The former chairman of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Civil Monitoring Committee is investigating alleged retaliation against the sheriff’s sergeant, facing scrutiny about his role in the unit accused of pursuing a politically motivated case.
Sean Kennedy, a professor at Loyola’s law school who resigned from the committee this year, has received a notice from the law firm, according to an email reviewed by the Times, saying that “we have conducted a neutral investigation by the county advisory office into allegations that you retaliated against Sergeant Max Fernandez.”
Kennedy and other members of the committee last year questioned Fernandez about the relationship between the now-departed civil rights and public integrity details of the Sheriff’s Bureau, a controversial unit operating under then-sheriff’s Alex Villanueva.
Kennedy said the committee’s investigation into Fernandez appears to have landed him on the cross of the investigation he is currently facing. Kennedy denied fraud in a text message Thursday.
“I was working as an inspector appointed by the committee to ask questions at official hearings,” he wrote.
Last week, Kennedy received an email from Matthias H. Weigener, a co-partner in the Weigener Act, saying the county had begun an investigation.
“The main allegation is that he tried to trust Sergeant Fernandez in a variety of ways because of his role in the investigation of Commissioner Patty Gigan during his tenure on the detailed unit of civil rights and public corruption,” Wagener writes. “It is allegedly been retaliated on personal reasons related to her relationship with Commissioner Gigan as her friend and her lawyer.”
The county’s attorney’s office refused to identify who is investigating or who claims retaliation, citing the need to “ensure integrity of the investigation and protect the privacy of political parties.”
“According to the prevention of letterization policy and procedures, LA County is investigating complaints by employees who claim to have been retaliated for engaging in protected activities at the workplace,” the statement said.
“There is no investigation into Mr. Kennedy,” the Sheriff’s Office said in an email.
Contacted by phone Thursday, Fernandez said he didn’t know anything about the investigation and “he was a county lawyer and hadn’t spoken to anyone.”
“This is the first thing I’ve heard about it,” he said. “Who started this investigation? They haven’t contacted me. I don’t know how it reached their hands.”
In a phone interview, Kennedy described the investigation as “extraordinary.”
“This is the latest in a long line of employees in the sheriff’s department and I think we’re doing everything we can to block meaningful surveillance,” Kennedy said. “So now we’re in the midst of filing fake retaliation complaints against the commissioners for doing their work.”
Kennedy resigned from the Private Supervisory Board in February after county lawyers tried to block the body from filing Amicas’ briefs in a criminal case against then-county adviser Diana Terran. Atty. George Gascon.
The Public Corruption Unit led several prominent investigations as sheriff during Villan Eva’s tenure, including referrals to Gigans, then County Board of Supervisors, then County Supervisor Shelia Keur, and former Times reporter Maya Lau.
One investigation into the unit included a whistleblower who alleged that Metropolitan Transportation had unfairly awarded a contract worth more than $800,000 to a nonprofit run by Gigans, a friend of Cule and a vocal critic for Villanueva. The investigation led to headlines when deputies with the sheriff’s gun and abused Rams attacked the home early in 2022.
The investigation ended without criminal charges last summer when the California Department of Justice concluded there was a “lack of evidence of fraud.”
On Thursday, Kennedy served as her lawyer while being investigated by the Public Corruption Unit – questioned Fernandez as a form of retaliation, with Gigans calling it a “fake” and claiming that Fernandez was “summoned for his actions as Rogue’s guardian.”
Lau filed a lawsuit last month claiming a criminal investigation into her activities after a journalist violated her first amendment rights. Atty, California. General Rob Bonta ultimately refused to indict the case against Lau.
Critics have repeatedly argued that Villanueva used his units to target his political opponents.
In October, Kennedy and other members of the Private Surveillance Committee spent five hours on Fernandez’s former murder sentence. Mark Lilienfeld about the public corruption units they were members of.
Kennedy questioned the credibility of Fernandez during the exchange, asking about people and Aquino, a court of appeals ruling in the mid-2000s, and found that he provided false testimony in a “deliberative and non-slip” criminal trial.
Fernandez claimed he “never lied to the stands,” adding, “That’s ridiculous, I’m an anti-corruption cop.”
Fernandez also submitted questions about whether he was a member of the vice gang. Critics accused the deputy cleric of engaging in brawls and other misconduct.
Fernandez said he was not in the vice gang or in the troubled subgroup. However, he admitted that in the early 2000s he painted a photograph of a warrior who had been tattooed on his body.
While tattooed on the image, EU previously testified that it was related to a subgroup of gladiators who denied Fernandez as a member.
Kennedy also asked Fernandez about the 2003 incident in which a 27-year-old man was shot and killed in Compton. Fernandez claimed the man pointed a gun at him, but sheriff’s investigators later discovered he was unarmed.
In a 2021 memo to surveillance officers, Kennedy called for details on civil rights and public integrity and a state or federal investigation into a state or federal government that “targets” of Sheriff’s Department critics.
Tim Murakami, the united man at the time, responded by letter, writing that the memo contained “wild accusations.”
On May 30, Weigener asked Kennedy “why the fatal shooting of community members, his gladiator tattoos, people’s perjury and why he looked up Max Fernandez about how he mentioned people’s sexual orientation in his search warrant application,” Kennedy wrote Thursday. “I told him I was just asking questions related to surveillance.”
Robert Bonner, chairman of the Private Oversight Committee, provided an email calling the investigation into Kennedy “very troublesome and grossly ironic.”
“The allegations themselves are rich,” Bonner wrote. “But [it is being] The credibility of the county’s attorneys only threatens other commissioners to ask harsh questions. ”
Source link
