In the latest incident, a group of six juveniles attacked a staff member at about 8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 4, creating an opening for a young man to take the staff member’s keys and then scale a fence.

The escapee was apprehended within 10 minutes by officers from the department’s Special Enforcement Operations, the Downey and South Gate police departments, according to the Los Angeles County Probation Department.

The incident prompted Los Padrinos’ third lockdown since July. The Probation Department did not respond to a request for an update on the status of the Downey facility.

Hahn announced Monday, Nov. 6, she will make a motion at the Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday directing the Probation Department to detail within the next two weeks what additional security measures and policies will be implemented to prevent future escape attempts. The motion also directs the county’s Office of the Inspector General to launch a separate investigation into the circumstances around the escape and to make its own recommendations for improvements.

“It is unacceptable that two youth have managed to escape from Los Padrinos in the last four months,” Hahn wrote in a board motion. “Luckily, they were both apprehended almost immediately after their escape, but this cannot happen again.”

Hahn’s motion states the chief probation officer and the Probation Department “must analyze the incident, determine what new security measures need to be implemented to prevent this from happening again, and implement those enhancements immediately.”

In August, probation officials said they were looking into the possibility of installing nets around the perimeter, but they indicated at the time that such a project would take until early 2024 to build.

Los Padrinos reopened in mid-July as a last-ditch effort to house nearly 300 juveniles without anywhere else to go following the state’s decision to shut down the county’s other two juvenile halls — Barry J. Nidorf and Central juvenile halls — over poor conditions.

Problems began almost immediately. Just days after reopening, the Probation Department locked down Los Padrinos after a gun was found in an office. It is illegal to bring a firearm inside a secure juvenile facility.

Then, roughly a week later on July 28, seven youths assaulted staff members and broke through the door attached to their living area. They shattered a window to free six more juveniles. The oldest of the group then climbed the wall and escaped into an adjacent golf course before being apprehended.

That incident prompted the second lockdown and drew mutual aid from neighboring police departments. Officers surrounded the juvenile hall with their vehicles and could be seen wearing riot gear.

Inspectors from the California Board of State and Community Corrections later found the facility out of compliance in 10 different categories. The regulatory board threatened to shut down Los Padrinos, too, as a result.

The state ultimately accepted L.A. County’s plan to fix the facility and gave the Probation Department until January to implement changes. If the county is unable to follow through by the deadline, Los Padrinos could be declared “unsuitable,” a designation that would force its closure as well.

The plan hinges on the county’s ability to stabilize a seemingly insurmountable staffing crisis. A barrage of call-outs, medical leaves and no-shows have left the county below the minimum standards for staffing for more than a year.

Officials have said they will address the crisis through hundreds of new hires, by reassigning field officers and through more efficient scheduling, but, so far, the problems at Los Padrinos, in particular, have seemingly persisted.

Critics point to the continued issues at Los Padrinos and other facilities as evidence of the department’s failure and have pushed for a dramatic overhaul of the juvenile justice system as the solution. The county previously backed one such plan, Youth Justice Reimagined, but the implementation has stalled due to the need for changes to state law.

Officials for the court system touted the low reoffense rate and other preliminary findings released Monday, Oct. 30, as evidence that zero bail, a policy derided by law enforcement and more than a dozen cities, has been a success so far. The report tracked the risk levels of the individuals released or held until arraignment under zero bail, as well as whether they were arrested for additional crimes following their release from custody.

“This new system is working exactly the way it was intended — the vast majority of those determined by a magistrate to be a significant risk to public and victim safety, or a significant flight risk, are being temporarily held in jail prior to arraignment, while the vast majority of those who pose little risk to public or victim safety and are likely to return to court are being released with non-financial conditions,” Presiding Judge Samantha P. Jessner said in a statement.

“Under the previous money bail system,” she said, “those same high-risk individuals would be able to buy their release from jail if they had access to money, and the low-risk individuals would remain in jail for days, weeks, months, or even years if they did not have access to money to purchase their release.”

The data released by the courts covered bookings from midnight Oct. 1 until 11:59 p.m. Oct. 21. It did not include anyone who was cited and released in the field by law enforcement, nor did it include any data on whether zero bail impacted court appearances, likely due to the limited time frame.

3 categories of offenses

Officials said 243 people were booked daily on average during the period in question, a number that is consistent with daily bookings over the past 12 months, .

Under the new policy, nonserious and nonviolent offenses fall under three categories: cite and release, book and release, and magistrate review.

In total, about 1,100 people were released immediately for a cite-and-release or book-and-release offense during the three-week period. The report indicates that 85% were considered “low risk.”

Nearly a third of all bookings went before a magistrate. Of the reviewed cases, more than 60% were held until arraignment.

“Those who present a risk are being held based on risk and not based on whether they have access to money,” Jessner said.

Opposition grows

The findings, however, did little to sway the policy’s opponents.

Several law enforcement agencies and two dozen cities, including most recently Torrance, have come out against the policy and criticize it as a “catch-and-release” program. Whittier, along with the other cities, are suing the Superior Court system to rescind the policy. That case is pending.

In a statement, Whittier Mayor Joe Vinatieri said there are still lingering questions and concerns that require “careful consideration.”

“The policy’s success is being touted only after a mere three weeks of implementation, and while initial data may show some positive results, three weeks is hardly enough time to gauge the long-term impact of such a significant change to the existing bail schedule,” he said in an email. “Particularly concerning is the fact that those offenders who were cited and/or booked and released under this policy still have yet to be seen in court.”

It can take 60 days or more for a case to be heard under the new system, he said, “raising questions about what these individuals may have been doing in the meantime.”

Serious, violent crimes don’t qualify

The new zero-bail policy does not apply to “serious and violent” crimes, a legal term that has bail procedures enshrined in state law, but court officials said it creates a system for lesser crimes that weighs the risk posed by each individual offender, instead of setting a flat dollar amount for bail tied to the offense.

The data released by the courts showed about half of those who committed a second crime — 64 people — had posted a traditional bail for a serious or violent offense that did not qualify for zero bail. Court officials pointed to that figure to bolster their argument for the “risk-based” assessments offered by zero bail.

“It is important to understand that under existing law, offenses that are designated by statute as serious or violent offenses, including crimes like murder, rape and robbery, are still subject to release on traditional money bail,” Jessner said. “In these instances, when someone is arrested for a serious or violent crime, they can buy their way out of jail regardless of risk.”

Roughly 40% of the people booked during the three-week period did not qualify for zero bail, officials said.

Despite the legal terminology, crimes that would likely be considered “serious” and “violent” by the public do qualify, including battery of a police officer, human trafficking and looting, among others.

Retail crime concerns

Critics have pointed to retail crimes, in particular, as a type of offense where they argue criminals will be emboldened to commit more crimes. During a press conference Monday, court officials argued against the idea that zero bail does not provide accountability, saying bail isn’t meant to be a punishment.

“It is critical to remember that in our justice system, people are innocent until proven guilty,” Jessner said.

Police officers who believe a suspect poses a risk to the public still have discretion to place them in jail and can also request what is called a “bail deviation,” in which the on-call magistrate, typically a Superior Court judge, will make a risk assessment based on the suspect’s criminal history and other factors, regardless of whether the crime falls into the cite- or book-and-release categories.

Those elevations didn’t typically happen, however, according to the courts. Officers requested a bail deviation in only 3% of the total bookings reviewed. The Superior Court’s executive officer, David Slayton, said part of that may be because not enough officers know about the option. They hope to partner with law enforcement agencies to offer training to increase knowledge about it, he said.

Those magistrate reviews require only a “one-minute” phone call, though it can take up to four to six hours to complete the whole process, officials said.

Vinatieri said the “one-minute” call is “inconsistent with what many of our police departments have experienced in actual practice the past three weeks and the text of the bail schedules.”

