Torrance Police Chief Goes on Paid Leave

Torrance Police Chief Joseph DeLadurantey has taken an administrative leave only days after a former police clerk embarrassed the department by acknowledging the embezzlement of $72,000 from its property room.

While city officials declined comment on DeLadurantey’s leave, sources said the 53-year-old chief asked for time off because the embezzlement caused a number of city officials to question his supervision of the county’s fourth-largest police force.

DeLadurantey has come under fire because of a breezy management style that critics say has not done enough to maintain accountability in the 237-officer department.

A former LAPD captain, DeLadurantey became Torrance’s chief in December 1991 and immediately encountered resentment from some longtime Torrance officers who had hoped that one of their own would head the department. In his efforts to mollify such officers, critics contend, DeLadurantey gave too wide a berth to some top staffers. And that, critics say, led to a lack of accountability that became obvious during the embezzlement, which spanned a three-year period before it was discovered by police.

“This has been building for some time,” said one source, who described the chief’s sudden leave as a “cooling down” period for DeLadurantey and the City Council. “The bottom line is that the department head is responsible for everything that happens in an organization.”

DeLadurantey could not be reached for comment.

City Manager LeRoy Jackson confirmed that the chief last Friday asked for two weeks off with pay from his $119,670-a-year job. But Jackson would not discuss the reason. “Those are personnel matters,” he said.

The city manager declined comment on whether the council is considering reprimanding DeLadurantey over the embezzlement.

On Feb. 27, John Lakatos pleaded no contest to felony embezzlement for taking $72,000--most of it in cash--from the department’s property room between 1993 and September 1996, Deputy Dist. Atty. James Cosper said. Lakatos, 32, is scheduled to be sentenced April 8.

“The theft came to our attention when the police chief called us personally,” Cosper said.

Torrance police investigated the crime after a person showed up at the Police Department to pick up personal belongings and cash that had been confiscated during his arrest.

Lakatos told a police detective that the money and belongings had already been returned, Cosper said. But the detective discovered that was not true and an investigation was launched. It revealed that Lakatos had been taking cash and other items from the property room for three years, Cosper said. Police spokesman Sgt. Ed La Londe would not comment about the chief’s leave, but said DeLadurantey is well regarded by the department’s officers for his efforts to begin community-based policing. Since his arrival more than five years ago, DeLadurantey has assigned police officers to each high school campus to make sure any problems with drugs, truancies, gangs or weapons are quickly solved.

He also has divided officers among four geographic areas of the city to solve problems brought to them by residents, La Londe said.

But even as he has received solid marks over the years for his community relations work, the affable DeLadurantey also has encountered criticism for a management style that some see as too lax. “He gives the captains too much free reign” over day-to-day operations, one source said.

And while some applaud the longtime law enforcement officer’s many connections to police groups and civic organizations, DeLadurantey also has come under fire by others for spending what they consider too much time away from his office.

But for some of his supporters and critics, DeLadurantey’s current problems boil down to the fact that he did not rise to chief through the department’s ranks.

“He’s an outsider,” said one city official who contended that some of DeLadurantey’s officers have been “digging a grave” for him for years.

Added Eleanor Montano, a longtime Wilmington activist and county Human Relations Commissioner, who has known DeLadurantey since his days with the LAPD: “It’s all very unfair . . . they are still living with the ‘good ol boy’ system [in Torrance]. . . . I just hope he can hang in there. But you wonder if it’s worth it.”