Prosecutor Seeks to Overturn Transfer

A prosecutor who was reassigned to a job she did not want after clashing with her bosses over an investigation of a major developer filed papers Friday to overturn the transfer.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Diana Callaghan asked the Los Angeles County Civil Service Commission to reverse her transfer to the central complaints office, contending that the move was in retaliation for her investigation of the Newhall Land & Farming Co.

The commission has the power to void the reassignment.

Until April, Callaghan directed an investigation into allegations that Newhall had concealed the number of endangered flowers on Santa Clarita Valley land where it hopes to build 21,600 homes.

Top officials took the case from Callaghan after she proposed searching the offices of the developer, its attorney and consultants. Prosecutors later filed a single misdemeanor charge against the developer and said Callaghan’s investigation had been shoddy.

Callaghan last summer requested a transfer from the Environmental Crimes Unit, asking to go to major fraud, major narcotics or major crimes divisions, her complaint states.

After The Times asked Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Curt Livesay about the Newhall case in December, Callaghan was sent to the complaints unit.

“The chief deputy has transferred me to an assignment that I specifically requested not to be sent to, and an assignment in which it is virtually impossible for me to be promoted,� Callaghan wrote in her appeal.

A spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office declined to comment, saying that the office had not received Callaghan’s complaint.

Livesay earlier said that he was trying to accommodate her request for a transfer.

In her appeal, Callaghan said punitive transfers are a tradition in the district attorney’s office. As an example, she cited Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley, who as an assistant district attorney was transferred after bucking his predecessor, Gil Garcetti.

“I was transferred to the smallest, most backwater, most unpopular division of the L.A. County district attorney’s office, but I wasn’t even angry,� Cooley told a reporter during his campaign in 2000.

“They get to do that if they’re of a mind to be retaliatory and vindictive,� he said.