A Los Angeles County Probation Dept. employee can take to trial her lawsuit alleging she was demoted from a deputy director position to a previous job as bureau chief for complaining about the county’s alleged failure to abide by various regulations involving multiple juvenile hall centers, a judge has ruled.
Dalailah Alcantara also maintains in her Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit that her gender made her a target for male department heads and the union of supervising probation officers. On Wednesday, Judge Robert B. Broadbelt denied a county motion to dismiss the lawsuit wholly or in part. The county contended there were no triable issues.
“Taking the evidence in the light most favorable to plaintiff, the court finds that (Alcantara) has shown there are triable issues of material fact as to whether the county began a campaign of retaliation that lasted until at least July 14, 2022, in response to plaintiff’s protected activities,” Broadbelt wrote.
Thus, there are triable issues as to whether there was a sufficient connection between the elimination of Alcantara’s position in 2024, the department’s alleged retaliatory actions in 2021 and 2022 and the woman’s protected activities, according to the judge, who said he found the county’s arguments to the contrary “not persuasive.”
Alcantara was hired in January 1999 as an investigator aide and by 2019 after a series of promotions she was the department’s deputy director and oversaw more than 3,000 officers.
But as soon as Alcantara spoke out about what she believed to be illegal conduct within and a failure by the county to follow rules pertaining to multiple juvenile hall centers, the county began a “campaign of retaliation and discrimination against Ms. Alcantara to silence her,” according the suit filed in February 2023.
In 2019, the county named Ray Leyva as interim chief of the probation department and he immediately began mistreating women in the office and made it clear to Alcantara and others that he was an ardent supporter of the Local 702 representing probation department supervisors, according to the suit.
Adolfo Gonzalez continued the alleged hostility toward Alcantara when he was named the department chief in 2021, the suit further alleged. That same year, the Board of State and Community Corrections found both Los Angeles County juvenile halls, Barry J. Nidorf and Central Juvenile Hall, unsuitable for the confinement of youth, requiring the county to fix the problems or remove the juveniles from the facilities.
Alcantara later complained to county management that Gonzalez and the supervisors’ union were harassing her and telling her not to speak out about key information required under a corrective action plan for the juvenile halls, but no action was taken and Alcantara became increasingly ostracized, including being told to stay in her office during a visit by Assemblyman Reggie Jones, according to the suit.
Alcantara was demoted back to bureau chief, a position she previously held, in November 2021 and Gonzalez told her it was because he had a “different vision,” the suit states. Alcantara was also told her reassignment would not be given a “Y-rating,” meaning that any loss of pay she suffered due to the transfer would stand, the suit further states.
The demotion has cost Alcantara tens of thousands of dollars, the suit alleges.