(ConservativeSense.com) – An official from George Gascón’s District Attorney’s office in Los Angeles has been charged with 11 felony counts for illegally accessing databases containing information on 1,600 peace officers. Diana Teran had access to the files when she was employed at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD), which she left in 2018 but allegedly continued to use sensitive information from its databases.
Employed in the Ethics and Integrity Unit of Gascón’s DA’s office since 2021, Teran was accused in April of accessing material on the “Brady” list, which contains details on all law enforcement officers accused of misconduct, and of attempting to add new names to the list.
Her alleged unlawful behavior came to light when the LASD undertook a software review and found that Ms. Teran had accessed the database 14,000 times.
The investigation started with the 2021 arrest of Joseph Iniguez, Mr. Gascón’s then-chief of staff. Police stopped Mr. Iniguez and his fiancé while they were driving home from a wedding, and Iniguez, apparently intoxicated, argued with officers and allegedly threatened to place one of them on the “Brady” list.
Mr. Iniguez told police that stopping his vehicle was “not right” and urged them to run his number plates so they would discover his employment at the DA’s office. “You’ve pulled over the wrong person, let me tell you,” he said. The attorney subsequently sued the Azusa Police Department over the incident and won a $10,000 nuisance payment. He has since been promoted to Mr. Gascón’s deputy.
In announcing the charges against Teran, Attorney General Rob Bonta said nobody was above the law and his office would hold wrongdoers accountable.
Teran’s defense attorney, James Spertus, said the state’s case against his client is weak, and he is confident she will be exonerated. He argues that the files Ms. Teran accessed were available to her as part of her job. “They’re charging her for doing something within the scope of her employment,” he stated.
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