A longtime member of the Civilian Oversight Commission, which oversees the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, submitted a resignation letter this week after he said Los Angeles County attorneys threatened to report him to the court for “misrepresentation” for filing a legal brief on behalf of the commission in a criminal case involving a former assistant district attorney under then-DA George Gascon.
Sean Kennedy, a member of the commission since it was formed in 2016, said in his letter of resignation dated Tuesday that the threat by county lawyers “crossed a personal red line.
“The county counsel has made meaningful civilian oversight of the LASD nearly impossible by imposing all efforts to clarify the COC’s independence and by advising the sheriff to withhold requested confidential documents that the COC needs to review to make recommendations about policies and procedures,” Kennedy wrote in the Feb. 18 letter read aloud by commission chair Robert Bonner during the commission’s Thursday meeting.
Though Kennedy submitted his letter to both the commission and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, the other eight members of the commission voted during its Thursday’s meeting to request that the Board of Supervisors not accept Kennedy’s resignation until they can hear from him directly about what has transpired.
Kennedy submitted the letter after he filed the brief on behalf of the commission in the criminal case against Diana Teran, who faces six felony charges of unauthorized copy or use of computer data in relation to accessing confidential LASD personnel files while working under Gascon.
In the court document, Kennedy wrote that LASD leadership “began using this prosecution as an excuse not to produce requested documents to COC ad hoc committees,” over concerns employees would be put at risk of prosecution by the Attorney General “based on the same theory under which Teran is being prosecuted.”
Last week, the COC voted unanimously to have Kennedy file the brief on behalf of the commission, but the county’s attorneys replied with a four-page letter saying in part that the COC did not have authority to do so without permission from the county Board of Supervisors.
County attorneys also raised the issue during last week’s COC meeting, but Bonner, a former federal judge, disagreed, saying the COC had filed such a brief once before without any blowback, though it was not in a criminal case. The county attorneys said Kennedy could file the brief in his individual capacity.
Undeterred by the county attorneys’ comments, Kennedy and Bonner submitted the brief on Feb. 18.
In addition to his position as a commissioner, Kennedy is also a professor at Loyola Marymount Center for Juvenile Law and Policy and a former federal public defender.
The case against Teran has been politically charged. She was brought on as an assistant district attorney over ethics and integrity operations in January 2021.
After charges were filed against her by the state Attorney General’s Office last year, Gascon said in a statement that his office had developed a “protocol that ensured we complied with our constitutional obligations under Brady — which requires us to turn over potentially exculpatory evidence to the defense, a category that includes law enforcement’s prior misconduct — while simultaneously complying with state and federal law around privacy.”
Teran had previously worked as a constitutional policing adviser with LASD and had allegedly accessed computer data including numerous confidential peace officer files in 2018. State prosecutors accused her of impermissibly using that data at the DA’s office by passing the files on to another prosecutor.
LASD began investigating Teran in 2019 along with Inspector General Max Huntsman for allegedly accessing confidential personnel files of high-ranking sheriff’s executives, including then-Sheriff Alex Villanueva.
Then-Los Angeles County Undersheriff Tim Murakami told ABC7 at the time that Teran had downloaded the confidential personnel records on behalf of the Inspector General’s Office a few days before Villanueva was sworn into office in late 2018.
Bonner, during Thursday’s meeting said Kennedy had informed him that he planned to file the brief and then resign and that Bonner attempted to dissuade him from doing so, he said. Bonner said he would not, and could not, accept Kennedy’s resignation.
Multiple commissioners and members of the public spoke during Thursday’s meeting, praising Kennedy’s contributions to the COC, particularly his work leading the commission’s efforts to identify and get rid of deputy cliques and gangs.