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.
Probation has CONTINUOUSLY violated the civil rights of its officers.Several pending lawsuits will address the FLAGRANT violations!
Dalilah Alcantara is as dirty as they come and should pay back money she exported from the Department as she and others promoted to the Bureau Cief Level and Deputy Director worked together to promote corrupt individuals in order to increase their pay, benefits and access to confidential records which they tampered with (Alcantara, Dominguez, Cotton, Bingham, Wong, Roman, Cardenas, and many, many more at the Executive Leadership Level, with Alcantara leading the dirty, corruption bandwagon. How could anyone in a position of trust be allowed to have a youth intentionally beat up in 2002? How could Alcantara skip positions to become a Director? She was never an SDPO. I guess experiencenus irrelevant. Alcantara did not like Ray Leyva who is now deceased, or CPO Gonzalez because they both knew she was as dirty and corrupt as they come! Alcantara should be lucky she was demoted to Bureau Chief! She never should have rose to anything above a DPOII. Not only did she have a female youth in custody beat up, she also use to sell stolen boxes of Victoria Secret out of the trunk of her car at Challenger Memorial Youth Center. Additionally, she also ordered staff to have a male youth beat up after an event in the community. She had access to her personnel file and various personnel records and tampered with her file to remove discipline records from her file. Alcantara should not have been demoted, she should have been TERMINATED! ALCANTARA should absolutely not receive one penny of tax payer dollars as an award in her alleged lawsuit. Her lawsuit is egregious and makes me absolutely sick to my stomach to even think about. Domingueznis just as corrupt, soliciting prostitutes and using Cocaine, and Alcantara and Dominguez were thick as thieves as ND thieves they were. And why does Felicia Cotton make more money than some County Department Heads??? The Executive Leadership Team of yesteryear are most of the corrupt money thirsty individuals I have ever met in my life and people wonder why the LA County Probation Department sank like the Titanic! Alcantara is pathetic, dirty, corrupt, use to hang with gang members prior to being employed with the department, and remained corrupt throughout her entire career. She us n I w as grandmother, bit dont let that fool you, she is still a homegirl, thug, gangster from the hood and that mentality will remain with her for life.
I agree with you 100%. I would definitely testify to the vile character of this woman. I worked under her and she is as evil as they come. Im astonished she even has the gall to sue anyone.