Top adviser to leftist DA George Gascón — his ADA of ethics and integrity operations — hit with 11 felony charges

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A top adviser for Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón was slapped Wednesday with 11 felony charges over her alleged "repeated and unauthorized use of data from confidential, statutorily protected peace officer files."

Diana Teran, Gascón's assistant district attorney of ethics and integrity operations as well as his designee on immigration policy issues, has long been suspected of unlawfully downloading confidential L.A. County Sheriff's Department files in 2018 while still an LASD employee.

Teran allegedly yanked data on 11 sheriff's deputies in concert with L.A. County Inspector General Max Huntsman's office, the outfit tasked with oversight of the sheriff's department.

According to California Attorney General Rob Bonta, Teran "impermissibly used that data" after joining Gascón's team in January 2021.

Former Undersheriff Tim Murakami told KABC-TV in 2019 that Teran, who previously served as a constitutional policing adviser for the LASD, downloaded the confidential records for Huntsman and the Office of the Inspector General just days before former LASD Sheriff Alex Villanueva was sworn into office.

The downloads reportedly first came to light in civil litigation between the county and the LASD over Villanueva's rehiring of Deputy Caren Carl Mandoyan, who had previously been canned for alleged domestic violence and stalking.

According to a declaration by an LASD detective filed in the Superior Court of the State of California, Teran accessed the records through what is known as the Personnel Review Management System on Nov. 28, 2018, downloading "78 documents from 22 unique LASD employee case files."

Among the documents Gascón's future ally allegedly absconded with were "14 documents, totaling approximately 2000 pages, from case files related to Sheriff Alex Villanueva. Additionally, Ms. Teran downloaded documents from the case files of at least eight current and former LASD executives."

Huntsman claimed that his office had the legal right to inspect the files, noting, "We're required to keep them confidential — so we don't put out confidential information — but we're allowed to see the whole picture, so we can get a good view of things, and that includes the sheriff department's personnel records."

Huntsman further suggested that the files mentioned in the detective's declaration were of interest because they had been designated as secret, reported the Los Angeles Times.

Murakami disagreed, stating, "That code doesn't give him [Huntsman] free rein to look at anything."

"The problem with him is that he's actually violating the law. He may think he's doing a good thing, but you can't violate a law in order to enforce a law," added the former undersheriff.

The LASD launched a criminal investigation into Huntsman and Teran, suggesting they were looking at possible "Conspiracy, Theft of Government Property, Unauthorized Computer Access, Theft of Confidential Files, Unlawful dissemination of Confidential Files, Potential Civil Rights Violations, and Burglary."

The AG's office evidently figured there was something to the allegations.

Each of the 11 felony counts Teran now faces is punishable by up to three years in jail and a maximum fine of $10,000.

"No one is above the law," said California Attorney General Rob Bonta. "Public officials are called to serve the people and the State of California with integrity and honesty."

Teran's attorney James Spertus echoed the OIG's years-old claims when asked about the charges, telling the Los Angeles Times, "They're charging her for doing something within the scope of her employment, that she has a duty to do."

Spertus suggested that the investigation into Teran was prompted by a complaint by Villanueva, who reportedly referred to Teran's downloads this week as as "massive data breach."

Gascón said in a statement obtained by the Times, "I remain committed to upholding transparency and ensuring police accountability within Los Angeles County."

Teran started off in Gascón's office as a special adviser. She went on to deal with prosecutions of police and attorney misconduct. Just recently, Gascón — whom hundreds of thousands of L.A. County residents have desperately attempted to remove from office in multiple recall efforts — promoted Teran to assistant district attorney.

Nathan Hochman, the candidate looking to beat Gascón on Nov. 5 in the L.A. County District Attorney race, wrote Wednesday night on X, "Did Gascon know about the AG Investigation BEFORE he promoted Diana Teran to Assistant DA in charge of ethics and integrity on Jan 4, 2024?? If so, he should resign immediately for such leadership malpractice. If not, he's so asleep and unaware of what's going on around him that he should resign or that reason as well."

Hochman highlighted Gascón's apparent reliance on Teran, suggesting this development "is yet another sign of Hasco's poor judgment and failed leadership.

