SEAL BEACH : Grand Jury Studies Alleged Firings

The Orange County Grand Jury is investigating accusations that two Seal Beach Police Department employees were unlawfully fired, city officials said Tuesday.

Mayor Victor Grgas and Police Chief Bill Stearns said the Police Department has been the subject of the inquiry since September.

The panel also requested information in December on the number of health retirements granted by the department since January, 1985, said City Manager Robert Nelson. Eight Police Department employees have retired on disability since then.

The three all said they were surprised to learn of the investigation and knew of no mismanagement in the department.

Stearns said the panel had restricted the interviews to former employees and area residents. But panel members on Monday asked current employees of the department to be made available for interviews, he said.

Former employee Carolyn Lindberg, 56, complained to the grand jury last June that she was unjustly fired several months earlier, and she alleged nepotism in the department.

Lindberg, who had worked for the department for 26 years, said she testified before the panel in September that Stearns fired the former court liaison and hired his wife, Michelle, into the position soon after he was made acting chief of the department in 1987.

Lindberg said she testified that Stearns’ wife didn’t like delivering court evidence and property, including blood and urine samples, to laboratories, so that part of the court liaison’s job was assigned to Lindberg. After about a year and a half, she also refused to do it.

Stearns said that Lindberg quit, but Lindberg said she refused to quit and was fired.

“He didn’t want to make it look like I lost my job because of his wife,” she said. “I was definitely fired.”

Stearns said Tuesday: “Obviously, I don’t think she was unfairly treated. I don’t think I’ve unfairly treated any employee.”

Stearns added that he didn’t believe the department had granted an inordinate amount of medical retirements. Officers may retire on medical disability only if a doctor declares them incapable of continuing in the job. The department has no control over the physicians’ decisions, Sterns said.