A Los Angeles County sheriff’s jail custody assistant has tentatively settled her lawsuit against her employer in which she alleged she was denied a promotion to deputy because a male background investigator questioned whether she was “too old for the academy” and a “bad mom” for attempting to go there and train.
Alondra Sandoval’s Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit alleged discrimination, retaliation and failure to prevent harassment, discrimination or retaliation. On Thursday, county attorneys filed court papers with Judge Upinder Kalra notifying him of a “conditional” resolution of the case pending final approval by the county Claims Board and the Board of Supervisors.
No terms were revealed.
In their previous court papers, county attorneys denied Sandoval’s allegations, said they were barred by the statute of limitations and that any decisions made concerning her were for legitimate business reasons.
Sandoval, of La Mirada, was 43 years old when her suit was filed in April 2023. She was hired as a sheriff’s security officer in August 2014 and in November 2021 she applied to be a deputy or custody assistant. She graduated from custody assistant training in March 2023 and that same month was assigned to the Twin Towers jail.
However, Sandoval’s application to be a deputy was never evaluated and she believes the department’s refusal to do so is connected to a background investigator’s previous comments to her before she was hired as a custody assistant that she was “too old for the academy,” that she was a “bad mom” for attempting to go to the Sheriff’s Academy, and that she was probably a “bad wife” because she had been divorced twice, according to the suit.
The investigator, referring to a scar on Sandoval’s face, also told the plaintiff she should be “grateful that the department even decided to hire you,” the suit further alleges.
Sandoval complained about the investigator to management and an Internal Affairs probe was opened into her concerns, but by the time her lawsuit was filed she had not been contacted, according to the suit, which further stated that new deputies made $15,000 to $25,000 per year more than she earned as a custody assistant.