Former sheriff ’s official alleges retaliation
former high-ranking Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department official alleges he was pressured to take early retirement after he reported illegal conduct by various department officials, including Sheriff Jim McDonnell, according to a lawsuit filed this week.
The case, listed as John Doe vs. County of Los Angeles, was filed Tuesday in California Superior Court in Los Angeles by former Assistant Sheriff Todd Rogers, whose name appears on the cover sheet of the court document.
Rogers, a Lakewood City Council member who has served as mayor of the city three times, ran against McDonnell for sheriff in 2014. He alleges McDonnell used a surrogate during the campaign to try to bribe him into dropping out of the race.
Rogers says he was approached by former Undersheriff Jerry Harper — a McDonnell supporter — who said Rogers would be promoted to undersheriff if he would exit the race and endorse McDonnell, who was favored to win. Rogers said he declined.
Under state law, it is a crime to offer “any money or other valuable consideration” to a political candidate in order to induce that person to withdraw from an election.
Rogers was among several candidates who failed to make it past the primary election. McDonnell, then chief of police in Long Beach, won the November 2014 general election.
A sheriff’s spokesman said Wednesday that McDonnell strongly denied the allegations. He declined to comment further, saying the department had yet to review the lawsuit.
Harper did not return calls for comment.
In late 2015, Rogers says, he reported the meeting with Harper to the Public Integrity Division of the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office, which invesA tigated the claims. Prosecutors decided there was no evidence to corroborate the allegations.
A memo by Deputy Dist. Atty. Sean Hassett on Sept. 1, 2016, said Harper acknowledged to investigators that he suggested to Rogers that he drop out of the race in order to improve his chances of McDonnell considering him for undersheriff. But Harper said he spoke to Rogers without McDonnell’s knowledge, according to the memo, which was obtained by The Times.
The memo noted that Rogers’ claims came more than a year after the alleged wrongdoing and that he endorsed McDonnell for sheriff six weeks after the meeting with Harper, following Rogers’ loss in the primary election.
The memo does not indicate whether McDonnell was interviewed by prosecutors.
In his lawsuit, Rogers claims “audio evidence of Harper’s criminal misconduct and Sheriff McDonnell’s involvement” was forwarded to prosecutors in November, after they’d declined to prosecute.
Greg Risling, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office, said in an email that prosecutors evaluated all evidence, including an audio recording, and determined there was “insufficient evidence of a crime.”
Rogers said Wednesday that he believed it would not be appropriate to speak about the lawsuit. The 55year-old retired on March 30 after three decades with the department.
Rogers also alleges in the lawsuit that McDonnell advised him in November 2016 that he didn’t fit into the sheriff ’s vision for a team of upper managers and that he ought to step down.
Rogers, whose job included managing the department’s $3-billion budget, claims he was replaced by a younger official who he believes was not as qualified.
Jill Serrano, the former chief financial officer for the San Diego County Sheriff ’s Department, was installed as assistant sheriff and chief financial and administrative officer in May.
Among various other claims in the lawsuit, Rogers says he was not given enough staff to manage the department’s budget and that McDonnell repeatedly told him he did not approve of top sheriff’s managers serving as elected officials.
Rogers’ retirement came after what he said amounted to a smear campaign last summer by fellow sheriff’s employees.