Delgadillo, Cooley trade criticisms in turf battle

During a drunken rampage at a Los Angeles hotel in 2005, off-duty Yuba City Police Officer Jesus Barrios groped the breast of a female colleague and pointed his .40-caliber service weapon at guests in the lobby.

When Los Angeles police arrived, Barrios led them on a brief chase and had to be physically restrained. A test later revealed that his blood alcohol level was nearly three times the legal limit.

The evidence was made even stronger when investigators found that images of Barrios menacing guests and staff had been captured on hotel video cameras.

Lawyers for Los Angeles City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo wanted Barrios to be charged with a felony, such as assault with a deadly weapon, which could have sent him to state prison.

But because the law prevents them from prosecuting more than misdemeanors, they referred the case to Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley -- who decided it was not serious enough to warrant a felony charge. In a memo outlining his decision, Cooley’s office noted that the police officer had been drunk, had not said anything threatening and that events had unfolded “so quickly.”

The case was passed back to Delgadillo, who filed a series of criminal misdemeanors and obtained a guilty plea that put Barrios in a rehabilitation center for up to 18 months.

Lawyers in Delgadillo’s office point to the Barrios case -- and others like it -- to counter a recent claim by Cooley that the city attorney has effectively been under-charging defendants.

“The irony is that usually the problem is getting the D.A. to take cases,” said Jeff Isaacs, who heads the city attorney’s criminal branch. “It’s always been a struggle.”

The turf war between the two prosecutors -- who could face each other in the next district attorney election -- became public after The Times obtained an April 19 letter in which Cooley complained that Delgadillo had improperly filed misdemeanor charges before consulting with the district attorney.

The letter cited eight cases that Delgadillo had trumpeted in a press release; all involved thefts by airport security screeners. Four of them, Cooley agreed, “clearly” deserved to be misdemeanors. Two others were properly referred to his assistants, who agreed they should be misdemeanors.

However, the last two were high-profile cases -- involving the thefts of expensive watches, one worth $100,000, from the luggage of hotel heiress Paris Hilton and rhythm and blues singer Keyshia Cole. Both were filed before Cooley had a chance to consider if they deserved tougher prosecution, wrote John K. Spillane, his chief deputy.

Assistants to Delgadillo denied that his office had done anything wrong, and noted their own frustration at trying to get Cooley to take cases they considered serious.

For example, city lawyers say:

* The district attorney rejected a case against a Northridge man accused of orally copulating his 12-year-old stepdaughter, finding that there was insufficient evidence that he committed the crime. The city attorney filed charges against the man, who had confessed to his wife. He pleaded no contest and is awaiting sentencing.

* The district attorney declined to prosecute a parking lot mogul whose company was accused of cheating the city out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax revenue from parking lots across Los Angeles. The city attorney filed a 310-count criminal complaint against Prestige Parking and its owner, Sohrab “Sam” Sahab. A spokeswoman for Cooley said she could find no record of the case ever being presented to the district attorney. The case is pending in Los Angeles Superior Court. Sahab has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

* The district attorney opted not to file charges against a construction company after a worker fell to his death from the fifth floor of an apartment building that lacked guardrails and covers for openings in the floor. The company, BLF Inc., and its owner, Brian Larrabure, were convicted of several violations of the state labor code and for willfully violating Cal/OSHA safety orders.

Larrabure and the company were fined $110,000 and Larrabure was sentenced to 45 days of Caltrans work.

Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for Cooley, said that the relative handful of cases mentioned by the city attorney are among more than 100,000 potential felonies reviewed annually by district attorney lawyers. Decisions to reject a case or refer it back to the city attorney are made on a case-by-case basis after a careful evaluation of the evidence and other factors, she said.

“We have maintained an excellent relationship with the various city attorneys’ offices in Los Angeles,” Gibbons added.

Loyola Law School professor Laurie Levenson said the dispute between Cooley and Delgadillo struck her as “a minor turf fight” that would have been best left private.

“The city attorneys want to be respected and the D.A.s want to be in charge. Sometimes they rub up against each other,” said Levenson, herself a former prosecutor in the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles. “I think the problem here is that there’s not very good communication between the two offices.”

Levenson said she wasn’t surprised that Cooley took a pass on the Yuba City police officer case.

“I think the D.A.s have in their mind that drunken behavior is what city attorneys are for,” she said. “That, and they’re not eager to go after cops.”

scott.glover@latimes.com