Rival Seeks Audit of Reiner Security Tab

Deputy Dist. Atty. Lea Purwin D’Agostino called Thursday for a county audit of the estimated $400,000 spent on personal security for Ira Reiner during the first three years of his tenure as district attorney.

D’Agostino, who is on vacation from her job while campaigning to unseat Reiner in the June 7 election, called the expenditure a “flagrant abuse and misuse of . . . taxpayers’ funds for Reiner’s personal benefit.”

In a letter to county Auditor-Controller Mark H. Bloodgood, D’Agostino demanded a “full and complete” accounting of the money spent on personal security for Reiner and his family.

She also called for a “complete criminal and civil investigation” by the state attorney general, an investigation by the State Bar and “full reimbursement” by Reiner for “funds he has used for his own personal expenses.”

The accusations were leveled at Reiner after a report in the Los Angeles Herald Examiner revealed that the cost of protecting Reiner was 50% to more than 100% greater than that spent on his two most recent predecessors--Robert Philibosian and John Van de Kamp--and generally higher than that expended on district attorneys in other large U.S. cities.

The newspaper also reported that unidentified sources said Reiner’s guards performed a variety of personal duties for Reiner, such as picking up his laundry and staking out parking places for him at football games.

Reiner would not personally respond Thursday to the report or D’Agostino’s demands, saying through a spokesman that the district attorney’s Bureau of Investigation chief Jack White is in charge of all security matters.

White, in an interview, defended the higher level of expenditures as necessary in a increasingly violent society and a county in which Reiner has “taken some very strong stands.”

“I have been the one who assigned security . . . (and) I believe the money has been spent very wisely,” White said, adding that he does not see any reason to change his procedures for protecting the district attorney and his family.

LAPD Career Officer

White, who has been chief of security for the district attorney’s office for three years and earlier was a career officer with the Los Angeles Police Department, achieving the rank of commander, said his office had a routine annual audit in October and the only recommendation from the Board of Supervisors was that he needed more manpower.

He said Reiner accepted the sometimes round-the-clock protection “at our insistence. . . . He considers it an intrusion.”

District attorney spokesman Schuyler Sprowles said D’Agostino’s accusations were “kind of predictable” and her motives “fairly transparent” coming in an election campaign. Besides Reiner and D’Agostino, Deputy Dist. Atty. Iver Bye and lawyer Alfred Calabro are also running for district attorney.

Auditor-Controller Bloodgood said in an interview late Thursday that he had not received D’Agostino’s letter. He said: “Someone demanding something may not be all that significant. . . . As auditor-controller I set my own priorities.” He said a special audit would require an order from the Board of Supervisors.

A spokesman for Atty. Gen. Van de Kamp said his office would be “happy to review the allegation, but it appears to be a matter of policy for the district attorney’s office as to the level of security necessary.”

White is known as “a no-nonsense, full-speed-ahead guy who wants to be damn sure his boss is protected,” said one law enforcement official who asked to remain anonymous. “His predecessor was not so gung-ho” and that may explain part of the difference in the level of expense, the official said.