The former head of the Los Angeles County Probation Department Adolfo Gonzalez, who was fired last March amid widespread dysfunction in the agency's juvenile halls, claims in a lawsuit that he was fired because he reported severe staffing shortages to state regulators.
Gonzalez's two-year-and-one-month term was marked by near-constant controversies. But in a lawsuit filed last month, he said county supervisors decided to terminate him only after he was candid with inspectors from the State and Community Corrections Board about the agency's staffing crisis.
The board, referred to as the BSCC, has the authority to close juvenile detention facilities if inspections reveal that conditions do not meet state standards.
“Gonzalez candidly informed BSCC inspectors about staffing shortages in the Probation Department that caused noncompliance with various California state regulations and mandates,” the suit says. “As a result of Gonzalez’s reports to the BSCC, he has been fired by the district.”
The State Council declined to comment. Los Angeles County External Attorney Mira Hashmal called the lawsuit baseless.
“The Probation Department has suffered from a lack of leadership under Adolfo Gonzalez, which is why it has been terminated,” she wrote in a statement to The Times. “He's not a whistleblower.”
Under Gonzalez's leadership, the always struggling agency lurched from one problem to the next. There were more closures, more fights, and fewer employees to deal with. Deputies said they were so afraid of the violence inside juvenile halls that they couldn't come to work. The young men were also shocked and forced to urinate in their locked rooms because there was no one to let them out.
Gonzalez's attorney, Michael Conger, said his client's account of the staffing issues significantly influenced a Jan. 13, 2023, state inspectors' report, which found, among other deficiencies, that the county's two juvenile halls were seriously understaffed. Months later, the board closed the two halls after the district repeatedly failed to improve conditions.
Conger said it was Gonzalez's “candid” portrayal of employment problems that led to his termination after two months.
But the government inspection wasn't the only embarrassment Gonzalez's agency suffered in the months before his firing. On February 11, 2023, The Times reported that Gonzalez went beyond an internal disciplinary board's recommendation to fire an officer who violently restrained a 17-year-old. After the Times report, a majority of the Board of Supervisors called for Gonzalez's resignation.
Gonzalez's attorney said that was not what angered the board.
He added: “We don't think that has anything to do with it.” “This was an imperfect problem. They were not angry about it.”
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Records show the county spent more than $900,000 on Gonzalez during his time with the department.
By the time he left, Gonzalez had received $927,000 in compensation, according to county payroll data. It's unclear whether that number includes other benefits Gonzalez was entitled to under his employment agreement with the county, which promised relocation costs and severance pay.
According to his employment agreement, which The Times reviewed, Gonzalez was entitled to up to $25,000 to move from San Diego, where he had worked for five years running the county probation department.
He also received $172,521 — the equivalent of six months' salary — in severance pay after he was fired, records show.
The board replaced Gonzalez with Guillermo Vieira Rosa, promising a new chapter for the long-troubled agency. But so far, his tenure has been plagued by the same hiring crisis that dogged his predecessor.
A report released Thursday by the county Inspector General's Office concluded that “dangerously low staffing levels” contributed to the chaotic Nov. 4 escape of a young man from Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall. After several teenagers attacked an employee, one of them briefly escaped to a nearby golf course.
At the time of the incident, only one staff member — not previously assigned to juvenile halls — was in the unit with 14 youths, the report's authors found. The report notes that the staffing level violates state law, which requires the agency to maintain a ratio of 1 staff member for every 10 youth.
On that day, the Probation Department assigned 100 employees to work at the facility, the minimum required to operate the facility.
Sixty of them did not attend.
