Los Angeles faculty board candidate Graciela Ortiz has been faraway from her job as an L.A. Unified counseling administrator pending a confidential investigation, faculty district officers confirmed, main a school-employees union to withdraw its endorsement of her for the March 5 election.
The investigation was launched after a civil lawsuit was filed alleging Ortiz and a political ally are chargeable for the actions of a marketing campaign employee, who pleaded no contest to sexual misconduct with an underage volunteer. Each the perpetrator and sufferer had been concerned in marketing campaign work in 2021 for Ortiz and Efren Martinez, in response to the go well with, filed Jan. 9 in Los Angeles County Superior Court docket.
Martinez is working for the 57th state Meeting district, which takes in components of downtown L.A., South L.A. and southeast L.A. County. Ortiz is a Huntington Park Metropolis Council member working to characterize District 5, which runs north to south alongside an jap swath of the Los Angeles Unified College District, taking in Eagle Rock and cities together with Maywood and Bell.
Within the felony case, Billy Valdivia, the marketing campaign employee, additionally pleaded no contest to a weapons cost, in response to court docket data. He’s additionally a defendant within the civil go well with.
The go well with seeks unspecified damages for the feminine sexual-abuse sufferer, recognized as “B.A.”
An lawyer for Ortiz and Martinez, Robert P. Sievers, demanded that the case be dropped in a letter to the plaintiff’s lawyer, calling the allegations “malicious and defamatory” in addition to a rigorously timed political “smear.”
Neither Ortiz nor Martinez answered questions submitted to them through e mail from The Instances. Nor did they consent to be interviewed. Neither Sievers nor attorneys from Lyfe Regulation, which additionally has been representing Ortiz and Martinez, responded to emailed questions.
Political guide Mike Trujillo supplied a blanket assertion by textual content and e mail to detailed questions.
“Like Taylor Swift’s tune ‘Shake It Off’ the court docket will dismiss this politically motivated lawsuit. Additionally each main public security group like our personal LAUSD faculty law enforcement officials have endorsed Councilwoman Graciela Ortiz as a result of they know she’s going to make our faculties safer,” mentioned Trujillo, who added that he is also working for candidates within the three different board races.
“That is our reply/remark to each query you have got requested,” he added in a textual content.
Ortiz, 43, misplaced an earlier bid for the varsity board in 2019 to Jackie Goldberg, who’s retiring. Ortiz’s council submit is part-time. Her full-time job has been as a faculty assist administrator overseeing counselors. However in the course of the occasions associated within the lawsuit, she was a faculty counselor, as she had been most of her district profession, which started in 2006.
L.A. Unified confirmed that Ortiz has been faraway from her place “pending the result of a proper investigation,” a district spokesperson mentioned. The district declined to offer extra info.
Citing the problems raised within the lawsuit and the continued investigation, one union, Chapter 500 of California College Workers Assn., has withdrawn its endorsement of Ortiz. That union represents about 4,000 staff, together with library aides and clerical and enterprise service workers at faculties.
Ortiz is supported by the marketing campaign’s greatest spender: Native 99 of Service Workers Worldwide Union, which represents about 30,000 staff together with cafeteria staff, custodians, instructor aides, safety aides and bus drivers.
Native 99 spent $708,191 by Friday on behalf of Ortiz, and in addition has supplied members to marketing campaign door to door.
Ortiz “has constantly demonstrated a profound dedication to supporting kids and households,” Native 99 spokesperson Blanca Gallegos mentioned Thursday. “From our understanding, it was Graciela’s cooperation within the investigation of the incident that led to” the no contest plea by Valdivia.
A marketing campaign volunteer
Throughout the 2018-19 faculty 12 months, B.A. attended Marquez Excessive College in Huntington Park. She acquired to know Ortiz, who was a counselor and the school advisor to the Key Membership, to which the scholar belonged, in response to the lawsuit.
Ortiz recruited B.A. and different college students to work on her unsuccessful 2019 faculty board marketing campaign, a particular election to fill an open seat, the lawsuit states. The COVID-19 pandemic closed faculties in March 2020, however B.A. reconnected with Ortiz later that 12 months at a Christmas toy drive, the lawsuit states.
