July 1st, 2022

Dear Mike,As you may have already heard or seen on the weekly ad from a week or two ago, after almost five years
with the DA’s office serving as a Lead Victim Advocate, and despite being one of the best at what I do,
deeply caring for the victims I serve, and having a passion for justice, I can no longer work under yourleadership. By way of explanation, and out of respect for the victims I serve, and the colleagues I workwith, I am writing this letter.
I remember being thrilled back in 2020 when I first learned that you would be one of the candidates
running for the DA position. There were several points of your platform where you addressed victim andsurvivor support, and fighting against racism and bias in our criminal justice system that really resonatedwith my personal values and professional goals. I was convinced you would bring much needed balanceand change to the DA’s office, and put victims at the forefront of our operation. I was a victim advocateof three years by the time you started your assignment with the office in August of 2020. I have been
serving victims in the major crimes and domestic violence units, so I had a pretty good idea of thestrengths and weaknesses of not only the Victim Assistance Program (VAP), but our office in general. I
was hopeful that your leadership and awareness of the victims’ experience of horrendous crimes andhigh expectations for cooperation, and the need for a multitude of services to regain stability and basic
needs, would guide your actions and inform your decisions while considering the kinds of supports
needed not only for the VAP program, but also with attorneys and support staff to create better
outcomes and experiences for them.
Then, as COVID‐19 continued to turn our world upside down, I understood that the ambitious goals thatyou once talked about would not be able to be discussed or put into practice, as the priorities haveswitched into just trying to figure out how to even move an operation of our magnitude to a completely
remote environment, and still be able to communicate and collaborate with all the agencies that wedepend on for information and support. It was chaotic, to say the least, and we were all just trying tokeep our heads above water, and to make sense of our new circumstances, and figure out how to best
support the victims.
As the COVID‐19 mandate eased, and our office’s remote and hybrid operation toward the summer oflast year settled quite a bit, I, once again, became very hopeful that your intentions about putting
victims at the forefront of our operation, particularly since COVID‐19 had significantly affected theresources and procedures once available to support their safety and wellbeing, would come to fruition.
As we began to resume in‐person operations, things with victims and support in the community did notchange much, and the decisions you have taken in the past year or so, have only brought as aconsequence a level of dysfunction in our office never experienced before, and with it, the immense
damage that it is causing to the victims we are supposed to serve, support, guide and help protect theirrights.
It is no secret that we have lost a large number of great and very experienced attorneys and support
staff, somewhere in the vicinity of eight decades of combined prosecutorial experience, in addition tosupport staff and advocates that had been with our office for decades as well. No efforts have been

made by you or upper management, other than a non‐productive “listening session” for support staff
that fell in deaf ears, has been made to retain the great employees left. I imagine that in part it could
arguably be great for you to have a brand new set of attorneys and support staff that don’t understandall the dysfunction around in the office, and still be eager to learn and dedicate their entire lives to theirjob, but their inexperience and lack of support is so detrimental to victims. Given the age of many, manyof the cases that are just starting to see some movement after two years or more of waiting their turn togo through the process, victims have seen not one or two attorneys pass around their cases, but someof them up to three or four. Then, the brand new attorneys with little to no experience are left hanging
because there are not enough experienced attorneys that can dedicate enough time to properly train
them in all the processes and procedures that they should be skilled at to properly and successfully
handle a case through the system. This dysfunction forces a dynamic where now victim advocates arehaving to be vigilant to catch mistakes that violate victims’ rights and mistakes that put victims atincreased risk of harm, and have to share the little or advanced knowledge that each advocate might
have about such processes and procedures.
I frequently attend arraignment hearings, and one day a judge making a release decision, questioned aprosecutor’s decision to file an amended petition instead of an affidavit of probable cause. The
arraignment deputy had no clue what to respond, given her limited experience as an arraignment
deputy and with our office, so the judge released the defendant. After the hearing was over, I asked theissuing attorney about it, and they told me that “they were not familiar with affidavits of probable cause
and that no one that they asked in their unit at that time knew how those worked either.” I am sure you
are able to see the problem here. It is easy to replace employees, but it also very easy to violate theconstitutional rights afforded to victims by untrained and inexperienced attorneys, and even worse, toput victims at risk by not employing efficient legal strategies that could keep violent offenders incustody. Another example of this is when I recently had two cases that went to trial after waiting foralmost two years; one was a menacing misdemeanor case, and the other one was a VRO case. Bothcases involved the same victim and the same defendant, but for some reason the cases went to trial on
two different dates, so the victim and her minor daughter had to come to court twice within the samemonth, and the minor daughter had to testify against her own father at trial. The state was unable toprove either of the cases at trial. The lack of experience and training of the CLS and the DDA wereevident: The CLS forgot to ask the minor daughter’s date of birth so the judge was unable to find thedefendant in contempt given that the State could not prove that the witness was a minor under thecustody of the petitioner of the protective order at the time of the violation. The misdemeanor attorney
was unable to formulate proper questions to the victim so that she could describe what actions thedefendant took to attempt to hit her car in the middle of the freeway to cause harm. This situation not
only created distrust of the system to this victim and her daughter, but I am sure that was also far froma positive experience for the CLS, or the DDA involved in those trials.
Those are only a couple of examples of dozens that I have caught along with many more dozens of callsthat I have received from mostly Spanish speaking victims with cases in units A, B, and MTU whereadvocates are not assigned and victims have never received a call from anyone in the office to explain
the process, their rights, or Crime Victim Compensation. The only reason victims know about a criminalcase being handled in our office is because they have received some letter in the mail about it. Thatmakes me think of all those victims whose addresses were never updated by the officer in their
database, and therefore, the police reports would not reflect an accurate address for that victim, so ourletters would never reach them and our office would dismiss the criminal charge. Another scenario
would be when we send a letter out in English and the victim’s primary language is not English, howwould they know what we are requesting from them? Currently we only have three advocates and twolegal assistants who Speak Spanish in the entire office, and while that is better than nothing, it isdefinitely not enough for the thousands of cases we have.
