An LA County Superior Court judge has unsealed California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s arrest warrant affidavit in the case of Diana Teran, a top advisor to District Attorney George Gascón, who was charged with 11 felonies last April. The affidavit was unsealed by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Mary Lou Villar in response to LA Public Press’ successful motion to unseal.
The unsealed affidavit undermines Bonta’s claim that Teran illegally used confidential disciplinary records of 11 deputies because at least two of the deputies’ disciplinary records were made public by the deputies themselves in lawsuits that resulted in public California Court of Appeals decisions in 2014 and 2015.
James Spertus, Teran’s defense attorney, asserts the discipline records of the other nine deputies are also public records.
The warrant affidavit reveals new details in a high profile case stemming from allegations that Teran, while employed by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office, illegally used confidential disciplinary records of 11 deputies that she allegedly previously obtained while she was employed by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department as a constitutional policing advisor.
“What this unsealing reveals is that Rob Bonta doesn’t understand public court documents,” said Susan E. Seager, the UC Irvine law school professor who filed the motion to unseal on behalf of LA Public Press. “We found that two of the 11 deputies placed their own disciplinary records squarely in the public domain in public California court of appeal decisions published in 2014 and 2015. All the details of the deputies’ misconduct is in public, for all to see. What a joke.”
Seager calls on Bonta’s office to return to court, and request the names of the nine other sheriff’s deputies be made public.
According to the warrant affidavit, Teran allegedly made a list of deputies who “shared in common the fact that they were all subject to administrative investigations and civil service proceedings in the past,” and tracked the proceedings over a number of years.
In 2021, as an employee in the district attorney’s office, Teran then allegedly provided names of deputies to be included in the office’s Brady or ORWITS databases. The Brady list consists of peace officers with disciplinary histories that may call into question their ability to be a reliable witness in court. The ORWITS database, standing for Officer and Recurrent Witness Information Tracking System, is similar, though can include non-sworn personnel, too.
The affidavit alleges that 11 deputies were not found in the public record, meaning that Teran could only have known of their discipline proceedings because of her prior access.
In the affidavit, investigating CA Department of Justice special agent Tony Baca wrote: “The following are the names that do not appear in either public records request responses or media articles, and form the basis of the 11 counts in the complaint, respectively.”
But the disciplinary records of two deputies – Liza Gonzalez and Thomas Negron – were not confidential at all. Bonta’s office agreed to not redact those names in the unsealed affidavit.
In fact, LA Public Press quickly found two public California Court of Appeal decisions in which Negron and Gonzalez placed their disciplinary history in the public record by filing public lawsuits unsuccessfully challenging their discipline.
Thomas Negron was discharged following arrests in 2011 for DUI and driving with a suspended license, but appealed the decision and lost, according to a public Court of Appeal decision published in 2015 – three years before Teran allegedly accessed his “confidential” disciplinary records in 2018.
Liza Gonzalez was discharged following an internal affairs investigation decision that she had falsely denied witnessing an assault by two deputies on a firefighter in 2007. She appealed the decision and lost, according to a Court of Appeal decision published in 2014, four years before Teran allegedly accessed her “confidential” files in 2018.
Last month, LA Public Press filed a motion to unseal the arrest warrant and learned that an investigatory grand jury had been convened on the case. Judge Villar signed off on the release of a copy of the arrest warrant affidavit on Tuesday. The names of nine deputies were redacted.
Teran’s arraignment is set for July. By email, the attorney general’s office declined to comment. The sheriff’s department referred LA Public Press to the AG’s office.
In a statement, a representative for the LA District Attorney’s office wrote the office has repeatedly asked for additional information from the attorney general “to ensure the integrity of our discovery compliance system. To date we have not received additional information as requested.”
Spertus, Teran’s defense attorney, joined the LA Public Press motion last month and argued in court on Monday against redactions to the publicly available version of the arrest warrant affidavit. He told the judge he believed that any information the AG’s office was redacting had already been made public due to documents that sheriff’s deputies had filed in court to protest their misconduct discipline.
On Tuesday evening, Spertus reaffirmed his position.
“This affidavit reveals what I suspected when the case was first changed. That every document used as probable cause for the count’s charge is a public record,” he said.
“To think that Diana was not acting within the scope of her employment shows just a vindictive spirit, not a true legitimate investigatory effort. These people bought into the [former LA County Sheriff Alex] Villanueva characterization of anybody who polices the police is a bad person. And that’s not what you would expect from the attorney general,” said Spertus.
This story has been updated with a comment from the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office, and the sheriff’s department’s referral to the state attorney general’s office.
Read the affidavit: