Jury Tosses Lawsuit Against D.A.

A jury Monday rejected a lawsuit filed by a veteran Orange County homicide prosecutor who had said he was fired for blowing the whistle on alleged wrongdoing in the district attorney’s office.

Mike Jacobs was seeking an estimated $1 million in damages in his suit against Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas; his wife, Kay; and his top aide, Chuck Middleton, saying he was wrongfully fired, demoted and defamed.

The case was moved out of Orange County and heard in Norwalk Superior Court. The panel of six men and six women, who sat through more than two weeks of testimony and deliberated about four days, found in favor of the defendants on questions they answered, with vote margins ranging from 9-3 to 12-0, the court clerk said. Unlike criminal cases, only three-fourths of a jury must agree in civil trials.

Jurors answered “no” to several key questions on their verdict sheets, including whether they believed Jacobs was dismissed or demoted for going to the state attorney general, and whether there was any outrageous conduct on the part of Rackauckas or Middleton, the court clerk said.

Jacobs has 60 days to file a motion for a new trial, should he choose. He declined to comment, referring questions to his attorney, Gary Bennett, who could not be reached. Rackauckas and Middleton could not be reached.

Jacobs, who helped campaign for Rackauckas during his first election in 1998, was an assistant district attorney when he made a secret trip to Sacramento in February 2001 with two fellow prosecutors to meet with officials from the state attorney general’s office.

They alleged that Rackauckas had put a stop to an investigation of a friend and campaign supporter, Patrick Di Carlo, and misused public funds through setting up a nonprofit charity. Jacobs also took the allegations to the press.

Those allegations helped launch an investigation of Rackauckas by the Orange County Grand Jury, which eventually accused the district attorney of widespread mismanagement, including intervening on behalf of Di Carlo and other campaign supporters, and punishing rivals.

Rackauckas has maintained that the allegations were fueled by disgruntled employees. The grand jury and the attorney general never found any criminal wrongdoing.

Jacobs, a 25-year-veteran, was put on paid leave and then fired in June 2001. He was reinstated last year under a ruling by an arbitrator but soon was transferred to South Court in Laguna Niguel and stripped of his title.

Still pending is a similar whistle-blower lawsuit Jacobs filed in federal court, contending that his 1st Amendment freedom of speech rights were violated. A trial-setting conference on that case is set for this summer.