‘Unacceptable’: Los Angeles Progressive Prosecutor Is Ignoring a Sex Crime Crisis, According to Internal Memo 

Sex assault cases doubled in Los Angeles under George Gascón’s policies Los Angeles district attorney George Gascón (D.) / Getty Images

According to members of his office, a California district Attorney is not paying attention to how his policies allowed cases involving domestic violence, child sex crimes and sexual assault to increase by two-fold under his watch.

Valerie Cole, a prosecutor for Los Angeles district attorney George Gascón (D.), warned last year in An internal memo Obtained by the Washington Free Beacon Their office was handling “more than twice as many” With a decreasing staff, these cases are more frequent than normal. Cole warns that the district attorney’s office will continue to suffer a “loss of reputation” These cases will not be handled well.

The contents of this memo, which was the Free Beacon is the first to report, did not leak during last summer’s recall campaign against Gascón. But Cole’s warnings have resonated among frustrated staffers, according to prosecutors in the office who say Gascón has yet to heed the memo’s warning—or acknowledge how his policies enabled the rise in crimes.

“What started as isolated shortages due to mismanagement and a slew of additional responsibilities that stem from new laws and policies has spread to negatively impact most of our operations,” said John McKinney, a Los Angeles deputy district attorney. “There is a culture of chaos among Gascón’s upper management starting with Gascón himself and trickling down to infect what used to be a highly efficient operation.”

The same could be said of many reform-minded prosecutors boosted by the liberal billionaire George Soros, including embattled Philadelphia district attorney Larry Krasner (D.) and Chicago state’s attorney Kim Foxx (D.). They pledged to end the war on corruption and received millions of dollars in donations from Soros. “mass incarceration” Sentence reductions. This has led to many positive outcomes. soaring violent crime Higher rates of recidivism and lower rates

Some of Gascón’s prosecutors say those very reforms are contributing to the increase in cases. The handling of juvenile and firearm crimes, which were once routine, is no longer at the deputies’ discretion. They now need more paperwork and multiple approvals from their superiors. Moreover, staff who don’t comply may face professional repercussions.

Career prosecutors like McKinney and John Lewin claim Gascón demoted them after they publicly disagreed with his policy guidelines that reduced sentences for rapists and murderers, the Daily Mail reported. A senior prosecutor for sex crime,