As you can see, Diana Teran was one of Gascon\u2019s most trusted leaders. Now she\u2019s facing 11 criminal charges brought by the state AG. This is yet another sign of Gascon\u2019s poor judgment and failed leadership. #GasconMustGo
— (@)

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Soros-backed DA Gascón allegedly used 'mafia tactics' to intimidate LA prosecutor who exposed woke policies

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Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Tatiana Chahoian recently told KTTV that her boss, George Soros-backed District Attorney George Gascón, used "mafia tactics" to intimidate her after she exposed his soft-on-crime policies.

On February 26, Chahoian blew the whistle on Gascón by informing the media that a recent memo urged prosecutors not to pursue crimes related to reckless driving, street racing, and street takeovers that do not result in injuries. Chahoian told KTTV that she was in "a state of shock" when she received the communication from Gascón.

"The same conduct that we're talking about here is the same conduct that results in the death of so many people. It's like saying if somebody shoots at somebody else, and they're a bad shot, and they miss, we're not going to file charges because nothing happened," she told the news outlet.

Chahoian said that two days after she exposed the memo's instructions, two police officers showed up at her home to deliver a letter from Gascón's office.

"It was a three-page letter telling me that I lied, telling me that I violated policies with Gascón's office and that I didn't obtain approval before speaking out, as if I don't have a First Amendment right and essentially telling me to be quiet and meet with my supervisor," she explained.

Fox News Digital reported that Laura Kessner, Gascón's central operations director, wrote in the letter to Chahoian, "Your statements to the media were untrue, a misrepresentation of the communication from Head Deputy John Harlan, conflicted with the LADA [personnel policy handbook], and were misleading to the public."

"Your statements were also a disservice to your colleagues who work diligently every day to promote public safety in an ethical manner," the letter reportedly read.

Chahoian told KTTV that she is "very afraid" she may lose her job.

"I mean, silencing people by threatening them with the police is literally a mafia tactic, and I don't work for the mob," Chahoian remarked, noting that the correspondence from Gascón's office could have been delivered via email.

"We don't live in a third-world country where police are sent to people's homes to intimidate them into silence," she added.

Gascón, who has already dodged two recall efforts, has been met with incredible frustration and pushback from the Los Angeles County community for his soft-on-crime policies. Last month, during a district attorney debate, the mother of a shooting victim confronted Gascón for having "more sympathy" for criminals than victims, Blaze News previously reported.

In response to Chahoian's allegations, Gascón's office told KTTV, "We cannot comment on specific personnel matters. Saying that, honesty is critically important to any prosecutor's office. Addressing false claims made by District Attorney staff or the media is a fundamental responsibility of this office — failure to do so fuels distrust in the important work we do every day, undermining our duty to the public and to justice."


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50 Cent suggests Los Angeles is doomed after city reinstates no-bail policy: 'Watch how bad it gets'

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Curtis James Jackson III, better known as 50 Cent, denounced Los Angeles' recent decision to reinstate its zero-bail policy, noting the city will be adversely impacted.

The affluent musician and self-described "born-again Christian" shared a KTTV-TV report to Instagram Thursday, which detailed the immediate consequences of the May reinstatement of the zero-bail policy.

Los Angeles County Deputy DA John McKinney can be heard in the shared report noting that the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department will no longer "detain people for crimes such as theft, shoplifting, drug use, vandalism, battery, and a whole host of other non-serious, nonviolent crimes that affect the quality of life for people here in Los Angeles."

Additionally, McKinney indicated many suspected criminals would be released without posting bail.

50 Cent captioned the post, "LA is finished," adding, "Watch how bad it gets out there."

What's the background?

The policy was introduced during the pandemic to purportedly reduce crowding in city jails and mitigate the spread of COVID-19, reported KTTV.

Although scrapping bail for all detained suspects awaiting trial is popular with Democrat politicians and other radical leftists, Californians overwhelmingly rejected it when it was brought to a vote in the form of Proposition 25 in 2020.

The LAPD also took issue with the policy, noting that in the first 30 days of its enactment in 2020, police had arrested 213 individuals multiple times, with 23 being arrested three or more times, reported the Los Angeles times.