On the urging of Ortiz, B.A. joined in one other marketing campaign effort in early 2021 to assist Martinez win election to the native Democratic Social gathering Government Committee, in response to the go well with.
Additionally concerned within the 2021 effort for Martinez was Valdivia, described within the lawsuit as a “private good friend” of Martinez who created video and promoting for the marketing campaign workplace and drove volunteers round as they carried out marketing campaign work.
The go well with alleges that Ortiz “was the first particular person in control of the marketing campaign, organizing the volunteers and giving talks every day on the marketing campaign headquarters to instruct the volunteers on what to do, together with interactions with Billy Valdivia,” who helped direct the efforts of the younger volunteers.
Valdivia, who was 44 on the time, socialized with underage college students, bought alcohol for them and drove them round, in response to the lawsuit. He would drop off B.A. final, step by step grooming the 16-year-old right into a sexual relationship, generally taking her to his condo, the lawsuit alleges.
B.A. informed her household concerning the bodily contact — they usually notified Huntington Park police, who arrange a sting, in response to the go well with. B.A. requested a one-on-one assembly with Valdivia, and when he arrived — driving a car borrowed from Martinez — officers arrested him, the lawsuit states.
Officers discovered pictures and video on Valdivia’s cellphone that supported B.A.’s account, in response to the lawsuit. On the time of his arrest, he was carrying an unregistered firearm. Not less than one different weapon was discovered at his residence, the lawsuit states.
Valdivia was charged with three felony counts associated to weapons and one misdemeanor rely for annoying or molesting a sufferer youthful than 18. He pleaded no contest to 2 counts: improperly carrying a loaded firearm in public and the annoyance/molestation rely, in response to felony court docket data.
He acquired a two-year suspended sentence that included credit score for 46 days in custody and needed to register as a intercourse offender, court docket data present.
Lawsuit questions
At difficulty within the civil lawsuit towards Martinez and Ortiz is whether or not they had been negligent in hiring and supervising Valdivia and permitting him to work together with minors.
The lawsuit alleges that Ortiz and Martinez ought to have carried out a background verify on Valdivia, and, that if they’d, they’d have discovered court docket data displaying that he was a possible threat.
A evaluate of restricted court docket paperwork, which embody a reputation and a case quantity, point out that a person named Billy Valdivia confronted gun prices within the Nineties. The Instances was unable to confirm if it’s the similar particular person as a result of the case data, which would come with a date of beginning, have been destroyed.
The court docket data additionally present a home dispute involving a person named Billy Valdivia with the identical beginning date because the marketing campaign employee. On this case, Valdivia’s then-wife alleged he was violent and sought a restraining order towards him, in response to court docket paperwork. The restraining order was briefly in pressure. There isn’t any indication that prices had been filed.
Each the weapons circumstances and the home dispute occurred greater than 20 years in the past.
Valdivia and his lawyer on the felony case, Albert Robles, didn’t reply to emails and cellphone calls from The Instances.
In his letter — emailed to The Instances by B.A.’s lawyer — Sievers denied a connection between B.A. and the campaigns of Ortiz and Martinez: “This declare additionally is just not true as B.A. was by no means a volunteer or part of the 2020 campaigns and nobody within the marketing campaign is aware of her.”
Nonetheless, Mike Navia, a former Huntington Park Police Division detective who supervised the case, mentioned that B.A. was a marketing campaign volunteer in the course of the related interval and had common contact with Ortiz, Martinez and Valdivia.
Navia not works for town, having misplaced his job within the wake of a public dispute when, as a police union chief, he criticized metropolis officers, together with Ortiz.
Thomas Scully, B.A.’s lawyer, produced a letter of advice that Ortiz wrote praising B.A.’s marketing campaign assist in 2019.
He added it’s commonplace observe for a sufferer to sue an employer as a result of the perpetrator usually has no belongings to recuperate as damages.
“The obligation of care is heightened on this case as a result of the sufferer was a minor,” Scully mentioned. “She had been enticed from a faculty setting the place there was a particular relationship between herself and a former faculty counselor that may lull her into an inexpensive perception that she, as a volunteer, can be taken care of.”
