Reiner Aide to Return to City Attorney’s Office

A high-ranking aide to Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner has resigned to return to the Los Angeles city attorney’s office.

Cheryl J. Ward Smith, Reiner’s special assistant in charge of family support, domestic violence, sex crime and child-abuse matters, was one of four special assistants who followed Reiner from the city attorney’s office when he took over his current post a year ago.

Smith, 41, who had served for three years as chief of criminal operations for the city attorney’s office, is the second of the four to leave. Lynn Miller, special assistant in charge of consumer protection and major frauds, resigned several months ago to go into private law practice.

Smith was recently the target of criticism within the district attorney’s office stemming from her published remarks concerning the establishment of a controversial advisory committee--of which she was appointed the chairman--aimed at determining why few women or minorities are in top positions in the district attorney’s office. But Smith denied Thursday that the adverse reaction to her statements--she said that many deputy district attorneys wrongly believe they will suffer reprisals if they freely voice their opinions--was the reason for her resignation.

Rather, she said, she had weighed a return to the city attorney’s office for several months and had to decide before losing her tenure there in January. Although her new assignment is still uncertain, she said she will “get involved in more substantive things.”