A judge announced her compliance with a state appellate court ruling that former Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva does not need to face a contempt hearing for allegedly ignoring three subpoenas in 2021 to testify before the Civilian Oversight Commission. Although the county argued that the door to a contempt proceeding was not fully closed, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Elaine Lu issued her ruling on Friday, less than a month after a three-justice panel of the Second District Court of Appeal ordered Lu to vacate her decision last November, which granted the county’s contempt petition, and instead deny it without prejudice. Villanueva had sought appellate review of the earlier ruling by Lu.
On October 6, the county filed court papers with Lu stating their intention to ask the appellate court to amend its ruling and further argued that the justices’ order actually supports the county’s position, allowing them to seek contempt under the COC’s subpoena authority through a one-step procedure.
“Accordingly, the order does not appear to set forth any reason to fully deny the petition,” according to the county’s court papers.
However, in her Friday ruling, Lu wrote that the contempt process actually involves two steps and that the county’s argument, which was previously raised to the appellate court, was “squarely rejected” by the justices.
“In any event, on the merits, the court finds the county’s argument unpersuasive,” the judge further wrote.
The subpoenas issued in September, October, and November 2021 required Villanueva to provide sworn virtual testimony before the COC regarding the sheriff’s reasons for initiating what attorney Harvinder S. Anand alleged in court papers were “highly suspect investigations of public officials overseeing the Sheriff’s Department as well as the department’s policy on internal deputy cliques, such as the Banditos.”
Anand maintained that these internal groups have “plagued the Sheriff’s Department for decades.”
Villanueva disobeyed all three subpoenas and refused to testify under oath, according to Anand’s court papers.
“Indeed, Sheriff Villanueva has flatly declared he will not agree to be placed under oath under any circumstance,” Anand stated in his court papers.
In her court papers, Villanueva’s attorney Linda Miller Savitt argued that the COC’s demand for the sheriff to testify under oath is “inexplicable,” and that the sheriff has agreed to appear voluntarily, but his right to due process is being violated.
“These subpoenas are not for a lawfully authorized purpose. Simply because the COC has subpoena power and they believe they are all-powerful is not enough,” Savitt stated. “Subpoena power is not unlimited. It is supposed to be used for a lawfully authorized purpose and can be abused.”
According to Savitt, one of the three subpoenas at issue “clearly interferes with the sheriff’s state law enforcement and criminal investigatory powers, powers expressly excluded from the purview of the COC.”
Villanueva was elected in 2018 but lost his bid for a second term to retired Long Beach Police Chief Robert Luna in 2022. On September 13, Villanueva announced his intention to challenge county Supervisor Janice Hahn in the March 2024 primary.
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