Duffy Hit With Steep Fine in Deputy’s Reassignment

Sheriff John Duffy maliciously took a deputy off his teaching job and must help pay $175,000 of a $200,000 award, a San Diego Superior Court jury decided Friday.

In addition, Duffy was ordered to appear in court Monday to discuss his net worth because the verdict entitles former Sheriff’s Sgt. John DeAngelis to pursue additional damages designed solely to punish Duffy, said DeAngelis’ attorney, Thomas R. Laube.

Duffy wrongfully removed DeAngelis from his teaching position at the Sheriff’ Academy, the jury decided. It found that the sheriff had vengefully made the move after DeAngelis testified at a civil service hearing on behalf of another deputy.

Duffy must pay his share of the $175,000 out of his own pocket, as well as any further damages, Laube said. The county will pay the rest, though the jury did not specify what the split of responsibility would be.

Duffy’s annual salary is more than $93,000, which is public record. The sheriff, who has announced he will retire next year at the end of his current term, has downplayed suspicions that he has extensive outside earnings. He could not be reached Friday for comment.

It was unclear Friday whether Duffy would appear Monday in court. The county lawyer who defended him in the suit, Cheryl A. Geyerman, declined comment on the case, and a sheriff’s spokesman, Sgt. Glenn Revell, said he did not know whether Duffy had been notified of the hearing.

When Duffy announced his intention last December to retire at the close of his current term, he said that a factor in his decision was media questioning about whether public money helped finance a security system at his new Scripps Ranch home.

Duffy said last year that no county building materials or county employees were used to building the home. Court documents suggested the home has a “safe room” from which the sheriff could conduct department business in an emergency.

Last year, the county assessor’s office put the total value of the custom-designed home, as well as the half-acre lot on which it sits, at $576,246, according to news reports.

Citing city building records, those reports said the home features a swimming pool, a spa, 3 1/2 bathrooms, a three-car garage and 265-foot balcony.

Duffy and his wife, Linda, a county probation officer, have a $615,000 mortgage on the home and said they could easily afford it on their county salaries, according to reports.

The sheriff also came under criticism last year for not disclosing that he had earned income as a consultant. In response, he held an unusual press conference last November at which he waved tax returns and said that he had earned only $8,222 from 1983 through 1988 on outside jail study and research projects.

He also said then that he had earned a few thousand dollars as a consultant in 1989.

The sheriff also disclosed last summer that he was not ready to pay back a $36,000 personal loan from three political supporters outside the department, which was given him in 1988 on condition he pay it back in a year. It was unclear Friday whether Duffy has since paid the money back.

Laube declined Friday to say how much money he would ask for DeAngelis at the hearing Monday, saying that, since the jury still has to consider the award, he did not wish to speculate. Requests for this kind of unusual award, called punitive damages, are often linked by lawyers to the net worth of the person or corporation ordered to pay the money, he said.

DeAngelis, 38, now a lieutenant with the Coronado Police Department, also declined to pick a sum. But he said the initial $200,000 verdict was satisfying.

“Obviously, I feel vindicated,” he said. “I feel (the verdict) will protect other people in the Sheriff’s Department from retribution when they testify honestly.”

DeAngelis, who worked for the Sheriff’s Department for eight years, filed the suit in February, 1988, a few days after he resigned from the force, prompted by his removal from the academy.

In addition to his duties as a sergeant, DeAngelis had been assigned to teach at the Sheriff’s Academy on “defensive tactics” in situations involving force. That additional job paid an average of $2,500 annually, Laube said.

In May, 1987, DeAngelis was called to testify at a Civil Service Commission hearing involving an appeal brought by Deputy Benny Cruz, who had been suspended on charges of using excessive force on jail inmates. The Sheriff’s Department runs the county jails.

DeAngelis said at the June 8, 1987, hearing that Cruz, who recently had been trained in defensive tactics, did not use excessive force. In court documents he filed in the case, DeAngelis said this testimony angered top sheriff’s officials.

The Civil Service Commission ruled in favor of Cruz, according to court documents.

Meanwhile, the Sheriff’s Department internal affairs division filed a formal complaint against DeAngelis, accusing him of teaching recruits to use excessive force. Duffy personally directed the investigation, court documents indicate.

High-ranking sheriff’s officials ordered DeAngelis removed from his teaching position in July, 1987, Laube said.

Between that time and the end of the year, DeAngelis contended in his suit, high-ranking sheriff’s officials harassed him, reprimanded him, issued a two-day suspension and eventually recommended that he be dismissed from the department.

The internal affairs investigator eventually concluded that DeAngelis’ academy teachings had not been inconsistent with department policy on force, court documents said. However, in February, 1988, with the recommendation that he be fired still in effect, DeAngelis resigned, documents said.

At the trial, Duffy testified that DeAngelis was removed from his job at the academy as a result of his teaching philosophy, Laube said.

The jury found that DeAngelis’ testimony on behalf of Cruz was a “substantial factor” in the department’s decision to remove him from his teaching job, and that he was removed without good cause.