Although the pandemic-era policy came to an end last summer, Philip Urquidi — who sued the city, the Los Angeles Police Department, and others after being held in jail on $20,000 bail and a vandalism charge — was joined by other former detainees in a class action lawsuit seeking a permanent injunction to prohibit the LASD and LAPD "from enforcing the money bail schedules as the sole means of determining whether arrestees are or are not released before they are brought before a judge."

Despite an imploration by Superior Court Judge Lawrence Riff, LAPD Chief Michael Moore, LASD Sheriff Robert Luna, and Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon reportedly elected not to testify in opposition to the injunction.

"The Department is aware of the preliminary injunction regarding the cash bail system, and of course will comply with any court-ordered bail schedule. The County is also working with the court and other stakeholders to explore ways to reduce the number of people held before arraignment because they can't afford bail and to provide the Sheriff greater release options to safely reduce the jail population, while always prioritizing public safety," said the LASD in a statement about the ruling," reported KABC-TV.

The court ultimately granted the preliminary injunction, and the zero-bail policy went into effect again on May 24.

Riff said after issuing the injunction that holding a possible criminal in jail because they cannot pay likely violates their constitutional rights, calling the practice "a clear, pervasive and serious constitutional violation."

Salil Dudani, the lead attorney in the lawsuit, said, "We're supposed to have a presumption of innocence in this country. It's not much of a presumption of innocence when you're in a jail cell."

Fallout

A study published earlier this year comparing California repeat offenders who posted bail with those kicked loose without posting bail indicated that those in the latter camp reoffended more often, reoffended sooner after release, and committed 200 times more violent crimes, reported Fox News Digital.

Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig, whose office published the study, concluded that "zero bail is a completely failed policy. ... It's just going to make everything more dangerous."

The report revealed that suspects released without bail were "rearrested on 163% more charges than those who posted bail, and they reoffended 70% more often. These reoffenses resulted in felony charges 90% more often – and they were accused of three times as many crimes."

"We saw violent crime going up as soon as zero bail was implemented in our county by court order," Reisig told Fox News Digital. "And despite all of our best efforts to try and stop the practice, we were forced to continue to do the zero-bail system, and we saw our communities suffer as a result."

Sean Kennedy, the director of policy at the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund, noted in a Chicago Sun-Times piece concerning the possible ruin in store for Illinois upon eliminating cash bail, "Money bail provides a strong incentive for the accused to comply — appear and stay out of trouble — on the pain of forfeiture. And in fact, most bailees don’t post the money themselves, instead relying on friends and family to pay the bond amount and bear the risk of forfeiture."

"These third parties are effectively vouching for the accused with their pocketbooks. It also creates a reinforcing system of accountability to comply with the court. If a defendant knows their grandparents might forfeit their life savings if he no-shows or re-offends, he might think twice," added Kennedy.

In addition to the Yolo study, Kennedy cited a Department of Justice study that found that a defendant's failure to appear to a hearing and/or trial was more likely among cases with a defendant released on recognizance than among cases with a defendant released on bail.

The study indicated that even "bail between $50 and $500 lowered the likelihood of [failure to appear] compared to the 17-percent predicted probability" of failure to appear for released on recognizance cases."

According to Neighborhood Scout, the likelihood of becoming a victim of a violent crime in Los Angeles is 1 in 135. The chance of becoming a victim of a property crime is 1 in 41.

These stats are liable to drastically change in short order if 50 Cent's prediction turns out to be true.

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Horowitz: The parole of murderers and the silencing of victims



George Gascon, the new Soros-backed district attorney in Los Angeles, promised "the lowest level of intervention for the criminal justice system." That quite literally means letting murderers out of prison.

In 1991, Howard Elwin Jones was convicted of murdering two teenagers at a party. Jones, a known gang member, should have received the death penalty, but because he was just shy of his 18th birthday at the time of the murders, he was sentenced to 45 years in prison. After Gov. Jerry Brown signed SB 260 into law, most juvenile murderers became eligible retroactively for parole after 25 years.

In the past, eligibility for parole didn't mean automatic release, especially for convicted murderers, but now with prosecutors in major cities acting like defense attorneys, it is making it a lot harder to keep denying them parole at their biannual hearings. After being denied parole in 2015 and 2017, constantly making the victims' families relive the experience over and over again, Jones was granted parole earlier this year and will be released next week. Thus, while his victims will remain teenagers in the grave forever, Jones now gets to live a normal life and is only 50 years old.

