Ex-probation chief's suit alleges L.A. County fired him for being a whistleblower

March 7, 2024 6:23 PM PT

Former Los Angeles County Probation Department chief Adolfo Gonzales, who was fired last March amid widepread dysfunction at the agency’s juvenile halls, alleges in a lawsuit that he was ousted for reporting dire staffing shortages to state regulators.

Gonzales’ two-year, one-month tenure was marked by near-constant controversies. But in a lawsuit filed last month, he argued that county supervisors decided to terminate him only after he was frank with inspectors from the Board of State and Community Corrections about the agency’s staffing crisis.

The board, referred to as the BSCC, has shut down juvenile detention facilities when inspections revealed that conditions weren’t up to state standards.

“Gonzales candidly reported to the BSCC inspectors the staffing shortages in Probation Department which caused lack of compliance with various California State regulations and mandates,” the lawsuit says. “As a result of Gonzales’ reports to BSCC, he was terminated by the County.”

The state board declined to comment. Mira Hashmall, outside counsel for L.A. County, called the lawsuit baseless.

“The Probation Department suffered from a lack of leadership under Adolfo Gonzales, which is why his employment was terminated,” she wrote in a statement to The Times. “He is no whistleblower.”

Under Gonzales’ leadership, the perennially struggling agency careened from one problem to the next. There were more lockdowns, more fights and fewer staff members to deal with them. Deputies said they were too scared of the violence inside the juvenile halls to come to work. Youths were traumatized too, forced to urinate in their locked rooms because no one was around to let them out.

Gonzales’ attorney, Michael Conger, said his client’s account of staffing issues heavily influenced a Jan. 13, 2023, report from state inspectors, which found, among other shortcomings, that the county’s two juvenile halls were dangerously short-staffed. Months later, the board would shut down the two halls after the county repeatedly failed to improve conditions.

Conger said it was Gonzales’ “candid” portrayal of staffing problems that led to his termination two months later.

The state inspection was not the only embarrassment Gonzales’ agency suffered in the months leading up to his firing, however. On Feb. 11, 2023, The Times reported that Gonzales overrode an internal disciplinary board’s recommendation to fire an officer who had violently restrained a 17-year-old. After The Times’ report, a majority of the Board of Supervisors called for Gonzales’ resignation.

Gonzales’ attorney said this was not what earned the board’s ire.

“We don’t believe that had anything to do with it,” he said. “That was a complete non-issue. They were not mad at that.”

Records show the county spent more than $900,000 on Gonzales during his stint with the department.

By the time he left, Gonzales had received $927,000 in compensation, according to county salary data. It’s unclear if that figure includes other perks Gonzales was entitled to under his employment agreement with the county, which promised relocation costs and severance pay.

According to his employment agreement, reviewed by The Times, Gonzales was entitled to up to $25,000 to relocate from San Diego, where he worked for five years running the county’s Probation Department.

Records show he also received $172,521 — equivalent to six months’ salary — as severance pay after he was fired.

The board replaced Gonzales with Guillermo Viera Rosa, promising a new chapter for the long-troubled agency. But so far, his tenure has been plagued by the same staffing crisis that haunted his predecessor.

A report released Thursday from the county’s Office of Inspector General found that “dangerously low staffing levels” had contributed to the chaotic Nov. 4 escape of a youth from Los Padrinos juvenile hall. After several teens attacked a staff member, one briefly escaped to a neighboring golf course.

At the time of the incident, only one staff member — who had never before been assigned to juvenile halls — had been in the unit with 14 youths, the report’s authors found. The report notes the staffing level violates state law, which requires the agency maintain a ratio of one staff member for 10 youths.

That day, the Probation Department had scheduled 100 staff members to work at the facility — the minimum required in order to operate.

Sixty of them didn’t show up.