Another Orange County prosecutor wins multi-million verdict in harassment case

A jury in San Diego County Tuesday handed down a $3.5-million decision in favor of a prosecutor in her lawsuit against Orange County stemming from harassment claims involving a former high-ranking executive in the district attorney’s office.

The jury returned its verdict on Tuesday morning in the lawsuit filed by Bethel Cope-Vega. The claims came out of harassment allegations involving former prosecutor Gary LoGalbo, who served as best man at Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer’s wedding. He retired during an investigation into harassment claims and has since died.

The verdict follows a victory for Tracy Miller last year in her lawsuit against the county, Spitzer and his former top assistant, Shawn Nelson, now an Orange County Superior Court judge. Miller said she was forced to retire due to harassment from Spitzer and Nelson and won $3 million in economic damages as well as $25,000 from Spitzer in punitive damages.

Miller’s attorneys won $1.5 million in fees. With settlements for two other prosecutors amounting to a total of $1.3 million, that brings the total losses for the county to $9.3 million with three more lawsuits still to go to trial.

It is unknown how much the firm representing the county — Sheppard- Mullin — has billed the county.

The county’s risk-assessment attorneys had negotiated a settlement for about $6 million that would have resolved all of the cases, but the O.C. Board of Supervisors rejected it in August 2021 and hired Sheppard-Mullin to defend the county.

The cases were all moved to San Diego because of Spitzer’s status as Orange County’s top prosecutor and Nelson’s position on the Orange County bench.

Miller alleged in her lawsuit that she was forced to retire due to a hostile work environment after she tried to shield younger prosecutors in the office who reported LoGalbo for sexual harassment.

The county hired attorney Elisabeth A. Frater to delve into the LoGalbo allegations and she issued a 162-page report in May 2021 sustaining the claims of harassment.

The report detailed numerous accounts from multiple witnesses regarding lewd and inappropriate sexual and racial comments they said LoGalbo made to co-workers.

The Orange County district attorney’s office sent the report to everyone in the office, which essentially outed Miller and other accusers, so Frater was hired to conduct a follow-up investigation to determine if that violated county policy. Frater said it did.

Spitzer blamed the office of county counsel for declaring the report a public document that could be released to the media.

Kimberly Edds, a spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office, said in a statement that the office “has always supported the victims of sexual harassment and their right to sue and receive compensation for their damages.”

She added in the statement that the district attorney’s office “continues to advocate for all its employees to be free of discrimination and harassment. This verdict is about the harassment engaged in by a former senior assistant deputy district attorney; it is also a condemnation of the actions of county counsel. He hired an outside investigator who threatened our employees with termination if they did not participate in the investigation and promised them confidentiality. Then county counsel went on to publicly humiliate and victim-shame these women by deeming the confidential report a public document, failing to adequately protect their identities in that document and then releasing it to the media. We are not in any way surprised by this verdict or the dollar amount since county counsel broke its promises to these women and betrayed their trust.”

A spokeswoman for the county declined to comment.

Orange County Supervisor Don Wagner said the county’s attorneys took issues with some of the decisions from the San Diego County court judge overseeing the trial.

“There were issues with the way court handled some of the evidence that was just tried,” Wagner said. “I’m not prepared to say what we’ll do in response ... But I don’t believe the board believes damages are close to what the juries are rewarding, in part because none of the employees lost their jobs. We recognize that there are some evidentiary questions with the respect to the most recent trial that I am anticipating we will take up on appeal.”

Vega said in the lawsuit she worked next to LoGalbo’s office and was “exposed to inappropriate sexually harassing comments on a daily basis, all of which created a hostile and offensive work environment.”

She accused LoGalbo of “leering’’ at her” to the point where coworkers would notice.”

She said he would comment on her clothing and tell her “he knew the color of her underwear,” and that he would dream of her in the nude. LoGalbo would call her at night to ask her what she was wearing, she alleged in the suit.