Deputy D.A.’s Claim of Retaliation Will Go to Civil Service Panel

A veteran prosecutor’s claim of political retaliation by Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti will be allowed to proceed before the Civil Service Commission as long as no compromising information in a pending murder case is released, attorneys said Tuesday.

Superior Court Judge John Reid sealed all records in the case last week and did not withdraw his stunning order Tuesday. But an attorney for Deputy Dist. Atty. Lea Purwin D’Agostino and a representative of the district attorney’s office said they believe they can reach a compromise that will satisfy both sides.

After meeting for 20 minutes in chambers with lawyers for both sides, Reid took no action on his decision to seal D’Agostino’s entire Civil Service Commission case.

Reid, who has declined to comment, said through a Superior Court spokeswoman last week that he sealed the file because the district attorney’s office feared that releasing it could jeopardize the prosecution of accused killer Glen Rogers--a case D’Agostino had worked on for almost two years before being removed by Garcetti’s office.

But D’Agostino has insisted that the file does not contain any sensitive information, and that Garcetti’s action was aimed at undermining her Civil Service claim. D’Agostino has alleged that Garcetti removed her from the Rogers case because he was angry with her for urging Los Angeles City Atty. James Hahn to challenge Garcetti’s reelection--a charge the district attorney’s office has denied.

Without taking sides on her claim of retaliation, other attorneys have questioned the sweeping nature of the order by Reid, a former deputy district attorney who is now supervising judge of the Superior Court’s criminal division. Among those questioning Reid’s ruling was attorney Douglas E. Mirell, who was monitoring the case for the American Civil Liberties Union.

“The ACLU is always interested in open proceedings at all levels of government,” Mirell said Tuesday. “And it strikes us that this [order] is a fundamental and incredibly broad restriction on the public’s right of access to judicial and quasi-judicial proceedings.”

After Tuesday’s closed-door hearing with Reid, D’Agostino’s lawyer, Diane Marchant, said attorneys representing the prosecutor and Garcetti’s office were invited by Reid to propose a new order outlining which documents in the Civil Service Commission file might prove troublesome to the criminal prosecution of Rogers, who is on Florida’s death row awaiting extradition to California in the slaying of a Van Nuys woman.

“I think we are pretty close to agreement,” Marchant said. “I think we can design an order that all parties can live with.”

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Although refusing to say whether Reid asked for a revised court order, Deputy Dist. Atty. Steve Sowders said he is confident that the dispute over the Civil Service Commission files can be resolved without jeopardizing D’Agostino’s Civil Service case or the prosecution of Rogers.

“I am not comfortable repeating what the judge said in [chambers],” said Sowders, chief deputy for the district attorney’s employee relations division. “What I can tell you is that we will still go forward with the proceedings, and that Lea D’Agostino is going to be able to present everything that she wants” to the Civil Service Commission.