So, what changed this time at the parole hearing? According to KTTV-TV's Bill Melugan, George Gascon has barred all prosecutors in the DA's office from attending parole hearings, much less advocating on behalf of the victims' families, even in the worst cases. Dianne Baker-Taylor, the sister of one of Jones' victims who was forced to attend the hearing alone, told KTTV that Jones didn't even express remorse. "It's isolating, you feel alone, you don't feel like you have anybody in your corner," she said.

According to Baker-Taylor, Governor Gavin Newsom never replied to her plea against the release of Jones, and the only correspondence the family ever got from the state was the letter of notification that Jones would be released.

The granting of parole then went through a 120 day review period, which included Governor Newsom’s review. Dianne… https://t.co/Z1ZcEMVqZL

— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) 1622651548.0

The entire criminal justice system is designed to advocate on behalf of the criminals while shafting the victims, yet the politicians still think the criminal justice system is too punitive for criminals.

Since his election last year, Gascon announced numerous changes to the office, including that his prosecutors would no longer charge any juvenile as an adult or seek the death penalty for any murderer. He also stopped filing enhancement charges for gang members or those with multiple prior felony convictions.

The results have been devastating. According to L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva, who now has to deal with the fallout from Gascon's policies, every major crime category is up significantly over this time last year. In May 2021, the county experienced a 95% increase in murder, a 7% increase in rape, a 13% increase in aggravated assaults, a 40% increase in grand theft auto, and a 22% increase in arson incidents, compared to May 2020.

Most people are following the recall election against Gov. Gavin Newsom, but the recall against Gascon is likely to make a bigger impact. In the case of the gubernatorial election, it's quite unlikely that a Republican will unseat Newsom in California. But a successful recall election against Gascon in L.A. County would likely trigger the emergence of another Democrat who is more friendly to law enforcement and victims of crime, similar to the prior prosecutor Gascon unseated in a runoff election last year. Recall organizers have until October 27 to gather 580,000 signatures, a goal they are confident they will exceed.

Republicans would be stupid not to latch onto the crime issue and use it as a cudgel in suburban neighborhoods in all 50 states. While California usually leads the nation in pro-criminal trends, the movement to parole some of the worst criminals is endemic of many other states. Virginia's parole board has released dozens of murderers, as has the state of Massachusetts.

However, the political jailbreak of violent prisoners is not just in blue states. Utah has a crisis of hundreds of violent criminals being paroled, while parole officers are becoming reluctant to reincarcerate them after they violate the terms of parole. A KUTV report from Wendy Halloran discovered that Terence Trent Vos, one of the most notorious gangsters in Salt Lake City, who was serving time for drive-by shootings, aggravated assaults, robberies, and weapons violations, was granted a rare form of compassionate release in 2020 because his daughter was murdered by her own mother. Now his girlfriend is dead, allegedly murdered by Vos in May.

It took just five weeks for Vos to wind up back in prison after he was caught drunk driving. But then COVID hit, and like other red states, Utah released a bunch of criminals including Vos. When parole officers attempted to visit Vos on a routine follow-up, they could not make contact with him but did find bullet holes in Vos' home. The officers never followed up on the suspicious activity, nor did they issue a warrant for his arrest after they failed to make contact with him for months.

On Jan. 30, 2021, Vos' girlfriend pressed charges after he allegedly beat her severely in a restaurant. By that point the system had failed, and the ankle monitor they gave Vos turned out to be worthless. Police later found the body of Vos' girlfriend, Shandon Scott, in a car on Interstate 80 on May 1.

Just this week in allegedly conservative Fort Wayne, Indiana, Cohen Bennett Hancz-Barron, 21, was arrested for the gruesome murder of a woman and three children. Local media report that the suspect had a robbery conviction for which he was sentenced in February to six years in prison, but was allowed to serve all of the sentence at home! Just two months later, police filed a "notice of escape" and a warrant for his arrest, but as always it was too late. They could not locate him before the murder.

Now imagine a country with tens of thousands more people like him out on the streets, supposedly being monitored by parole officers, thanks to criminal justice deform. Do you feel safer?

The only question now is when all the "conservative" governors who joined the Soros DAs and blue-state governors in promoting de-incarceration will realize their failed social experiment is destroying the country.