“A comprehensive evaluation of the zero-bail policy should involve a longer time frame and an in-depth examination of all cases, including both cite-and-release and book-and-release data,” he said. “While the policy is intended to address overcrowding in jails and reduce the number of low-level offenders awaiting trial, it’s critical that we strike a balance between these goals and ensuring public safety.”

The Superior Court announced it will release a data dashboard on its website in the near future to allow the public to measure how the program is doing. The court is “committed to using data to monitor the new system” to ensure it both protects communities and ensures those who pose little risk do not sit in jail simply because they cannot afford bail, Slayton said.

The original fund, the HLP Educational Foundation, hosted an annual scholarship dinner, “Stairsteps to Success,” to raise money for the district’s students and awarded about $15,000 in scholarships each year, according to the lawsuit.

The state revoked the foundation’s tax-exempt status in 2020 after years of incomplete filings. It shut down that September.

District employees, who managed the foundation’s day-to-day administration, estimated nearly $250,000 remained in its accounts at the time.

Hacienda La Puente’s attorney’s allege “Parulan-Colfer fraudulently transferred funds belonging to the HLP Ed Foundation to two new non-profit organizations with which Parulan-Colfer is associated — defendants SVG Training Foundation, Inc. and San Gabriel Career Foundation, Inc.,” the lawsuit states.

The district further alleges Parulan-Colfer, who served in leadership roles for all 12 years of the foundation’s existence, misappropriated funds before she retired by unilaterally awarding $4,000 in scholarships to her own sons and by using the foundation’s accounts to pay her husband’s law firm $320 and to cover $3,500 in costs for her own retirement party.

A $750 scholarship check awarded to a Los Altos High School student bounced as a result of the foundation’s shuttering. Legal counsel for Parulan-Colfer, in correspondence with the district, called the bounced check “unfortunate and regrettable” and stated it resulted “from the calculus of dissolving the corporation and the distribution of those asserts (sic) to other charitable organizations,” according to the lawsuit.

SVG Training Foundation, which formed the same month that the scholarship fund dissolved, lists Parulan-Colfer as its CEO and her husband as the secretary and chief financial officer. The San Gabriel Career Foundation, formed the following year in April, has the same structure. Their home in Rowland Heights is listed as the primary office for both, business filings showed.

The district alleges the monies transferred to the two nonprofits were “heedlessly intermingled with Defendant Parulan-Colfer’s finances without any formal requirement for authorization to use funds or any accounting or obligation on the part of the defendants to repay funds taken from the corporate accounts of the foundation.”

Both of the nonprofits “exist solely on paper and have no actual place of business, no employees, no insurance and no significant finances” of their own, the lawsuit states.

Thomas C. Watts III, an attorney representing the three corporate entities named alongside Parulan-Colfer, provided a statement from the nonprofits’ directors denying the allegations.

“The allegations of the District and Anthony Duarte, the former Board of Education president, of any wrongdoing are categorically denied and exquisitely false,” the statement reads. “The function of the complaint seems more an attempt to divert the attention and change the narrative from the many failures and shortcomings of the District rather than the vindication of non-existent claims of right. That attempt will ultimately be quelled in court.”

The nonprofits’ statement criticized the district paying for the representation of Duarte, who donated roughly $3,000 to the scholarship fund, and alleged the case is “motivated by an intense personal vendetta” against Parulan-Colfer by Duarte, the district’s leadership, and its superintendent, Alfonso Jimenez.

“In this lawsuit, Mr. Duarte’s entire claim is based on an absurd allegation that after receiving the benefit of multiple items he purchased in 2019 at the charitable foundation’s charity auction, he should also be given back the $2,975 he spent to buy these items,” the statement reads.

The nonprofits allege Duarte “demanded that the foundation cease any further association with the district and demanded the charitable foundation’s funds” shortly after Parulan-Colfer left the district. The funds could only be transferred to another charitable foundation, they alleged.

Parulan-Colfer had a fiduciary duty to the district and its students and is personally liable for the missing funds, according to Hacieda La Puente’s attorneys. The lawsuit argues that the HLP Educational Foundation is inextricably linked to the district and any remaining funds should have gone to the organization’s original purpose.

The HLP Educational Foundation was formed in 2008 by then-Superintendent Barbara Nakaoka to “solicit, receive, collect, manage and disburse voluntary contributions, less expenses, to the benefit of the Hacienda La Puente Unified School District,” according to corporate filings. It listed the district’s headquarters as its offices in the documents.

Hacienda La Puente’s staff, as part of their district responsibilities, facilitated bill payments for the foundation, maintained donation records and coordinated fundraising events. The employees created the criteria for the scholarships, reviewed applications and chose the winners based on a scoring system.

Parulan-Colfer served as the foundation’s director from 2008, when she was an associate superintendent, until 2017, four years after her promotion to schools chief. Though she turned over the director’s position to another associate superintendent in 2017, the district alleges that Parulan-Colfer continued to control the foundation as a member of its board.

The mismanagement of the foundation during Parulan-Colfer’s time at the helm made dissolution unavoidable, according to the district.

The statement provided by Watts argues that the district knew about the dissolution well in advance and that then-Associate Superintendent Annie Bui, the educational foundation’s director at the time, signed off on it. Filings with the secretary of state’s website show both Bui and Parulan-Colfer’s signatures on the paperwork.

One school board member, Gino Kwok, had sufficient enough notice of the impending shutdown that he was able to remove funds for his own scholarship program, according to the statement.

“In a time when the District is facing financial strains and is in the process of closing schools and discontinuing culturally enriching programs, such as mariachi and folklorico, programs that Ms. Parula-Colfer was instrumental in spearheading, it is truly tragic that the District has chosen to squander its resources on this vindictive and petty lawsuit,” the statement reads.

Parulan-Colfer retired as the district’s superintendent in January 2020.

The latest filing, an amended complaint submitted by the district Oct. 3, asks the judge to order the return of the funds and to award damages, including attorneys’ fees. The case is currently not scheduled to return to court until December.

Executive officer David Slayton, in an interview, said the courts plan to publicly release data on the effectiveness of the policy later this month, but early results from the first two weeks appear to suggest the policy is working as intended.

“Individuals who are higher risk to the community are either being released with conditions, or being held for arraignment because there are no conditions where they can be safely released,” he said. “They are being considered not based upon their money, but based upon their risk.”

L.A. County’s “Pre-Arraignment Release Protocols,” commonly referred to as zero-bail, eliminates the financial requirements for release from all but the most serious of offenses prior to arraignment. Police officers will instead cite and release, or book and release, suspects for a majority of misdemeanors and some felonies. Serious and violent crimes, such as murder, kidnapping, robbery and assault with a deadly weapon, are not eligible and still retain previous bail amounts.

Other offenses, such as burglary, will require a magistrate to review the case to determine if someone can be released safely. Police officers also can request what is called an “upward bail deviation” to ask for magistrate review on any felony or in misdemeanor cases involving violation of a domestic violence restraining order, Slayton said.

Tracking rearrest rates

The courts are tracking rearrest rates and failures to appear and will use that and other data to inform future adjustments to the zero-bail policy, he said. Technical changes already have been made based on questions raised by law enforcement agencies.

Proponents say the county’s elimination of cash bail will alleviate instances where someone is held, potentially for days, solely because of their financial ability.

Even a single day in jail can cost people their jobs, their children and even their lives, supporters argue. A 2022 report by the UCLA School of Law’s Bail Practicum and Berkeley Law’s Policy Advocacy Clinic found that roughly 80% of jail deaths in California occur during pretrial detention. The poor state of Los Angeles County’s jails have led to consent decrees and settlements.

