A 70-year-old Los Angeles County prosecutor is suing the county, alleging he has been denied an important promotion due to his age.
Deputy District Attorney Edward Wiley’s Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit alleges retaliation, disparate treatment and a violation of the state Labor Code. He seeks unspecified damages in the suit brought Thursday.
A representative for the District Attorney’s Office said the office does not comment on pending litigation.
Wiley was hired in 2007 at age 53 and his previous assignments included being a member of the Major Crimes Division. He currently serves as a felony trial deputy in the Antelope Valley. Wiley was promoted to a grade 3 deputy in 2012, but has yet to be upgraded to a grade 4, which he believes is due to age discrimination because some deputies much younger have been granted such promotions, the suit states.
Wiley filed an internal grievance 2024 alleging that he was being retaliated against for opposing then-District Attorney George Gascon’s policies a few years prior and also that he was being “leapfrogged” by significantly younger deputies, some of whom the plaintiff had trained, according to the suit, which further states that the grievance was denied.
Wiley has worked on several high-profile cases during his career, including that of Armenia Cudjo, a cold-case murder that had been overturned on appeal, and that of Andrew Cachu, who was convicted as a juvenile of a Palmdale murder.
Wiley says he was removed from the case and chastised by Gascon’s office because he “went public” and talked to the media about Cachu being released after serving only a small portion of a 50-year sentence, only to be arrested again for new crimes and sentenced in 2022.