Legal professionals for a Los Angeles Police Division officer who alleges he was sexually harassed by Mayor Eric Garcetti’s former senior adviser need a choose to exclude any protection proof throughout the upcoming trial of the plaintiff’s lawsuit that Garcetti himself could have been the sufferer of sexual harassment whereas in highschool.
Officer Matthew Garza filed the lawsuit towards town in Los Angeles Superior Courtroom in July 2020, alleging intercourse and gender harassment. Based on Garza, for a number of years he was assigned to the LAPD’s police safety unit for the mayor. He says he was required to drive Garcetti to and from mayoral engagements and accompany him on out-of-town journeys and that former mayoral adviser Rick Jacobs usually accompanied them.
Garza alleges that Jacobs subjected him on “lots of of events to undesirable and unwelcome sexual feedback and touching, together with tight hugs and shoulder rubbing, from 2014-19. In an interview printed Oct. 26 in Los Angeles Journal, Garcetti mentioned he was survivor of sexual harassment in highschool, however when requested who harassed him, he replied that he would moderately not discuss it.
“Whether or not or not Mayor Garcetti was subjected to sexual harassment in highschool within the Nineteen Eighties has no relevance on this case, which offers with whether or not Garza was harassed by Rick Jacobs,” Garza’s attorneys argue in courtroom papers filed Wednesday. “Additional, it will be improper for (town) to hunt to introduce this alleged proof as a way to recommend or argue to the jury that, had Garcetti been conscious of Jacobs’s conduct, Garcetti absolutely would have spoken out towards it.”
Garza anticipates that town will try and bolster Garcetti’s credibility by trying to painting him as somebody who, as a sufferer of sexual harassment himself, “absolutely would have stood as much as sexual harassment by Jacobs had he witnessed it,” Garza’s attorneys state of their courtroom papers.
“This could be an improper method of making an attempt to affirm Garcetti’s credibility as it will quantity to character proof and would subsequently confuse the problems, mislead the jury and create the substantial hazard of undue prejudice…,” Garza’s attorneys additional argue of their courtroom papers.
Garza’s attorneys additionally need to exclude as proof any reference to an investigation by lawyer Leslie Ellis. When town came upon about Garza’s harassment claims in June 2020, it employed Ellis and her investigative regulation agency to conduct a probe into the officer’s allegations towards Jacobs and report her findings.
After interviewing witnesses, Ellis offered a report in 2021 by which she concluded that Garza’s allegations weren’t credible and that the conduct he complained of by no means occurred. Garza’s attorneys preserve they haven’t been capable of overview paperwork associated to the Ellis investigation.
“Quite a few instances have acknowledged that it will be basically unfair for a defendant to be permitted to depend on the adequacy of an investigation as a protection in a sexual harassment case the place the plaintiff was precluded from discovering paperwork underlying and associated to the investigation,” Garza’s attorneys preserve of their courtroom papers.
Garza’s attorneys moreover need the protection to be precluded from telling jurors a few photograph within the plaintiff’s residence that accommodates the textual content “Welcome to LA” and depicts an LAPD officer holding up his center finger out the window of an LAPD patrol automobile. Garza was questioned concerning the photograph by a protection lawyer throughout the third session of his deposition, which was performed remotely.
“(The town) has not and can’t assert the {photograph} is related as to if plaintiff was sexually harassed by Rick Jacobs or as to if town ought to have taken corrective motion to cease Jacobs’ conduct,” Garza’s attorneys state of their courtroom papers.
In an excerpt of Garza’s deposition hooked up to the movement, the officer says the photograph was a present, however that he doesn’t keep in mind who gave it to him.
Jacobs additionally was deposed within the case. When requested if he ever hugged Garza, Jacobs replied, “It’s potential” and mentioned he had the impression it was consensual. Jacobs acknowledged that a few of his handshakes with Garza may have resulted in his pulling the officer into an embrace as “type of a bro hug.”
Jacobs denied making feedback in Garza’s presence regarding the dimension of male non-public elements or that he ever motioned the officer to take a seat on his lap.
Trial of Garza’s case is scheduled Jan. 9.