“They’re really horrific conditions that people are being held in,” said Alicia Virani, co-founder of the bail practicum and co-author on the UCLA report, which reviewed the impact of a 2021 California Supreme Court ruling concluding it is unconstitutional to set bail at unaffordable amounts.

More than 30 people have died in Los Angeles County jails so far this year, she said.

The pretrial incarceration of a primary breadwinner “can destabilize an entire family and an entire community network,” Virani said.

Criminals emboldened, critics say

The new policy’s detractors, meanwhile, worry that zero-bail is emboldening criminals, reducing the faith police officers and victims have in the judicial system, and leading to upticks in crime by putting suspected criminals back on the streets immediately.

More than a dozen Los Angeles County cities have joined a lawsuit attempting to reverse the policy. Attorneys for the cities, including Whittier, Downey, Beverly Hills and Arcadia, argue the Superior Courts have balanced the system too heavily in the favor of offenders, so much so that “victims and public safety are given a zero value.”

That case was transferred to Orange County Superior Court earlier this month and is still pending.

Zero-bail policies discourage law enforcement officers and do not make neighborhoods safer or reduce crime, said prosecutor Eric Siddall, the former vice president of the Association of Deputy District Attorneys, which represents about 800 Los Angeles County prosecutors.

“If they arrest someone, it is the equivalent of a parking ticket,” said Siddall, among a slate of prosecutors campaigning to unseat reform-minded District Attorney George Gascon in the 2025 election. “They tell the suspect to come to court in three months or six months. It’s not a deterrent.”

With an existing backlog of about 13,000 felony cases that have yet to be filed by the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, Siddal said, most defendants arrested for nonviolent and nonserious crimes will never appear before a judge.

The policy might alleviate jail overcrowding, but the trade-off is more criminals on the street, he said.

“Criminals generally know the legal system better than law enforcement officers and prosecutors,” he added. “They know if they commit certain types of crimes they will be released.”

No clear link on crime rates

While studies have shown that rearrest rates were unaffected when the state implemented the Emergency Bail Schedule, which similarly eliminated bail for most offenses during the pandemic, Siddall said there is no clear link between the policy and any declines. Crime dropped in general in certain jurisdictions and officers might simply have stopped rearresting suspects who were released into the public because of the lack of consequences, he said.

“We don’t know,” he said. “But to suggest that releasing criminals back onto the street somehow decreases crime defies logic and prior studies.”

Last year, the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office produced its own study showing that 420 of 595 of the individuals released on zero bail there were subsequently rearrested, with 20% committing a violent crime. A follow-up study earlier this year once again pointed the finger at zero-bail when it declared that Yolo County saw increases in every category of crime as a result.

Proponents of zero-bail argue that Yolo County was not an empirically rigorous study. Report from courts and state agencies throughout the country, including in California, have found the opposite.

“The new policy isn’t a radical change, it builds off of similar policies that were in place in Los Angeles during the pandemic over the last three years,” said Claire Simonich, associate director of Vera California, an advocacy group fighting over-criminalization and mass incarceration. “If you look at other jurisdictions, we have every reason to believe this is not going to result in an increase in rearrests.”

In July, the Judicial Council of California found that similar policies during the pandemic resulted in a 5.8% decrease in rearrests for misdemeanors and a 2.4% decrease in felonies. Those same categories remained at, or below, historic averages in Los Angeles County, too, according to Slayton, the county courts’ executive officer.

“We were not surprised by the judicial council’s overall findings, because the data was consistent with what we’ve seen locally,” he said.

Rearrests in Los Angeles County dropped from 40% in 2020 to 29% in 2022, the year the emergency bail schedule ended.

Judge sparked policy change

In May, a judge issued an injunction that effectively reinstated the emergency schedule for both the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the LAPD. Roughly two months later, the Superior Court’s Executive Committee adopted the zero-bail policy that ultimately went into effect Oct. 1.

Other states and counties have not seen increases in crime either after implementing similar policies. New Jersey, which implemented bail reform in 2017, found that “nearly all defendants released successfully completed their pretrial period without acquiring a new charge, with the rate of rearrest for very serious crimes at less than 1% annually since 2018,” according to a report to the legislature.

New York, Kentucky and Harris County, Texas, boasted of similar successes.

“I think the data, when we have it, shows the opposite of what the fear-mongers would like us to believe,” said Virani of UCLA’s bail practicum. “All of this together shows that we do know how to do this.”

Political backlash

Regardless, politicians in New York and New Jersey have faced fierce backlash for those policies. New York, in particular, has dialed back its reforms several times in response to widespread concerns that it has led to upticks in crime. California’s own attempts to implement bail reforms have fared even worse. After the Legislature passed SB 10, which would have eliminated cash bail in 2018, voters dismantled it through a referendum, Proposition 25, just two years later.

Though local lawmakers have little to do with the Superior Court’s implementation of zero-bail, they already are feeling that heat as well.

“I can’t be the only one that’s having my office inundated with calls, and, when I’m out publicly, I have people approaching me very concerned about this,” county Supervisor Janice Hahn said during the board’s Sept. 26 meeting.

Sheriff Robert Luna, who spoke out on behalf of victims at the same meeting, explained the fears.

“If your child was poisoned by fentanyl and you found that someone was caught selling it in your neighborhood, and they’re released a few hours later without bail, you might question if the system is fair or not,” he said. “If you’re the victim of organized retail theft, and, you know, even if the individuals who stole from your businesses are caught, they will not be held or even required to post bail, you are also going to question the system, and probably get very angry at a lot of us sitting in this room, because they think we’re not holding people accountable.”

The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office and the LAPD both have spoken out against the policy. In a statement, LAPD Chief Michel Moore explained that law enforcement is averse to zero-bail because “that approach offers little to no deterrence to those involved in a range serious criminal offenses.”

The imposition of higher bail amounts achieved the goals of safety, deterrence and prevention, he said.

“We will continue to speak with the L.A. County Judicial Council as they strive to strike the appropriate balance in protecting community safety and victims from further harm, without unduly withholding an individual from their release back into the community,” Moore stated.

Gascon supports zero-cash bail

The District Attorney’s Office, in a statement, said prosecutors have yet to see data from the first few weeks of zero-bail, but that concerns raised by Chief Deputy District Attorney Sharon Woo at the Sept. 26 meeting haven’t been addressed by the courts. At the time, Woo said her boss, Gascón, supports the idea of eliminating cash bail for 80% to 90% of the offenses in the new policy, but he is against the inclusion of certain offenses, such as burglary, and worries about the county’s ability to impose specific conditions of release, such as electronic monitoring and substance abuse treatment.

Though crime ticked up overall in Los Angeles from 2021 to 2023, it has largely stayed flat, or decreased, in the past year. As of Sept. 30, the LAPD has reported a 6.8% decrease in violent crime and a 1.6% increase in property crime compared to the same period last year. The Sheriff’s Department, meanwhile, as of Aug. 30, saw a similar 6% decrease in violent crime and roughly 1% decrease in property crime year to date.

Yet, brazen crimes, such as organized retail smash-and-grabs, have become so prolific that the state issued $267 million in grants to assist law enforcement just this year.

Under the new zero-bail policy, organized retail theft is classified as a “book-and-release” offense. The Los Angeles Police Protective League blamed the elimination of cash bail for a series of flash-mob style thefts in August, saying criminals were emboldened because they knew they’d be out of jail immediately if they got caught.

Slayton scoffed at the idea that zero-bail removes consequences. The policy just removes money as a determining factor.

Someone arrested for a smash-and-grab, for example, will be booked and the crime will be visible to police departments through the county’s booking system. Officers can always request a bail deviation from a magistrate if they believe the individual poses a higher risk of committing more crimes, or if they are aware of other pending charges, he said. All information provided by law enforcement is considered.

