Years after a controversial additional time fraud probe, a Los Angeles County jury has awarded a former California Freeway Patrol worker $1 million in damages after she sued the company for mishandling sexual content material discovered on her cellphone.
Doris Peniche, a former CHP additional time coordinator on the East Los Angeles workplace, claimed her colleagues improperly considered and shared her sexual images and movies after acquiring the fabric by a search warrant.
She sued CHP and several other people for negligence, intentional infliction of emotional misery and distribution of personal sexual materials, amongst different expenses. The jury dominated in her favor late Thursday afternoon after a three-week-long trial.
The additional time probe that led to Peniche’s telephone being searched first turned public in 2019, when CHP Southern Division Chief Mark Garrett held a press convention alleging dozens of officers had bilked the company for unworked hours. The search warrant for Peniche’s telephone knowledge, together with images and cell tower pings, was issued in July 2018.
Garrett stated officers assigned to guard Caltrans employees repairing Southern California freeways billed CHP for eight-hour additional time shifts even when the safety element didn’t take that lengthy. Officers on the East L.A. station claimed not less than $360,000 price of fraudulent additional time, Garrett stated.
Dozens had been relieved of responsibility and the California legal professional common’s workplace filed felony fraud and theft expenses towards 54 officers from the station. The roster cleave was so broad that it triggered an agency-wide shuffling of employees as a result of the station was house to solely roughly 100 officers to start with.
Although the case gained headlines and was touted as a serious corruption investigation by the CHP and legal professional common, expenses towards all however one defendant have since been dismissed.
Peniche was fired from the CHP in Could 2019 amid the investigation, her lawyer, Charles Murray, stated.
Murray argued throughout the civil trial that CHP investigators improperly shared the sexual content material from her machine with one another and with not less than one different worker outdoors of the case, Murray stated.
Members of the felony investigation staff uploaded the content material onto a shared drive, witnesses testified, and in addition shared it with directors.
Lt. Martin Geller, who was creator of the search warrant, found images and movies of Peniche giving and receiving oral intercourse upon his preliminary evaluation of the proof. He instructed different investigating officers concerning the content material with a view to alert them, he testified.
Geller was following CHP coverage that potential proof be shared with the executive staff, he stated.
Murray questioned that coverage, arguing it didn’t make sense and in the end harmed Peniche.
“You have an investigator that knows there’s sex material and it is highly sensitive,” Murray stated in courtroom. “It doesn’t appear to be relevant, but he goes ahead and uploads it to the criminal shared drive. You decide if that policy makes sense.”
A CHP spokeswoman declined to remark.
The place inner investigators noticed corruption within the additional time investigation, attorneys for the accused officers and plenty of former CHP leaders noticed “standard operating procedure.”
Officers assigned to Caltrans additional time particulars routinely remained on name for a full eight hours even when they weren’t within the subject and had been entitled to the additional pay as a result of they could possibly be known as again to the restore website, attorneys argued in a dismissal movement filed in 2022. That method had been the process established by CHP since not less than 2010, in line with plenty of former CHP executives together with ex-Southern Division Chiefs William Siegel and Artwork Acevedo.
In late 2022, an L.A. County Superior Courtroom choose lowered the costs to misdemeanors, granting the 54 officers entry right into a diversion program so long as they happy sure necessities together with paying restitution.
All however one have paid restitution and had their circumstances dismissed, in line with the legal professional common’s workplace. The remaining officer, Pedro Chavez, is due again in courtroom in August.
Former L.A. County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley, who represented a number of the officers at disciplinary hearings, known as the additional time prosecution “shameful” and “one of the great frauds by corrupt law enforcement in California history.”
Mockingly, he stated, the state spent extra money trying to prosecute officers than they ever alleged was stolen.
CHP Sgts. Robert Ruiz and Matt Lentz on the executive staff shared the fabric with Capt. Melissa Hammond, who was a lieutenant on the time, Peniche’s grievance stated.
The grievance additionally stated Hammond instructed CHP Sgt. Connie Guzman that the photographs “confirmed” rumors that had been circulating about Peniche having a number of sexual companions, together with her brother-in-law.
Murray denied the rumors and stated that the photographs didn’t present Peniche together with her brother-in-law or with a number of males. He additionally stated that Hammond and others acted outdoors the scope of their duties to deliberately hurt Peniche.
“They are trying to see if there’s enough material to fire over 50 people,” he stated of the additional time investigation. “Why was my client’s folder the only one with a subfolder of photos? Was it because she was the overtime coordinator or was it because she was disliked immensely?”
Protection lawyer Joseph Wheeler stated his purchasers appropriately reviewed the content material as a part of their investigation.
“You can’t determine whether something’s relevant unless you actually review it,” he stated throughout the trial.
Wheeler tried to put some accountability on Peniche, arguing that she mustn’t have allowed sexual images of herself to be taken.
“Once that search warrant is issued for the data on your phone, any expectation of privacy is gone,” he stated. “If you wanted to keep your body private, why would you let other people take photos of you?”
Though Peniche testified that she was involved about the place her sexual materials was unfold and who had entry to it, Wheeler stated there was no proof the content material was leaked outdoors of CHP.
Earlier than deliberations, Murray instructed the jury to look past CHP’s proof insurance policies when deciding the case.
“You can send a message and say, ‘I don’t care what your policy is, that ain’t right what you did,’ ” he stated.
