L.A. federal judge tosses lawsuit over fatal 2008 shooting by off-duty deputy U.S. marshal

A federal judge on Thursday threw out a wrongful-death lawsuit filed by the mother of a 26-year old man fatally shot by a deputy U.S. marshal in a Fairfax-area alley in 2008.

Alice Smithen brought the civil suit against the federal government in 2009, but it was put on hold as former Deputy Matthew Itkowitz faced criminal charges.

He was sentenced in 2015 to 15 months in federal prison for obstruction of justice in connection with the shooting. Prosecutors argued that he made misleading statements to police shortly after shooting Smithen’s son, Ryan Gonzalez.

U.S. District Judge George H. Wu wrote that Smithen’s lawyer failed to make the case that the government was liable when Itkowitz killed Gonzalez in the alley off Melrose Avenue.

Itkowitz was not acting as a marshal when he killed Gonzalez, Wu wrote, nor did he try to arrest Gonzalez before shooting him.

Smithen’s lawyer, Michael J. Grobaty, said Gonzalez’s family was disappointed by Wu’s decision.

“My clients just want to move on with their lives,” he said. “They are pleased that their efforts resulted in [Itkowitz] being criminally prosecuted, but they understood the case against the United States was a difficult one.”

Video of the shooting — played repeatedly during the criminal trial in 2015 — shows Itkowitz and Gonzalez fighting after Gonzalez intervened in a dispute between Itkowitz and his wife outside the tattoo parlor where Gonzalez worked.

After the men exchanged blows, they walked away from each other. Later Itkowitz can be seen removing a gun from the waistband of his pants and holding it behind his right leg as Gonzalez walks away from him.

In the video, recorded by a wall-mounted security camera in the alley, Gonzalez turns back toward Itkowitz when the deputy marshal shoots him. Gonzalez was shot five times, including twice in his back as he ran from Itkowitz, prosecutors said during the 2015 trial.

Gonzalez’s stepfather, Ray Smithen, blamed the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office for not filing state charges against Itkowitz as well as federal prosecutors for “botching” their 2015 case against the former deputy. The judge in that case threw out more serious civil rights charges against Itkowitz, saying that federal prosecutors did not provide enough evidence to convict him of depriving Gonzalez’s civil rights “under color of law” when he shot him.

“We did not get justice in this case,” Ray Smithen said.

javier.panzar@latimes.com

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