Despite all these flaws and lack of services for victims, your budget for FY 2023 was increased by $3.9,
but $0 were actually allocated to VAP, when according to your own description, “VAP provides a criticalbridge between the prosecution work performed by deputy district attorneys and the people served –victims of crimes, witnesses, and the community at‐large.” Just to expand on your description, here’s
what VAP does: VAP operates primarily 80%+ with grant funding that covers 14.5 FTE positions foradvocates, 1 supervisor, and 2 FTE office assistants. This translates into serving the caseload ofapproximately 66 attorneys and 1964 active and pending resolution cases where support for victims isprovided from the time an arrest is made through a couple of years of pendency of the case until thecase is resolved with either trial or a plea; we also handle a few hundred more cases on active
probation, post‐prison supervision, clemency petitions, and cases on the aid and assist docket; we
support families of homicide victims whether there is a suspect identified or not; we talk to community
members who are referred to us from different sources such as law enforcement, the Gateway Center,
the Courts, DHS, APS, and any other government agencies or community partners, even when they donot have an open case in our office; we respond to hospitals after a sexual assault call has been reported
to law enforcement during business hours, and we have to find our own means of transportation to andfrom the hospital; we support law enforcement with human trafficking missions; and the list goes on
and on. Our advocates are the only group in our office with extensive training in crisis intervention,
trauma response, cultural response, and victim‐centered practices, and each advocate’s caseload varies
between approximately 100 and 200+ cases depending on the unit and their level of expertise. Despite
all the experience, skills, knowledge, dedication, and passion we bring to the office, our program hasconsistently been underfunded, understaffed, undervalued, and undermined, and consequently, thevictims we provide services to. For the longest time, we have been understaffed, and we have seen nourgency from management to hire more advocates for our team. We have noticed, however, that new
attorney faces and investigators have been popping up almost every week upwards of 15 in the last twoor three months. To be fair, though, I learned today that one of the VAP assistants was offered aposition as an advocate, so after a year of waiting, thank you. Unfortunately, after my departure today,
VAP will be back to 14.5 FTE, and still short‐staffed.
The situation that I would like to stress to you is that neither your new attorneys, nor your newinvestigators, nor your existing ones, are the ones who communicate with the victims or people callingin distress begging for help. They are not the ones doing crisis intervention, or spending hours on end
locating services to find food or shelter to keep them safe. They are not the ones spending hours on thetelephone trying to file reports with CPS, APS, Close Street Supervision, Parole & Probation, or law
enforcement when victims’ cries for help are disregarded by some agencies. None of them assist victims
navigate the complex process of criminal justice, restitution, VRNs, protective orders, crime victim
compensation, or go over pre‐trial offers; it is us, Mike. It is the victim advocates who show up day afterday, even when support for us is non‐existent, and when our knowledge and expertise are disregarded
by many in our own office. It is us, victim advocates, showing up to work willing to be the face of not
only this office, but the entire system, as we are, in many instances, all the victims and people in thecommunity are able to connect with to obtain resources, referrals, safety planning, and peace of mind
after experiencing traumatic events.
On June 17th, we received an email from you about your budget proposal being approved and how
proud you felt about it. I noticed that out of the nearly $2 million, only 1 advocate position was added
along with 5 Deputy District Attorneys and the Justice Integrity Unit. I ask you, Mike, who will support
the victims of those 5 Deputy District Attorneys and those of the Justice Integrity Unity? The one
advocate you are adding when we are already about 5 short? It is almost like victims are an afterthought
in all this. You noted on that same email that “these investments are a reflection of the work each oneof us do.” No, they are not, these investments are a reflection of your agenda and what programs you
feel will make you look good in front of the cameras, otherwise, we would see more funding invested in
the stability, empowerment, support, access, and meaningful participation of victims in this process. Asa certified volunteer restorative justice practitioner, I am all for alternatives to incarceration, andprograms that can address an offender’s contributors to criminality, but we must prioritize the safety ofvictims and support their needs. As a prosecutorial agency, that is precisely our mission.
I remember during one of the very few all‐staff meetings we had with you, the topic of office moralecame about. We discussed that the office’s morale was at an all‐time low, and per your instructions,
your assistant sent us a couple of articles about that topic. I read those articles and many others fromother sources, and the common denominator for a successful and harmonious workplace is theleadership. The way the leader of the organization communicates and connects with their employees. I
encourage you, Mike, to connect with yours. I actually invite you to spend some time learning what eachof us do, because the sentiment around is the sentiment one of my homicide family members expressed
after you showed up after our sentencing hearing: “And who is this guy again? Why did he feel it wasokay to just show up after everything was said and done? What a lack of respect to my mother (thedeceased victim).” In case you did not know, that is the sentiment around the office, what a lack ofrespect in general from you toward victims and also your employees when you don’t even bother tolearn more about what goes on in your own office. Your office is falling apart, and the victims along with
it; all under your watch. Everyone in this office shows up each day to fight for victims, everyone but you.
You have let defense attorneys run this courthouse, and now our office. It seems that you are saving
your political capital for your own future career, which suggests that you are sacrificing the safety ofvictims and the community for your own personal political gain. I ask you to please reevaluate yourpriorities, meet with your staff, take their questions, listen to their opinions, fight for them, fight for us,and more importantly, fight for the victims!