: gang unit street patrol.

Over the course of that time, she told KABC-Los Angeles that seeds of doubt regarding the integrity of the agency and its deputies began to grow.

Ultimately, it exploded in her face in the wake of a confrontational encounter between her partner, a female suspect and a man who was nearby.

According to the former deputy, she and her partner were on a call when her male law enforcement partner, for reasons that are not yet clear from media reports, allegedly grabbed a female suspect and slammed her against the squad car. To the former deputy's knowledge, that was the extent of the incident.

But hours later, her partner mentioned to a supervisor that he had been choked by a male suspect who had been at the scene.

When the case went to trial, the female deputy refused to back up her partner's claim, despite what she says was significant pressure on her to lie to protect both her partner and the agency from embarrassment. She believes the alleged assault on an officer never happened. She couldn't justify sending an innocent man to prison just so the department could save face.

The jury ultimately acquitted the defendant, and soon after, the female deputy was fired.

She says today that whatever happens with her civil case, she rests easy knowing that she saved an innocent man from several years of prison time.

"That to me is worth it," she said.

Such honor is sadly not always present among the L.A.S.D. ranks. The former deputy now says she firmly believes that the fact that she is a woman has a lot to do with why the agency took the action against her that it did.

She reported on numerous prior occasions when fellow deputies demeaned and ridiculed her. One colleague told her she was "an embarrassment to females." Another told her to make herself useful by making the other deputies some sandwiches. In another instance, she was told she was worthless and ordered to go put on an apron.

A representative for the sheriff's department says that sexual harassment does not exist in the agency. Such a sweeping outright denial in itself is suspect, especially given the agency's recent history of losing and settling a number of high-cost, high-profile sexual harassment claims.

The former deputy said that in addition to personal compensation for the improper loss of her job, she hopes a civil rights investigation will be launched into a number of specific excessive force allegations she is also making.

Continue reading "Widespread Corruption at Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, Alleges Former Deputy" »

A two-year investigation recently concluded by the U.S. Department of Justice has found that sheriff's deputies in the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department's northern sectors of Palmdale and Lancaster routinely used racial bias in subjecting black public housing residents to unnecessary stops, seizures and the use of excessive and unreasonable force, even when individuals were handcuffed.

Our Los Angeles sexual assault attorneys are appalled by what has apparently been allowed to unfold in these regions for years unchecked by higher-ups within the agency.

The Mojave Desert stations, located about 70 miles north of Los Angeles, became the subject of a federal inquiry after a series of similar complaints were lodged by black residents who had recently moved to the area. Virtually all of their stories were the same and involved a violation of their civil rights by officers who had formed an opinion against them primarily on the basis of their skin color and also where they lived.

The report minced no words: The LASD engaged in a pattern of unreasonable force against its minority populace. What's more, of 180 officer misconduct complaints made by residents over the course of 12 months, only one of those complaints was formally investigated internally by the agency.

This is not the first time the agency has come under scrutiny for its interactions with minorities, specifically in the Antelope Valley region. A 2010 report released by the Police Assessment Resources Center found deputies there were more likely to use force in obstruction arrests against minority suspects than with their white counterparts.

The following year, the Community Action League and the NAACP filed suit alleging that deputies in Lancaster and Palmdale were racially discriminant against those who lived in low-income housing areas.

Sheriff Lee Baca has said that he disagrees with the conclusion of the federal report, but nonetheless has "instituted reforms to improve the department." Of course, if nothing was wrong, why would it require improvement?

A spokesman for the department was quoted as saying it firmly denies any allegation of discrimination or racial profiling, saying, "We haven't seen any." Of course, that's easy to say when your agency turns a blind eye to such problems by simply refusing to investigate the claims.

In Palmdale, the city is comprised of two-thirds black residents, according to data from the U.S. Census. It's worth noting that the area of Antelope Valley had the highest rate of alleged hate crimes in Los Angeles County as of 2010, according to federal authorities.

Latino and black residents were more likely than those of any other race to be pulled over and searched. However, most weren't cited, calling into question whether deputies ever had any real probable cause to initiate most of these stops in the first place. Additionally, it was reported that sheriff's deputies, in violation of the Fourth Amendment, routinely placed black suspects in the back of police cruisers for minor offenses.

Among the reforms promised by Baca include re-training deputies on the use-of-force policy and participation in community feedback meetings. Deputies must also carry complaint forms when they are out on patrol. However, it's unclear what good that will do if the agency doesn't take any meaningful steps to alter its approach to actually investigating those complaints.

Continue reading "DOJ: Racism by Los Angeles Sheriff's Deputies Ran Rampant" »