Once arraignment is held — up to 30 days later for released defendants — a judge can remand a defendant to custody, or impose  monetary bail, he said.

“We believe that an individualized assessment of the individuals is constitutional, complies with the judges’ statutory responsibility and is better for the community,” he said.

Bail review ‘cursory’

The cities suing to stop zero-bail, however, argue most cases will not involve a magistrate and, when they do, it is a “cursory review of electronic records only, by an on-call judge, relying on rote risk assessment factors, based solely on the bare nature of the charges — without additional facts of the actual crime committed or victims harmed — and based on an arrestee’s criminal history, which does not include repeat offenses that are not convictions,” according to their petition.

The lawsuit highlights an incident in Whittier where a man arrested for having a loaded firearm was released following a magistrate’s review and then went on to assault a police officer, unprovoked, hours later.

Proponents generally support the idea of more eyes on cases before arraignment, but they say it remains to be seen how the magistrates, who are Superior Court judges, will wield that power. Court decisions that expanded judges’ discretion often have led to more holds, not less, they said.

Still, for those who have been pushing for reforms for years, the Superior Court system’s strong stance against cash bail is a positive sign, said Brian Hardingham, senior attorney for the Debtors’ Prison Project at Public Justice, the nonprofit legal advocacy group that sued Los Angeles County and won the injunction that reinstated zero-bail earlier this year.

“A lot of this is going to come down to the details,” he said. “We’re encouraged by the general direction this is going in and paying close attention.”

Clarification: The article has been updated to clarify that some technical changes to the bail schedule were made as a result of questions raised by law enforcement agencies, not requests.

Newsom sent the bill, AB 695, back to the Assembly without his signature on Sunday, Oct. 8, saying he could not support it for financial reasons.

“New grant programs such as the program proposed in this bill must be considered and evaluated in the annual budget process in the context of all state funding priorities,” Newsom wrote in his veto letter.

This year, the Legislature passed bills outside of the budget process that would have added $19 billion in unaccounted costs if signed, he said.

“With our state facing continuing economic risk and revenue uncertainty, it is important to remain disciplined when considering bills with significant fiscal implications, such as this measure,” Newsom wrote.

Reformers applaud veto

Juvenile justice reform advocates applauded Newsom’s decision, as they see the bill as a waste of taxpayer resources and maintain that problems at the juvenile halls have nothing to do with the physical structures.

In a statement, Milinda Kakani and Aditi Sherikar, senior policy associates for the Children’s Defense Fund California, called on state and local legislators to use the bill’s veto to follow through with promised reforms.

“AB 695 stood in stark contrast to Youth Justice Reimagined, a vision that involves replacing a fundamentally flawed Probation Department with a system rooted in community care and healing,” they stated. “Our hope is that this veto pushes LA County Supervisors and legislators to boldly implement that vision with urgency and fidelity.”

AB 695, introduced by Assemblymember Blanca Pacheco, would have authorized the Board of State and Community Corrections — a state agency that recently shuttered two of Los Angeles County’s juvenile halls over poor conditions — to issue grants specifically to L.A. County for improvements such as the construction of new living quarters and modernized spaces for rehabilitative and educational programs.

It did not set a dollar amount, though the Senate Appropriations Committee estimated the hit to the state’s general fund would be in the “high hundreds of millions” of dollars, potentially up to $1 billion, to address the “critical needs of the juvenile facilities in Los Angeles.”

More deadlines loom

The bill passed in the Legislature in September, the same week that the BSCC warned it may be forced to close more of Los Angeles County’s juvenile facilities if the county fails address a series of deficiencies discovered by state inspectors earlier this year.

The Probation Department has until Tuesday, Oct. 10, and Oct. 18, respectively, to submit approved Corrective Action Plans for the Barry J. Nidorf Secure Youth Treatment Facility in Sylmar and Los Padrinos, the county’s largest juvenile hall, in Downey. If the plans are not approved, those facilities could be declared “unsuitable,” a designation that could force them to shutter within 60 days.

Though all sides agree Los Angeles County needs to do more, AB 695 was divisive, even among county officials.

Three county supervisors supported it, alongside a number of probation and law enforcement unions, as an opportunity to fund renovations and upgrades at Los Angeles County’s aging facilities and to build a new training facility for the Probation Department.

Facility issues

Los Padrinos originally opened in 1957 and, though it underwent significant renovations before it reopened in July, much more work is needed to bring it up to modern standards.

Not long after it reopened, visitors complained of broken air conditioners, moldy smells, and dripping paint.

A youth managed to scale one of the walls during an escape attempt in the first month before he was recaptured in a neighboring golf course.

County officials have discussed building a system of nets around the facility to prevent contraband from being thrown over the walls, installing airport-style body scanners at the entrances and creating separate, self-contained “campuses’ throughout the facility.

‘Reimagining’ youth justice

But juvenile justice reform advocates and the other two supervisors believed the high level of funding through AB 695 would tether the county to its long-troubled Probation Department and stymie efforts to dismantle the current system through Youth Justice Reimagined, a proposal unanimously approved by the Board of Supervisors in 2020.

Youth Justice Reimagined proposed placing youth in the custody of the newly created Department of Youth Development and would dedicate resources to diversion and intervention programs, in-home confinement and to the construction of smaller “safe and secure healing centers” spread throughout the county.

The county will, however, need to change state law for that to become a reality, as currently only probation departments and probation officers can oversee the custody of juveniles.

The county Probation Department has until Tuesday, Oct. 10, to submit an approved Corrective Action Plan detailing how it will bring the Barry J. Nidorf Secure Youth Treatment Facility in Sylmar up to the state’s minimum standards. By Oct. 18, an action plan is due for the much larger Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey.

So far, county officials have submitted only a draft plan for the SYTF, a standalone unit that contains about 50 of the county’s most serious youth offenders.

The Board of State and Community Corrections, the regulatory body overseeing California’s juvenile halls, received that draft on Sept. 27. The BSCC did not find it sufficient enough to accept outright and has provided feedback to the county, according to spokesperson Kally Sanders.

“We anticipate revisions and a final version to be submitted prior to the Oct. 10 deadline for approval,” Sanders wrote in an email.

No plan, draft or otherwise, has been received by the state for Los Padrinos, which houses more than 300 youth who are awaiting the conclusions of their court cases.

The two county facilities largely failed in the same categories and, in some cases, for identical reasons, though there are five times more juveniles at Los Padrinos than at Barry J. Nidorf. Inspectors found 10 areas of noncompliance at the SYTF and 12 at Los Padrinos, the county’s last remaining juvenile hall.

Deficiencies addressed

The county’s draft plan for Barry J. Nidorf indicates the department will develop new training and policies to address the deficiencies. County officials said SYTF is now operating at “appropriate staffing numbers” and attached a spreadsheet showing the numbers for a 10-day period at the end of August as evidence.

In July, inspectors found that staff members at the SYTF were “routinely held over with no notice to cover shifts and report they continue to be exhausted as a result.”

“On paper, staffing schedules appear to be adequate, however, we observed lack of staffing and staff who appeared non-engaged with the youth,” an inspector wrote.

In a statement, the Los Angeles County Deputy Probation Officers Union said staffing has “improved marginally” at Barry J. Nidorf and Los Padrinos in the past month.

“This primarily is due to members stepping up and deploying to the Juvenile Halls from other sectors of Probation and to the Department’s push to hire and bring more staff online,” officials said in the statement. “While members continue to experience hold-overs, the current situation is slowly improving. In order for these efforts to result in ultimate success, we need to see tangible staffing increases as deployment alone will not solve the Department’s issues.”

At a recent oversight commission meeting, county officials stated the Probation Department had failed in certain categories due only to missing paperwork. Searches, for example, were taking place, but not properly documented, according to Scott Sanders, the bureau chief for the SYTF.

