Madera County board censures district attorney for alleged harassment. He says he won’t resign

Madera County supervisors voted unanimously Monday to censure District Attorney David Linn for alleged “workplace harassment, discrimination and abuse.”

During a rare censure hearing, Linn told supervisors he won’t resign, and denied the allegations made against him in a report prepared by a Fresno attorney hired to investigate complaints about him.

The board waived attorney-client privilege and released a copy of the report. A redacted copy of the report was made public after supervisors voted.

“It was shocking to learn the level to which the district attorney subjected his employees to racist and sexist comments, and other inappropriate conduct,” said board chairman Max Rodriguez, reading from a statement.

Although the district attorney may say the allegations in the report are not true, “the evidence resulting from the investigation overwhelmingly proved otherwise,” he said.

The supervisors called on Linn to resign, but they can’t fire him because he’s an elected officials who answers to the voters.

But the fallout from the report becoming public was immediate. The Madera County Prosecutors Association announced Monday it no longer supports Linn’s re-election in 2018.

“In light of the findings in the recent investigation, the Madera County Prosecutors’ Association revokes its endorsement of David Linn for District Attorney,” said a statement from the association’s four-member board. “The association’s members stand in support of their co-workers.” The office employs about 18 prosecutors.

Linn last week said turnover was low since he took over in early 2015, and that prosecutors had endorsed him.

Sally Moreno, a Fresno County prosecutor and a former prosecutor in Madera County who left the office six months after Linn took over, announced earlier this year she will seek election to the seat next year.

‘Political retribution’

During public comment before the Board of Supervisors, Linn defended himself and blasted the effort to censure him as “political retribution.”

“I took office with a pledge to be open, to be transparent and to clean up Madera County,” Linn said. He said supervisors let developers from Fresno carve up the county and don’t care about constituents because “it’s all about lining their pockets and making their retirements comfortable.”

During his remarks, Linn repeated allegations he made public last week that his office is investigating two supervisors – David Rogers and Brett Frazier – for inappropriately taking donations from developers. “I will continue to prosecute the two cases with extra vigor,” he said.

Both denied doing anything wrong. Frazier said later claims by Linn that he got sweetheart deal on a new home are false because he paid full price and got a loan from an outside party.

Rogers said later that an allegation against him, which he first learned about last week, involves a campaign contribution that Linn lacks the legal authority to prosecute because it would fall under the state Fair Political Practices Commission. If something improper happened, the punishment is a fine, not criminal prosecution.

“His charges of corruption don’t meet the muster,” Rogers said. “He’s a bully.”

The complaint filed against Linn at the county personnel office that led to the investigation was brought by “a disgruntled employee,” Linn said. The same employee had filed similar complaints in two other counties he worked for previously, Linn added.

At a news conference following the censure vote, Linn identified the employee as a homicide prosecutor who is on leave. He said that deputy district attorney also filed a complaint in September with the U.S. Equal Employment and Opportunity Commission, which quickly issued a dismissal letter stating “...the EEP is unable to conclude that the information obtained establishes violations of the statutes.”

Allegedly offensive statements

The redacted report indicates that seven deputy district attorneys were interviewed and more than one reported that Linn used the “n-word,” according to the report.

A female deputy DA reported Linn called her “brown sugar.”

One deputy district attorney said Linn made a disparaging remark about Mexicans. He also allegedly made a disparaging remark about Native American crime victims after a Native American family complained about Linn providing details of a family member’s cause of death to the media.

In that case, he allegedly uttered an obscenity and allegedly said “They are just a bunch of Indians. They don’t vote.”

Linn adamantly denied making any offensive statements as district attorney.

“I never made those statements,” he said. “I just don’t say those things....I swear on a stack of Bibles I never made those statements.”

There are also allegations of sexist behavior by Linn in the report. One deputy district attorney said Linn “talks about sex to me all the time” and once deducted points from her performance evaluation because she was married to “someone less attractive than she is” and for ruining his fantasy.

One deputy DA said Linn made offensive comments daily, threatened to fire people and yelled “Jesus! Does anyone work around here?” One deputy DA said Linn called her a “pig,” the report said, while one said he “hog called” her three time in the hallways.

Another deputy DA said Linn gets “pretty angry and boisterous” when “confronted with information that frustrates him or goes counter to what his position is,” the report said.

The story about Linn’s alleged inappropriate behavior broke last week when the board issued a statement that it had “recently been made aware of allegations of serious workplace misconduct” including “allegations of racist comments; sexist, lewd and offensive comments; and generally abusive, threatening and profane comments.”

This story was originally published November 27, 2017 at 10:18 AM with the headline "Madera County board censures district attorney for alleged harassment. He says he won’t resign."