South Gate to Pay Fired Officer $4 Million

In the latest blow to beleaguered South Gate, a Los Angeles jury found Monday that the city should pay more than $4 million to a former police officer who said he was wrongly dismissed.

Almost immediately, some City Council members said they would appeal the verdict in favor of former Assistant Chief Mark Van Holt. The award would be insupportable in the predominantly Latino city of 100,000, whose annual budget is $28 million, they said.

“A judgment that size would be devastating to us,” said Councilman Bill DeWitt. “There are a lot of services that would have to be looked at.”

South Gate in recent years has been buffeted by political crises, including the prosecution of former city Treasurer Albert Robles, who was convicted last year of soliciting more than $1.8 million in bribes from municipal contractors.

Prosecutors argued that Robles and his allies nearly steered the city into bankruptcy and bled more than $12 million from its coffers. Robles and three council members were driven from office in 2003 after a raucous recall election.

Last week, city Treasurer Rudy Navarro, a reformer who rode into office on a pledge to clean up after the earlier corruption scandal, admitted that he had lied about holding a college degree.

Van Holt and other top police officials were fired in the aftermath of the recall. The new City Council members said the officials were overpaid and rescinded their contracts. Van Holt, who was hired in 2002 from a job as administrative sergeant in the Maywood Police Department, earned $120,000 plus expenses each year.

In his lawsuit, Van Holt contended that the city had breached his five-year contract and was retaliating against him for uncovering wrongdoing in the Police Department.

Brad Gage, Van Holt’s attorney, said the officer had been investigating and disciplining wayward police officers, including one who followed a 16-year-old girl to school and another who forced a prostitute to have sex in his car.

But Councilman Henry Gonzalez said Holt was not punished for any reform efforts.

“It was a political ploy,” Gonzalez said.

Gage said that the “terrible” way that South Gate officials treated his client affected his reputation and ability to get other jobs. Van Holt now works for the Santa Ana School Police.