Critics dubious

Juvenile justice reform advocates scoffed at the county’s draft and Sanders’ statement, saying it downplays the department’s failures and makes the same promises the county has already made and failed to keep in the past.

“We’ve already seen the real-life consequences, but this Corrective Action Plan would make you think this is somebody who didn’t cross their t’s and dot their i’s, when really it is life or death,” said Aditi Sherikar, a senior policy associate for the Children’s Defense Fund California.

In May, a young man at the SYTF died from a suspected drug overdose, and reportedly was not discovered until the following morning. Youth have reported having to urinate in receptacles in their rooms because there’s not enough staff to take them to the restroom at night.

Sherikar said she hopes the BSCC will thoroughly consider Los Angeles County’s history before it makes a decision, as youth have experienced the troubling conditions for years despite L.A. County’s continuous promises to do better.

How staffing will be addressed

Though a Corrective Action Plan has not been formally submitted yet for Los Padrinos, an attachment provided to the BSCC — and recent comments by interim Probation Chief Guillermo Viera Rosa — outlined the county’s broader designs for the juvenile hall system.

Chief among the fixes is a proposal to rapidly expand the Probation Department’s ranks by accelerating recruitment efforts and eliminating bureaucratic roadblocks that lengthen the amount of time before a new hire can appear for a shift.

A proposed staffing plan provided to the BSCC indicates the county has hired 130 new employees as of this month and hopes to increase that total to 323 by March 2024 by beefing up its presence at job fairs and running more frequent academies.

The department also will continue an unpopular policy requiring all 3,039 sworn peace officers, regardless of rank, to serve shifts in the juvenile halls at least once a month.

State and county officials have blamed the staffing crisis, driven by an unusually high amount of call-outs and medical leaves, for the deficiencies cited by state inspectors, including the Probation Department’s struggles to get youth to school on time, provide adequate access to restrooms, and perform the appropriate amount of safety checks and room searches.

More than 500 juvenile hall employees were out on leave in August.

Sherikar said the county’s plan doesn’t appear to address the root causes behind employees not wanting to come to work. She disagreed that the department needs more employees; it needs those it already employs to show up, she said.

The county has tried to offer financial incentives, such as bonuses, for employees willing to work in the juvenile halls.

“I think they will just push out the problem and, a year from now, we’ll be in the same place with where the people hired this year, or hired early next year, will be the ones calling out,” she said. “What does it tell you about the conditions of these facilities that you can’t pay people enough to be there?”

Other fixes promised

To address lapses in safety checks, the county will implement an electronic system that will ping a “quality assurance” team five minutes before the checks are due and whenever a check is missed. The QA team will work with a newly formed compliance team to also monitor the frequency of room searches and staff adherence to the county’s policies on providing age-appropriate programming and recreation, according to the department.

The BSCC’s inspectors previously found that staff was not properly trained in uses of force, including the deployment of pepper spray, which was supposed to be phased out but has since been brought back in response to a failed escape attempt in July.

In response, 14 officers will go through a “train the trainers” program to allow them to teach the use of force policy to their peers, according to the department. Officials say having in-house trainers will cut back on the need for travel and allow quicker turnaround.

Other changes will restructure Los Padrinos to more effectively utilize the department’s existing staff.

Viera Rosa, at a recent probation oversight meeting, said he wants to segment Los Padrinos into multiple self-contained communities that would each house about 50 youth and have consistent supervisors and staff to make each “more manageable.”

In the future, a visitor to Los Padrinos might be asked “which campus” they’re going to, he said.

‘We can’t fail at this’

Viera Rosa said the progress at the juvenile halls has been challenged by violence and other safety risks. Los Padrinos’ population also recently increased faster than the county expected, jumping from 275 when the facility opened in July to more than 300 as of September.

“I’m using all of probation’s resources in these facilities,” he said. “We understand that we can’t fail at this. Society has designated this as the place where these young people have to go and there isn’t an alternative in the short term for them.”

County officials indicated at the commission meeting that Corrective Action Plans had been submitted for both facilities, though that later turned out to be inaccurate.

“The goal is to give them sufficient time to provide us feedback, so we can make any modifications necessary,” Viera Rosa said at the time.

The Probation Department declined to comment on the Corrective Action Plans, saying only that the final plans will be submitted by their due dates.

Sean Garcia-Leys, a oversight commissioner and the executive director of the Peace and Justice Law Center, supports several of Viera Rosa’s ideas for Los Padrinos, but said he hasn’t seen tangible improvements during his visits to the facility over the past three months.

“Everybody says that Chief Viera Rosa is the guy for building effective rehabilatory programs and making the system work, but he needs the raw materials to do that, and the first of those raw materials is staff, and he doesn’t have it,” Garcia-Leys said.

While it could be true that progress is being made at Barry J. Nidorf, that is not the case at Los Padrinos, he said.

“How it appears when you visit the facility is that things are not improving in nearly a substantial enough way,” he said.

He worries the county might be cutting it too close to the Oct. 18 deadline if it intends to submit a plan that is unique to Los Padrinos.

Its proposal for Barry J. Nidorf would be “wholly inadequate” to address the problems plaguing the larger juvenile hall, he said.

If the plans aren’t accepted

If the Corrective Action Plans for the SYTF and Los Padrinos are not approved, the facilities will automatically be declared “unsuitable,” a designation that would force the state to order each to shut down within two months unless the county can pass new inspections.

That’s exactly what happened to L.A. County’s other juvenile halls earlier this year, and why Los Padrinos, originally closed in 2019, is open again. In May, the BSCC declared Central Juvenile Hall and Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall — minus the SYTF — “unsuitable” for many of the same reasons that the new facilities are in the state’s cross hairs now.

This time, Los Angeles County won’t have a massive facility with the capacity to take on hundreds of youth, like Los Padrinos, to fall back on.

Juvenile reform advocates say the county will need to seriously consider bold alternatives, such as decarceration, if the state orders it to shut down Los Padrinos, too.

The county should work with the judiciary to ensure that youth — particularly those who are pre-adjudication — are sent to the juvenile halls and camps only when absolutely necessary and instead placed into community release programs whenever possible, they argued.

“They are keeping young people who have not had their day in court yet under the custody of a department that cannot meet minimum standards and has not met them for years,” Sherikar said.

The new allegations against Robert Tafoya became public last week following the federal grand jury indictment of Tafoya’s longtime friend and alleged co-conspirator, former Compton Councilman Isaac Galvan.

Tafoya has not been charged and is only identified as “Person 1,” an individual described in the indictment as “the city attorney for Baldwin Park from in or around December 2013 until October 2022.” Court filings, however, refer to Person 1 as a “co-conspirator” and suggest he assisted in at least two instances in which Pacheco sold his vote.

Tafoya resigned as city attorney that same month after the Southern California News Group published details about other allegations against him contained in the unsealed plea agreements of Pacheco, a councilman from 1997 to 2020, and Gabriel Chavez, a former San Bernardino County planning commissioner who served as Pacheco’s middleman in the bribery scheme.

Pacheco and Chavez each pleaded guilty to a single count of bribery in 2020 and 2022. In total, authorities seized $302,900 in bribes collected by Pacheco.

Their plea agreements, signed under penalty of perjury, allege Galvan, Tafoya and others — including Commerce City Manager Edgar Cisneros — participated in the corruption at various points. The federal investigation reportedly crosses into multiple cities, including Baldwin Park, Montebello, El Monte and Commerce.

Galvan and Tafoya allegedly were working together to secure a marijuana license to operate in Cisneros’ city.

A list of related cases filed alongside Galvan’s indictment indicate at least one other case — filed within the past year and currently under seal — is pending.

