Corruption in the Los Angeles County Civil Service Commission

The following is taken from the Los Angeles Civil Service Commission Website at:

http://civilservice.lacountycommissions.info/default.asp

“Welcome to Civil Service Commission. The Civil Service Commission is a Charter-mandated body charged with acting as the appellate body for major disciplinary actions, discharges, reductions, suspensions in excess of five days, and discrimination complaints filed by County employees within the Civil Service System. The Commission also hears appeals of scored portions of examinations. Additionally, the Civil Service Commission serves as the administrative appeals body for a number of cities that directly contract with the County.”

All of the members of the Commission are appointed by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

DUTIES

“To serve as an appellate body for appeal of allegations of political discrimination and for

discrimination based on race, sex, color, national origin, religious opinions or affiliations

or handicap made by County employees regardless of status, and by applicants for

employment, and discharges and reductions of permanent employees.”

The audio recording that I have published with this article is my appeal of the decision that was made by a Commission Hearing Officer John D. Harris, who is a former LA County Superior Court judge to sustain a 15 day suspension that was imposed on me by my former Regional Administrator Iris Courtney. Iris Courtney, is the Regional administrator of the Department of Children And Family Services offices at the Wateridge site in Los Angeles, California.

Her justification for my suspension was based on a detention (forced removal of minors) that I was involved with of several children from a Black American family in Los Angeles, California that occurred on February 9, 2011. A few weeks after this detention I was placed on desk duty for months by my Assistant Regional Administrator Edward Bielecki, with no explanation as to why I was under investigation other than I did not call the hotline. This "hotline" in DCFS is used for emergency situations.

Looking back I see why they kept me in the dark for so long. They were preventing me from doing an investigation and gathering evidence to defend myself. When all of the evidence came out against me, I found out that some affidavits had been filed against me from the social workers that worked with me on the detention and the two supervisors that were giving orders during the detention. 

After close examination of the documents, it is obvious that the description of the events of the two days in question were conflicting. Some very obvious perjuries could have been determined if Internal Affairs had done a proper investigation of all of the evidence that includes the cell phone records from all of the employees involved and by getting statements from the family that was the focus of the intervention to remove their children into foster care.

My former Regional Administrator Iris Courtney, testified at my Civil Service hearings that she reviewed all of the evidence against me and made the decision to issue a 15 day suspension without doing any kind of investigation or getting any statements from me about the events of the two days in question. 

Before I was suspended, I did come to her office to complain with my union representative that my Assistant Regional Administrator Edward Bielecki, had ordered a frame up job by the social workers and supervisors that were involved in the detention. Iris Courtney along with the manager of the Employee relations office and the manager of the Performance Management offices all said they were not going to take any actions to stop this corruption.

At the hearing that lasted three days, several social workers and two supervisors came to the hearings and lied under oath against me! The thing about it was that their testimony was stupid, very conflicting of each other and of their written statements. The county never did get the cell phone records or did an interview of the family that was involved in this sloppy detention. They also did not get the court report log of my direct supervisor Claudia McClain or any witness from the maintenance staff that were present that night!

To sum up their ridiculous testimony:

•  They charged me with not calling the Hotline to have the children detained. 
• None of the other social workers involved in the detention, the supervisors or the Assistant Regional Administrator called the Hotline but I was the only one that got suspended!
•      The white social worker CSW Hagerty, stated that she did not know where I was during the detention.
•  CSW Hagerty, had directed me to wait down the street until the police came. CSW Meighan testified that both of them told me to wait out of sight until the police came.
•      They alleged that they could not reach me on my cell phone.
•  Yet CSW Hagerty stated that she called me on my cell phone and she knew I was down the street.
•      They alleged that I refused to do the detention court report.
•  My supervisor McClain testified that I submitted a detention report by 5:00pm. She gave false testimony that my detention report was the only one that she worked on that night. Supervising social worker McClain had many court reports that she reviewed including one from Social Worker Meighan that night and that is why we were working on the report until about 12:00 AM the next day. Supervisor McClain testified that detention reports are never late in DCFS. Detention reports are late all of the time in DCFS and social workers do not get suspended for this.
•       Meighan and my supervisor McClain, alleged that I was sleeping during the time that we were working on the court report.
• Social worker Meighan testified that I was sleeping for hours and they could not wake me up and she did not know who got me out of the building. My supervisor McClain testified that I was asleep for about an hour and she could wake me up.        

After all of this ridiculous testimony that lasted for over 14 hours, the hearing officer John D. Harris, produced an idiotic “Hearing Officer’s Proposed Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and Recommended Decision” that upheld my suspension and indicated that I was the only one with no credibility!

Perjury is a felony punishable by up to four years in state prison (Penal Code Sec. 126) & Code of Civil Procedure Sec. 2015.5(b).