John Lewin, cold case prosecutor and LADA critic, sent the following email to LADA management this morning. It is also posted on his public Facebook.
Your Latest Promotions
George:
As a career prosecutor with 30 years of experience who has tried an innumerable number of incredibly complex and high profile cases over my distinguished career, I wanted to make sure that you were aware of the response within the office to several of your recent promotions/transfers.
I send this knowing that you seem to rarely show up to do your actual job and appear to have a little or no interest in how your decisions impact your responsibilities in your position of what is supposed to be the chief law-enforcement officer of Los Angeles County.
As has been your modus operandi, you have made a mockery of the promotion process by promoting inexperienced sycophants over accomplished and well deserving actual prosecutors. Although this is your legal prerogative as District Attorney (for the few months that you remain in the position), the stench of incompetence, and even the appearance of outright corruption that it leaves in its wake, is beyond disturbing to contemplate.
First, you promoted several individuals who were young Grade 2s, when you came into office, whose sole qualifications for their Grade 4s appear to be that they are close friends/classmates of your equally incompetent current Chief Deputy, Joseph Iniguez (a promotion itself that has been met with justifiably relentless criticism and outright ridicule because it was so completely undeserving and so obviously politically motivated).
This promotion list and the latest administrative transfers/promotions, also demonstrate your commitment to promoting a number of ex-public defenders who have no experience and who have demonstrated a consistent level of incompetence in their new positions as “prosecutors” that has been almost breathtaking to behold.
You promoted John Perroni to Grade 4, a career public defender who his supervisor in JSID testified under oath could not competently handle his duties in JSID and needed to go to prelims or misdemeanors to learn the basics of the job.
Even worse, career public defender and recently hired DDA Greg Apt was just promoted to become the Assistant Head Deputy of JSID. This promotion occurred even though that same supervisor, the well-respected ex-Asst. Head Deputy of JSID (who you retaliatorily transferred out of the unit, who is married to a current public defender, and who along with her husband, is extremely personally close to Apt) reluctantly testified under oath that Apt too was unqualified to even be in JSID (much less lead it), and now you have made him second in command there. Is this really a defensible promotion?
Before you promoted Apt, did you consider the appearance of impropriety and favoritism from the fact that Apt just gave $1000 to your reelection campaign? I believe it’s your largest donation from any DDA in the office! When you couple that contribution with the $19,000 given to your original campaign for DA in 2020 by your inexperienced and highly under-qualified current Chief Deputy, Joseph Iniguez, it leads to the inescapable conclusion that if you give George Gascon 💰💰, you will get rewarded! Maybe that’s why ethical DAs like Jackie Lacey refused to accept campaign contributions from their employees!
This is pay to play at its finest!!
When you couple Apt’s promotion with the prior conduct and or disgusting and disparaging comments directed at police officers by ex-public defenders Blacknell and Teran (who you have also undeservedly promoted to two of the highest positions in the office), how can any law enforcement officer feel like they will have a fair evaluation of any allegation when these are two of the small number of people making the charging evaluations in these complicated cases?
Finally, I’ve been told that you don’t appreciate my emails (I guess that’s why you’ve never responded to any of them), but rest assured, I will continue to point out your disgraceful, incompetent and corrupt conduct whenever I see fit in whatever way I choose to do so! And, if you think that you can silence me by more acts of retaliation, if you haven’t figured it out by now, that is an approach that has never and will never work!!
-John Lewin
The Response
Lewin got a response from retired DDA Craig Rouvs:
It is unclear whether Lewin’s “nameless troops” will have to look very far to find something dumb that Rouvs said.
Notes
Photo Credit: Getty Images
DA in CA 