Totten to Lead Statewide D.A. Assn.

The head of the felony division for the Ventura County district attorney’s office was selected Thursday to head the state’s top association for prosecutors.

Gregory D. Totten, a local prosecutor since 1982, was named executive director of the California District Attorneys Assn. A dozen other attorneys throughout the state were considered for the position.

“I’m real excited,” Totten, 39, said Thursday afternoon. “I’m a little bit anxious because we will be moving to a new community.”

The post will require Totten, his wife, Irene, and their 4-year-old daughter, Claire, to relocate to the Sacramento area, he said.

The post is considered important because the association serves as the main voice for California’s prosecutors. The job also will require Totten to serve as the association’s chief spokesman and lobbyist.

Ventura County Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury said Totten’s new position is “damn prestigious.”

Still, Totten’s departure will be difficult for the office, Bradbury said.

“He is a very talented manager and well-liked by the staff,” Bradbury said. “He exudes integrity, credibility. He’s the epitome of a prosecutor, and I’m going to miss him terribly.”

Totten said he applied for the new job because he has found the legislative process fascinating since getting to see it up close on a federal level when his parents lived near Washington in 1977.

He also said that while he has enjoyed being a local prosecutor, he wants to deal with some of the challenges facing the law enforcement community on a statewide level.

Last spring, Totten was one of the prosecutors who helped send 23-year-old Gregory Scott Smith to death row. Smith was convicted of kidnaping, raping and strangling an 8-year-old Northridge boy whose body was found in a field near Simi Valley.

“It was a brutal murder and I worked long and hard on that case with (fellow prosecutor) Pete Kossoris,” Totten said.