A veteran deputy district attorney has tentatively settled his lawsuit against Los Angeles County in which he alleged he was demoted from his position in the sex crimes division for being critical of former District Attorney George Gascón’s sentencing directives.
Michael Matoba, a deputy district attorney 3, brought the retaliation complaint in Los Angeles Superior Court and was one of many prosecutors who sued the county alleging they experienced disparate treatment in the workplace after being outspoken against Gascón’s reforms.
On Tuesday, Matoba’s attorney filed court papers with Judge Wendy Chang of a “conditional” resolution of his case with the expectation a request for dismissal will be filed by Sept. 1.
No terms were divulged, and it was not immediately clear if the settlement is subject to approval by the Board of Supervisors.
The DA’s Sex Crimes Division is a highly specialized unit with coveted positions providing very good chances for office advancement, the suit stated. Matoba was the lead attorney responsible for prosecuting the case of Kenneth Rasmuson, who had a long criminal record and was living outside California when he was linked through DNA evidence to the sexual abuse and killings of two 6-year-old children five years apart that occurred decades earlier.
The DA’s Office, under then-District Attorney Jackie Lacey, filed special-circumstance allegations against Rasmuson. But in December 2020, Gascón issued a directive stating that the office would no longer seek the death penalty or life without parole under any circumstances, a policy that was then changed by Gascón in February 2022 to allow life-without-parole sentences in some cases.
Because special circumstance allegations had already been filed, Matoba was required under Gascón’s policy to file a motion and seek court approval for the dismissal of the special-circumstance allegations and to state that it was being done in the interests of justice, the suit filed in June 2022 stated.
Matoba filed the motion to dismiss the special-circumstance allegations as directed, but stated that the dropping of the special-circumstance allegations was not in the interest of justice, according to the suit. Both Gascón and his chief of staff, Deputy District Attorney Joseph Iniguez, knew that Matoba and his co-counsel authored and filed the motion, the suit stated.
Matoba believed that by filing the motion to dismiss and informing the judge that the interests of justice were not being served by the dropping of the special-circumstance allegations, he was rejecting an unlawful office directive, according to the suit.
As a result of the motion filed by Matoba and the subsequent media attention, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office sought to transfer one of the murder counts to Orange County, the suit stated. Matoba and Iniguez were present for the transfer hearing, during which Iniguez said he had wished the Orange County district attorney had contacted him, then told the court that the parties had been working on a possible plea bargain for weeks, the suit stated.
“Plaintiff disclosed to the court that the parties had only learned about a possible plea deal 15 minutes before the hearing, contradicting Iniguez’s false narrative to the court,” the suit stated.
Matoba was transferred in October 2021 to handling elder abuse crimes, a position requiring nationwide travel and which is neither coveted nor likely to result in advancement or promotions, the suit stated.
He believes that most or all of his eligible peers with whom he served with in line operations in the Sex Crimes Division have been promoted to deputy district attorney 4 positions, the suit stated.
Rasmuson pleaded no contest to two counts of murder in February 2022 and was sentenced in Pomona Superior Court in April of that year to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Gascón was defeated for re-election by former federal prosecutor Nathan Hochman in the Nov. 5 elections.