A former Los Angeles Times reporter Tuesday sued L.A. County, ex-Sheriff Alex Villanueva and others, alleging in federal court that her 1st Amendment rights were violated when a secret probe was opened into her activities after she got hold of a leaked list of deputies with a history of misconduct.
The suit filed in downtown Los Angeles seeks unspecified damages for alleged violations of Maya Lau’s privacy, as well as the alleged injuries she contends she suffered after the probe became public.
The suit, which names the county, Villanueva, ex-Undersheriff Tim Murakami and former Detective Mark Lillienfeld as defendants, alleges violations of Lau’s rights under the U.S. constitution and California state law, including retaliation and civil conspiracy to deny constitutional rights.
“It is an absolute outrage that the Sheriff’s Department would criminally investigate a journalist for doing her job,” Lau said in a statement to the Times. “I am bringing this lawsuit not just for my own sake, but to send a clear signal in the name of reporters everywhere: we will not be intimidated. The Sheriff’s Department needs to know that these kinds of tactics against journalists are illegal.”
In a statement to City News Service on Tuesday evening, the sheriff’s department said it had not yet been officially served with the lawsuit.
“While these allegations stem from a prior administration, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department under Sheriff Robert G. Luna is firmly committed to upholding the constitution, including the First Amendment,” the department stated. “We respect the vital role journalists play in holding agencies accountable and believe in the public’s right to a free and independent press.”
Villanueva said via email to the Times that he had not yet reviewed the complaint in full and that “under the advice of counsel, I do not comment on pending litigation,” according to the newspaper’s story, which quoted the ex-sheriff as saying the investigation was “based on facts that were presented to the Office of the Attorney General.”
In December 2017, the Times published a story by Lau about a list of about 300 problem deputies. A lengthy case file reviewed by the newspaper last year found that sheriff’s investigators launched an initial probe into who provided Lau with the list, according to the article Tuesday.
The agency’s investigation began when Jim McDonnell was sheriff in 2017. The Sheriff’s Department ultimately dropped the investigation without referring it for prosecution after, as Lau’s lawsuit states, it “turned up no evidence connecting Ms. Lau to any crime,” the Times reported.