The city of Los Angeles is asking a judge to confirm an arbitrator’s ruling awarding no damages to a veteran prosecutor who alleged retaliation for complaining about the safekeeping of digital evidence by his office’s criminal branch.
The City Attorney’s Office also is requesting that Judge Teresa Beaudet dismiss Deputy City Attorney David Bozanich’s Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit, which alleged whistleblower retaliation and was sent to binding arbitration by the judge in March.
On Dec. 19, the judge denied the city’s initial motion to confirm the arbitrator’s decision “without prejudice,” allowing for the city’s renewed motion set to be heard by Beaudet on Jan. 26.
In her November ruling that was mostly favorable to the city, arbitrator Luella Nelson said there was “substantial doubt” that Bozanich suffered any harm. She also said that the “reshuffling” of Bozanich’s functions was not shown to have been any more of a loss than those felt by others in his unit whose functions were also reorganized.
Bozanich acknowledged that he received a branch-wide notice of reorganization and that he knew his assignment could change and that some units could be eliminated, Nelson wrote.
According to his suit, Bozanich was hired in 2002 to work in the criminal branch and his career was on an upward track for 21 years. Bozanich worked as a prosecuting attorney and later was instrumental in the establishment of a new unit in 2017 that established policies and practices for employees accessing, maintaining and using technology, including police body-worn camera evidence, according to the complaint.
But starting in May 2021 and continuing into the next year, Bozanich frequently disclosed to his supervisors verbally and by email that the criminal branch was out of compliance with state and federal requirements pertaining to the storage of digital criminal offender record information, the suit alleges.
Bozanich believed the alleged irregularities were violations of the state Code of Regulations and state Government Code, plus other applicable federal, state and local statutes, rules and regulations.
In July 2023, he was transferred to a position in the Pacific office as a line deputy in alleged retaliation for speaking out, the suit alleged. He now works on individual cases, but does not make policy recommendations, create or revise protocols or conduct training for other attorneys or support staff, the suit stated.