Tafoya’s attorney, Mark Werksman, did not respond to requests for comment. He previously denied that Tafoya had any knowledge or involvement in Pacheco’s dealings.

“Robert Tafoya is and always has been an honest, ethical attorney that has acted legally and in the best interest of the City of Baldwin Park,” Werksman said in 2022. “A bunch of corrupt politicians, who are cooperating in order to get lenient sentences, shouldn’t be believed at all.”

Asked about the allegations against Tafoya specifically, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, declined to “comment as to the identity of Person 1 in the indictment.”

Pleaded not guilty

Special agents with the FBI and IRS Criminal Investigations arrested Galvan, 36, of Compton, and Yichang Bai, 50, of Arcadia, the owner and operator of a cannabis grower that obtained permit in Baldwin Park, in the early morning of Monday, Sept. 18. Both were charged with one count of conspiracy, one count of bribery and eight counts of wire fraud. The two men pleaded not guilty to all counts during an arraignment that same day, according to court records.

The earlier plea agreements signed by Pacheco and Chavez alleged Tafoya set the various bribery schemes in motion.

Prosecutors believe Tafoya approached Pacheco prior to the City Council’s approval of its first cannabis cultivation ordinance in August 2017 and recommended that he support bringing cannabis to the city because Pacheco could “personally profit,” according to an exhibit attached to Pacheco’s plea agreement.

“Person 1 explained that defendant should find an individual he trusted who would not talk (the ‘intermediary’), instruct the intermediary to represent himself as a ‘consultant’ to companies seeking Cultivation Development Agreements, and promise to deliver a development agreement to the company in exchange for a $150,000 fee,” federal prosecutors wrote in the exhibit.

Money for votes

A week before the vote, Galvan — who helped Tafoya’s wife land a job at Compton City Hall — gave a $10,000 check with a blank payee line to Pacheco “to secure Pacheco’s support for a future consulting client’s marijuana permit,” according to the indictment and a news release. Pacheco passed the check off to a real estate agent friend who deposited it, then gave $6,400 in cash back to him.

The check came from a consulting company that Tafoya helped Galvan form, prosecutors said.

The following month, Tafoya allegedly provided a list of “the names of applicants for marijuana permits” and “the names of individuals associated with those applications” to Galvan.

After Bai’s company, W&F International, paid $40,000 to Galvan’s consulting firm, he arranged a meeting with Bai, his translator and Tafoya at Tafoya’s office to demonstrate the sway he carried. Galvan texted Bai’s translator after the November 2017 meeting: “See I don’t (expletive) around.”

A month later, Tafoya, through a friend, reportedly sent Galvan two “consulting services agreements,” one for Galvan’s company and another for a consulting company run by the friend. The agreement stated that the second consulting company would receive $225,000 once Baldwin Park issued a development agreement to W&F.

Pacheco supported W&F’s application during council votes on June 20 and July 18, 2018.

Bai later collected a $50,000 check and five $10,000 checks from an individual who owed him money and passed them to Galvan, who in turn passed the checks along to Pacheco and Tafoya, prosecutors allege. Tafoya agreed to have friends of a relative cash the five checks in exchange for $6,000 from the total, they allege.

Pacheco similarly had a third party cash the larger check and pay back a portion over the following months. The scheme was designed to “disguise the true source of the payment,” prosecutors said.

The Baldwin Park City Council unanimously supported W&F International’s application to relocate its proposed cultivation site in December 2018.

Meanwhile, Pacheco and Chavez, the planning commissioner, collected more bribes. The two men amassed at least $170,000 through sham consulting agreements — allegedly provided by Tafoya — from other applicants from 2017 to 2019.

Cash buried in backyard

The FBI busted Pacheco through a separate 2018 sting during which he took $37,900 from a Baldwin Park police officer, acting as an FBI informant, in exchange for supporting the police union’s contract. Federal investigators raided his home in response in December 2018 and found $62,900 buried in his backyard.

The following month, Pacheco deposited $20,000 in bribes from Bai into a legal defense fund.

Two years later, the FBI raided Tafoya’s office and the homes of Chavez and Galvan. Chavez later pleaded guilty to one count of bribery in October 2022.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office believes Tafoya was present at five different meetings between Pacheco and Galvan in which Pacheco openly discussed taking bribes.

After raid, agreement rescinded

The day after the 2020 raid on Tafoya, Baldwin Park revoked W&F International’s development agreement.

The company had been operating an illegal grow in Baldwin Park for months without any action from the city until the neighboring El Monte Police Department intervened. Baldwin Park officials at the time said they only inspected “nonoperating” cannabis businesses once a year at most and were unaware of W&F’s activities.

W&F was years behind on the required payments outlined in its development agreement. The company had not completed required improvements to the building, or secured necessary approvals from county health, county fire and the city’s building division.

The El Monte Police Department, acting independently on information obtained in its own cases, had sent detectives to check the exterior of W&F’s Littlejohn Street warehouse roughly a month before the revocation and found obvious signs of a grow, including marijuana leaves discarded in the trash.

Pictures from the raid showed a warehouse filled with marijuana plants. Police seized 15 boxes of marijuana, one rooted plant and security cameras at the time.

They arrested Bai on suspicion of cultivation of marijuana, possession of marijuana for sales and conspiracy, according to a news release.

Lawsuit targets fee collections

David Torres-Siegrist, an attorney representing several cannabis companies in Baldwin Park, is suing the city to try to stop its collection of mitigation fees tied to the cannabis development agreements. Those fees, which are meant to offset the negatives from the industry, weren’t established equally, according to the lawsuit.

Some of the development agreements allowed operators to avoid paying the fees until they received a certificate of occupancy, while others began accruing a balance immediately, putting them millions of dollars in the hole before a single cent could be earned.

Tafoya handled all of the original development agreement negotiations and continued to work on cannabis regulations even after the FBI raided his home. The City Council removed those responsibilities from Tafoya in April 2021 after the Southern California News Group found he had hired an attorney who successfully landed a cannabis permit during an earlier round of applicants.

Galvan served as a consultant for that applicant as well. The attorney in question, Anthony Willoughby II, was the son of Galvan’s personal attorney.

A federal case filed by Torres-Siegrist on behalf of David Ju, a businessman who purchased the development agreement awarded to Willoughby, alleges Tafoya, Galvan, Pacheco and Willoughby II “acted in concert to orchestrate a swindle on an elderly man dying of cancer who poured his life savings into a venture that was destined for failure from the get-go.” The lawsuit alleges the men violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO.

Ju paid $300,000 to buy the cannabis company, Tier One Consulting, and roughly $200,000 of the total went to Galvan, according to the lawsuit. The businessman later learned Willoughby had spent less than $4,000 securing the development agreement and had amassed tens of thousands of dollars in fees that Tafoya allegedly told Ju he needed to cover, the lawsuit states.

Ju estimates he lost at least $900,000 on the deal, according to the lawsuit.

‘Whole process is compromised’

“We’ve been telling the City Council this since 2021,” Torres-Siegrist said in an interview. “The whole process is compromised and at the heart of it is an out-of-control City Attorney’s Office.”

Baldwin Park Mayor Emmanuel Estrada inherited the cannabis mess after winning election in 2020. Since then, the City Council has hired a new city attorney, a new police chief, a new city manager and new code enforcement personnel, he said.

The city is using a reputable third party, HdL Companies, to assist with developing a more equitable system, he said. In the future, Estrada hopes that cannabis operators will only have to pay fees once they’re operational, he said.

The slow movement of the FBI’s case has made it difficult to take action against any of the companies that may have received a development agreement through corruption, he said. While the city knows at least two companies paid bribes based on prior court filings, officials didn’t know the names of any of the companies until W&F was named in last week’s indictment, Estrada said.

