A federal judge found that Los Angeles city officials altered evidence to support the city's defense against allegations that it illegally seized and destroyed the property of homeless people.
Warning that the city would likely face penalties after the forensic examination, U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fisher said in the order that the city not only “altered, modified, and created documents relevant to Plaintiff's allegations” but also failed to lawfully submit the requested documents.
“Suffice it to say that the City’s credibility has been significantly damaged,” she wrote.
According to court filings, records documenting what was captured during the cleanups and legal authorization for seizure were altered or created up to two years after the cleanup occurred, and in some cases just days before they were turned over to prosecutors.
In some records, the word “bulky items” was replaced with “health hazard” or “contaminant,” after Fisher ruled that a city ordinance prohibiting the confiscation of bulky items was unconstitutional.
In a lawsuit, Shaila R. Myers, an attorney with the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles who represents the eight plaintiffs, called the changes so significant that they “amount to fraud in court.”
“In our view, it's not just about altering or creating evidence, it's also about misleading the court and the public that safeguards are in place to ensure the city doesn't illegally dispose of unhoused people's property,” Myers said in an interview.
“They argue that they have procedures in place to ensure that the rights of unhoused people are not violated. … These are the same documents that the court found to be altered or fabricated.
A spokesman for the Los Angeles city attorney declined to answer The Times' questions about the case, saying the office does not comment on pending litigation.
The plaintiffs, seven homeless people and the group Ktown for All, allege the city violated their rights by destroying their property during encampment cleanups in 2018 and 2019. Among the items seized, they claim, are tents, chairs, work supplies and a laptop. A computer, a box containing clothes and toiletries, a dog kennel, medications and personal identification.
The five-year-old lawsuit alleges that the city's practice of seizing and disposing of property violates the Fourth Amendment's protection from unlawful search and seizure and the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of due process.
It describes property used by lead plaintiff Janet Garcia in her work as a domestic cleaner, which was seized and destroyed when she was not present. The other plaintiffs were allegedly not given time to collect their personal belongings before they were confiscated.
Ktown for All, a group that advocates for and assists the homeless, claims it has been harmed by having to spend resources to replenish the seized items.
The plaintiffs are seeking compensation for destroyed property, pain and suffering as well as a declaration that the city's policies and practices violate the California and United States Constitutions.
Early in the case, Fisher issued a preliminary injunction barring the city from enforcing a municipal code prohibiting bulky items. Because of that ruling, the plaintiffs could have actually won their case for any property seized under the bulky items law, but they would have maintained a defense of items seized under a sanitary standard, Myers said.
Fisher then charged the city with contempt of court after the plaintiff's attorney presented evidence that city workers continued to put up signs at some locations prohibiting bulky items.
Since then, the case has continued due to disputes over the accuracy of city records.
According to court filings, the city responded to the document discovery request by converting printouts from the original Microsoft Word documents to PDF files. The process removed the date stamps that were recorded when the originals were last created and modified.
When the original copy of one of these records was attached to an email that prosecutors obtained during discovery, Myers found that it had been extensively reviewed before converting to PDF.
After Myers presented evidence of the altered documents at a 2022 hearing, Fisher took the unusual step of hiring a neutral third-party forensic examiner to determine whether the city had “stolen” records, a legal term meaning intentionally altered, destroyed or Neglecting.
The examiner's initial report said he obtained some original documents but was unable to obtain others. By manually comparing the originals with the PDF files, Myers' team found more than 100 revisions in some of the documents. Among them, a huge word was changed to “ADA violation,” a reference to the Americans with Disabilities Act, and “property left behind by campers” was changed to “contaminated items delivered to or left behind by resident.”
In February, Fisher issued a report saying the city had changed the records and sharply criticized the city's arguments that the revisions were insignificant.
“The city’s claim that material changes in documents such as the reason for the seizure and destruction of personal property — sometimes to suit the city’s litigation position — are also ‘administrative’ changes is untenable,” she wrote.
“The City’s conduct cannot be justified as ‘imperfect document management.’ … Its ‘explanation’ for its admitted looting is unconvincing, to say the least.”
In a follow-up order issued April 1, it found that “the full extent of the city’s looting has not yet been determined” and set an April 8 deadline for the city to turn over all relevant documents to a forensic examiner.
“Any delay will not be tolerated by the city,” she wrote.
Fisher said she would consider any relevant records the city fails to produce “stolen.”
The city turned over Google Drive, which is being evaluated, but there is no additional documentation, Myers said.
Myers said that she has not specified what penalties she will propose and will do so after the forensic examination is completed in a month or two.
A date has not yet been set for the trial, which was postponed for a forensic examination.
“This case would have been resolved years ago had it not been for the court’s necessity to investigate the city’s conduct, which delayed a public reckoning on the legality of these sweeps,” Myers said.
