Following the filing of felony charges against a Los Angeles police officer for recording his co-workers’ derogatory remarks, District Attorney Nathan Hochman is facing criticism from Mayor Karen Bass about that decision.
Officer Daniel Flores, 43, faces 16 felony counts of eavesdropping after the recordings were deemed by the District Attorney’s Office to have been obtained illegally. In those recordings, fellow officers in the LAPD’s Training Division were heard using slurs and making derogatory remarks about Mexican, Asian and Black people, as well as women. The recordings were made in 2024.
If convicted, Flores could face up to 13 years in state prison.
Flores, on Monday, pleaded not guilty to the charges. He remains out of custody on his own recognizance.
In a statement released late last week, Bass criticized the decision to charge Flores and said doing so would “deter whistleblowers and discourage officers from using the appropriate reporting channels in the future.
“The bottom line is that the alleged racist, sexist, and homophobic comments made are outrageous and unacceptable,” the statement read.
Hochman was not immediately made available for comment Monday.
Flores’ attorney Alan Jackson, told reporters after Monday’s hearing that the prosecution of the case “sends a really, really scary message. And that message is if you expose racism and sexism and bigotry and misogyny and bias within the walls of the LAPD, then you’re going to be…the one exposed to potential state prison because of a prosecution like this.”
But Hochman, in a 27-page brief filed in court and made public on Friday, said Flores’ intentions were not “altruistic” and that evidence against Flores will show that Flores had participated in the conversations and even initiated some, then started his recording device after he had made his comments, or edited recordings to take his comments out.
“We deplore the sexist, homophobic and racist remarks made by certain LAPD employees, and they should be held accountable for such statements,” Hochman said in a statement announcing the charges last week. “However, in our all-party consent state, where California has been one of the nation’s leaders in protecting privacy and deterring illegal eavesdropping for over a half a century, one cannot simply choose to break the law because one wants to pursue a personal agenda.”
That agenda, Hochman wrote in his brief, included using the recordings to sue the LAPD, which Flores allegedly referred to as winning the “LAPD Lottery.” Three colleagues noted that Flores allegedly had said the LAPD has “deep pockets” and that he wanted to make “easy money for no work.”
Some, in Hochman’s brief, accused Flores of being a habitual liar, with one claiming she confronted him several times regarding fabricated stories about his background, including claims about playing college baseball, working civil unrest skirmish lines and wearing a “Distinguished Expert” shooting medal, which she believed led him to target her and record her more frequently.
The District Attorney’s Office accused Flores of intentionally editing the recordings to leave out his comments and reactions to what was being said. Flores allegedly never objected or protested any of the remarks in the 122 recordings, nor did he cooperate with the LAPD Internal Affairs Division’s investigation after he anonymously submitted the recordings to the Office of the Inspector General.
“In several of the conversations, Flores participated in the insensitive banter,” a statement from the District Attorney’s Office said.
Flores, in June, filed a lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles alleging harassment due to a hostile work environment and seeking monetary damages.
In the complaint, which included several examples of the alleged derogatory remarks, Flores alleged the “constant barrage of derogatory comments at work negatively affected Plaintiff to the point he experienced frequent symptoms of anxiety, dizziness, dry heaving, and vomiting.”
The complaint also said Flores “conducted what he believed to be a lawful investigation as a police officer in order to report the LAPD employees making the racist, sexist, homophobic and other derogatory comments to Internal Affairs.”
He submitted the complaints to the Office of the Inspector General on Jan. 18, 2025, the complaint said.
All 16 colleagues said they were unaware they were being recorded and had not given Flores permission to record them, officials said.
Jackson, Flores’ attorney, said after Monday’s hearing that there had been widespread countywide, statewide and even national criticism of Hochman’s decision to file charges against Flores, whom Jackson said “did exactly that which we would expect him to do as an officer of the law, as a peace officer.”
City News Service contributed to this report.