“It is very difficult for us to act on any of the contracts, but I would say that the city is working on making sure that moving forward we are holding everyone accountable and putting the right process in place to ensure that something like this doesn’t happen again,” he said. “For the most part, the city is moving kind of slow because we don’t want to end up blindsided.”

AB 695, introduced by Assemblymember Blanca Pacheco, would give the Board of State and Community Corrections — an agency that recently shuttered two of the county’s juvenile halls over poor conditions — the ability to provide state grants to Los Angeles County for infrastructure improvements, including the construction of new living quarters for youth in custody and modernized spaces for rehabilitative and educational programs.

The bill passed in the Legislature the same week that the BSCC warned it may be forced to close more of Los Angeles County’s juvenile facilities, including the newly reopened Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall, over failed inspections.

Though AB 695 doesn’t set a dollar amount, the Senate Appropriations Committee estimates the hit to the state’s general fund will be in the “high hundreds of millions” of dollars — potentially up to $1 billion — to address the “critical needs of the juvenile facilities in Los Angeles.”

Opponents worry that such a high level of funding will only make the county more reliant on its flawed Probation Department and the prison-like detention facilities that the county has pledged to replace — with little progress so far — with “less restrictive” alternatives.

‘Youth Justice Reimagined’

Instead, the juvenile reform advocates want to see L.A. County follow through with the implementation of Youth Justice Reimagined, a proposal unanimously approved by the Board of Supervisors in 2020. That plan would place youth in the custody of the newly created Department of Youth Development and dedicate resources to diversion and intervention programs, in-home confinement and the construction of smaller “safe and secure healing centers” spread throughout the county.

Two county supervisors and nearly two dozen advocacy groups, including the ACLU, opposed AB 695, arguing that such an investment into the juvenile hall system, which Youth Justice Reimagined wants to dismantle by 2025, will not address its failings.

“Funding infrastructure does not begin to approach the wholesale change that is needed in how we approach our justice-involved youth,” wrote county Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Holly Mitchell, in a letter to the state Legislature. “A department with a record of mismanagement so severe that the State had to intervene should not be rewarded with taxpayer dollars.”

The county has invested $35 million in capital improvements over the past five years, yet conditions have become “so abhorrent,” largely driven by a high level of staff call-outs, that the county had to consolidate nearly 300 youth to Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey after the BSCC declared that Barry J. Nidorf and Central juvenile halls were not suitable for confinement of youth, according to the letter.

“A grant to improve a dwindling number of facilities your own corrections board has deemed ‘unsuitable’ for reasons that have little to do with the physical infrastructure would be better spent on efforts that would shift the culture to support developmentally appropriate rehabilitation rather than a punitive approach,” Horvath and Mitchell wrote.

3 supervisors support bill

Three other supervisors, all of whom also support Youth Justice Reimagined, have backed AB 695.

Supervisors Janice Hahn, Kathryn Barger and Hilda Solis, along with several construction and peace officer unions, wrote letters in favor of the bill.

“While the challenges our Probation Department face go far beyond the physical facilities, we still owe it to the youth who are in our care to make our probation facilities modern, safe, and comfortable,” Hahn said in an emailed statement. “The buildings at Los Padrinos are aging and they need upgrades. I want to see funding go toward improving the air conditioning, modernizing the classrooms, and making the rooms more comfortable.”

Despite the promises of Youth Justice Reimagined, state law places juvenile halls squarely under the control of the county probation officer and, thus far, attempts to change that law in the Legislature have been unsuccessful, meaning the Probation Department isn’t going anywhere yet.

What AB 695 will do

The Los Angeles County Probation Officers Union co-sponsored AB 695 and stated in an argument in support that it would be used to “construct a new training facility” needed by the department and “to renovate Central Juvenile Hall, Camp Joseph Paige or Dorothy Kirby Center, and Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall.”

An improved physical environment will help motivate the young people to “change their lives for the better,” the union wrote in a letter in support.

“These facilities were constructed decades ago,” union officials wrote. “They are dilapidated, prison-like, and unsuitable for our collective vision to rehabilitate troubled youth and young adults. Nevertheless, we are doing our best with what we have, but our mission to provide second chances for youth and young adults in a trauma-informed, care-first setting is severely compromised with the current facilities.”

Los Padrinos, the county’s largest juvenile facility, originally opened in 1957.

A spokesperson for the union did not respond to a request for comment.

Too late to matter?

Aditi Sherikar, senior policy associate for the Children’s Defense Fund California, called the passage of AB 695 “very disappointing.” The county is less likely to transition away from juvenile halls as promised if it invests a billion dollars into them, she said.

She pointed to recent inspections by the BSCC that found both Los Padrinos and the Secure Youth Treatment Facility at Barry J. Nidorf out of compliance with state standards for juvenile facilities. None of the areas of noncompliance relate to infrastructure, according to an inspection report.

“We know the crisis facing youth in L.A. County has absolutely nothing to do with the buildings, the walls, the structures,” Sherikar said. “If the governor is serious about being responsible with taxpayer money, he will veto this bill.”

The county Probation Department already receives an annual budget of roughly $1 billion, with about half going to the juvenile side. Since 2019, the county has dropped from 19 juvenile camps and three juvenile halls to just six as of 2023.

Though those in custody once numbered in the thousands, the population has declined to less than 500 in recent years.

“LA County has poured resources into this department for decades, but conditions have only worsened despite year over year increases in funding,” stated an opposition letter from the Pacific Juvenile Defender Center. “AB 695 will only serve to bolster LA County probation’s dysfunction and abuse.”

Staffing issues persist

Los Angeles County’s Probation Department has struggled with crisis after crisis for years. Many of the department’s recent problems have been attributed to its struggle to get employees to show up for work. A report in July found that nearly a third of juvenile hall employees were on full-time leave. Recent inspections indicate there has not been enough of an improvement despite the county’s efforts to hire new probation officers and incentivize existing ones.

Both the Department of Justice and the BSCC have separately taken actions against the county over the poor conditions in the facilities.

In 2021, the Department of Justice sued and won a judgment against the county over its failure to provide appropriate educational, medical and recreational services to youth in custody. A judge agreed earlier this year to sanction the county if it doesn’t come into compliance with the terms of that judgment within the next few months.

Nearly 600 former detainees have filed lawsuits against the Probation Department since December alleging decades of sexual abuse in the juvenile halls and camps.

Troubles at Los Padrinos

In May, the BSCC ordered the county to shut down and empty Barry J. Nidorf and Central juvenile halls within 60 days, causing county officials to scramble to reopen Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall, which closed in 2019, to house the juveniles instead.

The hope of a fresh start at Los Padrinos dissipated quickly. Visitors during one of the first weekends complained of foul odors, bug infestations and a lack of activities for the bored and increasingly agitated detainees. Over the next two weeks, a gun was found unattended inside the facility, though firearms are prohibited even for law enforcement. Then, a coordinated group of detainees busted out of their rooms and attacked guards during an escape attempt.

One youth successfully scaled a wall before he was detained in a nearby golf course. Neighboring law enforcement agencies, responding to the call for help, arrived in riot gear and surrounded the facility, while news helicopters circled overhead.

In August, inspectors found that employees at the SYTF and Los Padrinos are still not completing safety checks frequently enough, conducting searches for contraband regularly, bringing youth to school on-time, or providing adequate recreation. Those same problems were flagged during inspections at Central and Nidorf in early 2023 and contributed to their closures.

“Even though these facilities are different than Central and Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Halls, they are the same issues,” said Allison Ganter, the BSCC’s deputy director of facilities standards and operations, during a presentation at the board’s meeting Thursday, Sept. 14.

The BSCC, which will be tasked under AB 695 with supplying grants to Los Angeles County to improve its facilities, could end up shutting down the county’s two largest before a single dollar can be awarded.

