Thursday, October 8, 2009
Page 1
Deputy City Attorney Thomas Griego to Run for Judge
By STEVEN M. ELLIS, Staff Writer
Deputy Los Angeles City Attorney Thomas J. Griego has formed a committee to run for a judgeship on the Los Angeles Superior Court in next year’s election.
His brother, consultant Victor Griego, told the MetNews yesterday that Griego has hired political consultant Parke Skelton and will seek election to an open seat.
Thomas Griego, 52, has worked in the City Attorney’s office since 1994, and before that served as chief of staff to former Los Angeles City Councilmember Mike Hernandez.
Griego was not available for comment, but his brother said that the candidate had already started raising funds. Victor Griego also said that he too would be working on his brother’s campaign.
The pair grew up in Boyle Heights, and Thomas Griego was admitted to the State Bar in 1991 after attending UCLA and Whittier College School of Law.
Prior to joining Hernandez’s staff, Thomas Griego worked for the Los Angeles Police Department, and with the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee and the Southern California Association of Governments.
The number of open seats in the June 8, 2010 primary election will not be fully determined until next spring, when sitting judges must decide whether to file re-election paperwork with the Registrar-Recorder’s Office.
Filing for judicial candidates will begin in February and end in March. In the 2008 primary election, 28 candidates ran for election to 10 open seats, while 25 vied for seven open seats in 2006.
Thus far, three other candidates are known to be mounting bids for open seats in next year’s election.
A representative of Cerrell Associates Inc. said in September that Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher R. Garcia has retained the firm’s services. A member the Major Frauds Section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District, Garcia is also a member of the City Attorney’s Identity Theft & Fraud Unit and prosecutes identity theft, government benefit fraud and piracy of intellectual property.
In August, Pasadena personal injury attorney Anthony de los Reyes of Thon & Beck said that he would run for an open seat and had already begun fundraising efforts.
De los Reyes has been vetted by the JNE Commission—the statutorily-established State Bar agency tasked with evaluating all judicial appointment candidates under consideration by the governor—but said he decided to take his chances with an election because “you don’t see many people from outside the public sector getting appointments.”
Also in August, Los Angeles Superior Court Referee Randolph M. Hammock told the MetNews that he intends to make a second bid for election as a judge of the court.
In the June 2006 primary, Hammock ran as a “Consumer Law Attorney” and drew a “well qualified” rating from the Los Angeles County Bar Association. However, he finished sixth out of a field of seven candidates seeking the seat previously held by retired Judge Paula Mabrey, garnering only 8.59 percent of the vote.
Copyright 2009, Metropolitan News Company