State Lawyer Given Leave to Serve Prison Term Is Fired

A state Department of Transportation lawyer who was granted a leave of absence to serve a federal prison term for drug trafficking was fired Thursday by state Transportation Director Leo Trombatore.

It happened a few hours after the attorney, Douglas W. Brown, 41, informed his superiors in a telephone conversation that he intended to resign.

“I want no question to linger as to whether I will allow this kind of situation to occur again at Caltrans,” Trombatore said in a statement about Brown’s dismissal. “The integrity of Caltrans is of supreme importance, and I want to safeguard it.”

Caltrans spokesman Gene Berthelsen said Brown, serving a one-year sentence at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in San Diego, had “expressed his intent to resign” earlier in the day to Gordon Baca, Caltrans assistant legal division chief.

Disclosure this week that Brown had requested and received an eight-month unpaid leave of absence had clearly been an embarrassment for the administration of Gov. George Deukmejian, which prides itself on its tough-on-crime image.

Caltrans and administration spokesmen said the decision to grant the unpaid leave was made by agency legal affairs chief Robert F. Carlson, who they said acted without the approval of his superiors.

Carlson, who initially defended the action, was not available for comment.

Berthelsen said he did not know if Carlson would face a reprimand for the decision, but he said Trombatore knew nothing of the action until it was reported in newspapers. Bob Taylor, deputy press secretary to Deukmejian, said also that the governor’s office had no advanced knowledge that the $56,508-a-year attorney had been granted the leave and was surprised to learn of it.

“It was a matter of great concern to us when we heard about it,” Taylor said. “They’ve (Caltrans) been asked to give a full explanation of it.”

Caltrans officials were scheduled to meet with members of Deukmejian’s staff by week’s end to explain how the decision was made.

Brown, who started with Caltrans in June, 1968, as a student legal assistant based in San Diego, was convicted in November, 1983, of using a telephone for a narcotics transaction. But because of a series of appeals, he began serving his sentence only in June.

The charge, based on evidence from court-approved wiretaps on the phone at his Clairemont apartment, had stemmed from a major federal investigation of an international drug trafficking ring nicknamed “The Corporation.”

Brown had originally been charged with 15 counts, including conspiracy. But the jury acquitted him of one count, deadlocked on 12 others and convicted him only on the two counts of using the telephone for drug transactions.

Brown submitted a written request in May asking for the leave of absence for “personal reasons.”

State Department of Personnel Administration spokesman James Mossman said an unnamed Caltrans official telephoned his department before granting the leave and asked whether a state employee could legally be given an unpaid leave of absence while serving a jail sentence.

Mossman said the official was told that such a leave could be granted at the department’s discretion. But he said the person who made the request for Caltrans “did not go into the circumstances,” or identify Brown.

“We certainly did not bless that action,” Mossman said.