The state regulatory agency has ordered L.A. County to submit plans to fix the problems at the SYTF and Los Padrinos by Oct. 10 and Oct. 17, respectively.

If the plans are not approved, or the county fails to implement changes within 90 days, those facilities could be declared unsuitable and forced to close by early next year.

Among the waste, investigators found more than 10,000 pages of medical records for 7,700 patients during those inspections, according to state Attorney General Rob Bonta. Prosecutors suspect millions of Californians’ personal information may have ended up in the trash across the state.

Kaiser, under state and federal laws, should have shredded that information and sent the medical waste to licensed facilities for disposal.

‘Serious’ health risk

“The items found posed a serious risk to anyone that may have come into contact with them, from health care providers and patients in the same room as the trash cans, to custodians and sanitation workers who directly handled the waste, to workers at the landfill,” Bonta said during a press conference.

“Nurses, physicians and patients could inadvertently touch blood or bodily fluids containing dangerous pathogens. Custodians and sanitation workers could be stuck by a used needle. An aerosol can that wasn’t fully empty could explode and start a fire in a trash can, or in the back of a garbage truck making its way through neighborhood streets.”

Though Bonta said the waste included body parts, Kaiser Permanente said in a statement that it was not “aware of any body parts being found at any time during this investigation.”

The health care provider learned of improper disposals about six years ago and took immediate action, according to the statement.

“We immediately completed an extensive auditing effort of the waste stream at our facilities and established mandatory and ongoing training to address the findings,” the statement said. “We take this matter extremely seriously and have taken full responsibility to acknowledge and, in cooperation with the California Attorney General and county district attorneys, correct our performance regarding landfill-bound trash where it may have fallen short of our standards.”

Probe launched in 2015

The district attorneys’ investigation started in 2015 through a collaboration among Alameda, San Francisco, San Joaquin and San Bernardino counties. Undercover inspections at 16 Kaiser facilities found hundreds of items of hazardous and medical waste, including aerosol cans, cleansers, batteries, syringes, medical tubing with bodily fluids and pharmaceuticals.

In a statement, San Bernardino County District Attorney Jason Anderson praised his staff for dedicating “years of their time and expertise” to the probe. The county’s Consumer Environmental Protection Unit assisted with compliance efforts for all of Southern California.

“I am confident that this case shows the residents of San Bernardino County that our office will not stand by as hospitals and other medical clinics dispose of medical waste including biohazards, hazardous waste and personal health information into our landfills, jeopardizing medical confidentiality,” Anderson said.

The Department of Justice joined the local prosecutors and expanded the investigation statewide as it became clear that the problem was much more widespread, Bonta said. Kaiser, headquartered in Oakland, provides health care to approximately 8.8 million Californians at more than 700 facilities. It is the largest health care provider in the state.

Problems systemwide

“We believe that these practices were system wide and impacted anywhere potentially where Kaiser was disposing of hazardous waste, of medical waste, of private patient information,” Bonta said.

Kaiser cooperated with the investigation and conducted 1,100 self-audits, which revealed even more problems, according to Ken Mifsud, a deputy district attorney from Alameda County, now working in San Mateo County.

“During those audits, we were able to estimate that millions of Kasier patients’ information over the course of five years had been unlawfully disseminated, at least thrown into the trash and potentially at risk of being picked up by identity thieves across various different landfills and transfer stations,” Mifsud said.

Kaiser will pay $47.25 million directly, including $37.5 million in civil penalties, $4.8 million in attorney fees and $4.9 million for supplemental environmental projects, primarily environmental prosecutor training, according to Bonta’s office.

The health care provider agreed to spend another $3.5 million within the next five years to “implement enhanced environmental compliance measures” to ensure it is following state laws. If the company fails to follow through, it will incur an additional $1.75 million in civil penalties.

Kaiser will hire a third-party auditor — approved by the Attorney General’s Office and the district attorneys — to conduct at least 520 trash audits and 40 field audits at Kaiser’s facilities in California over the next five years to evaluate its compliance.

This isn’t the first time Kaiser has run afoul of state and local prosecutors for improperly handling personal data. It previously paid $150,000 in penalties and fees in 2014 to resolve a lawsuit stemming from the discovery of a USB drive at a Santa Cruz thrift store that contained more than 20,000 employee records.

The men, Luis Ventura, 24, Marco Antonio Hernandez, 18, and Abraham Ernesto Alvarenga Cortez, 21, were each charged with two counts of robbery and one count of murder for the July 22 slaying of Jessie Munoz, 32, during a botched robbery.

Prosecutors have asked for $2.1 million in bail for each.

“The heinous actions that led to the robbery and murder of Mr. Jessie Enrique Munoz is an appalling and reprehensible display of disregard for human life,” District Attorney George Gascón said in a statement. “Our hearts go out to Mr. Munoz’s family and friends who are coping with the pain of this senseless act, including his female companion who also was a victim of robbery at the time of this crime. We will work tirelessly to hold these three individuals accountable for their actions.”

Alvarenga Cortez is alleged to have personally used a handgun in the robbery-homicide, according to prosecutors.

Ventura, who has been in custody on robbery charges since July 26, pleaded not guilty during an arraignment on Sept. 1. Hernandez and Cortez are scheduled to appear for arraignment on Sept. 11.

The Pasadena Police Department originally arrested Ventura, Wendy Sarai Cerritos, 21, and Rossel Jose Hernandez, 20, and three others for their suspected involvement in the attack more than a month ago. Three unnamed suspects were released two days later and prosecutors filed only robbery — not murder — charges at the time.

Ventura, Cerritos and Rossel Hernandez are not scheduled to appear in court again until Oct. 6.

All five suspects are allegedly part of a street gang that targeted drivers parked at scenic overlooks throughout Los Angeles County. The group robbed at least four other people parked along the Angeles Crest Highway in the days before they set upon and killed Munoz, 32.

The California Highway Patrol, responding to what officers thought was a traffic collision about 3:30 a.m. July 22, found Munoz’s damaged sedan off the side of the road. They attempted to provide medical assistance, but Munoz, who had been shot multiple times, died at the scene.

Prosecutors allege four men, including an unidentified fourth suspect, were involved in the killing.

The Pasadena Police Department arrested Ventura, Cerritos and Rossel Hernandez during a July 25 operation that tracked the suspects’ vehicle across multiple cities. Officers surrounded the car in Panorama City and took them into custody at gunpoint, showed a video uploaded to YouTube.

One of the firearms recovered was later confirmed to be the weapon used to murder Munoz, the Pasadena Police Department alleges.

Pasadena police arrested Cortez and Marco Hernandez Aug. 29 during a second operation that executed search warrants at multiple locations simultaneously.

“Thanks to the Pasadena PD Robbery Homicide Unit, the LA County District Attorney’s Office, and the many other participants in this complex investigation,” said Pasadena Police Chief Gene Harris in a statement. “This is a tragedy of the highest order for the family and friends of the victims in this case and our hearts go out to them as they cope in the aftermath. I can only hope the efforts of all involved can bring a measure of closure during their healing.”

Investigators suspect the same group involved in the Pasadena slaying carried out another robbery-turned-homicide in a beachside parking lot in Rancho Palos Verdes two days after Munoz’s killing. There, three males approached Jorge Ramos, 36, and TaylorRaven Whittaker, 26, in a parking lot overlooking Pelican Cove. The men opened fire on their Subaru, killing both Ramos and Whittaker.

A fourth suspect, believed to be a woman, acted as the getaway driver in that crime, investigators said previously.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, the agency in charge of that part of the investigation, issued a statement on the progress of its probe.

“The investigation remains ongoing regarding the homicide which occurred in Palos Verdes and is independent of the investigation being handled by the Pasadena Police Department. To date, no arrests have been made.”