Thursday, March 19, 2026
Page 9
LASC Candidacy Sparks Renewed Interest in DDA’s 2017 Conduct
By Roger M. Grace
Deputy District Attorney Angie Christides’s entry into the public arena by becoming a candidate for a Los Angeles Superior Court open seat has sparked renewed attention to her actions in a murder prosecution, with the allegation lingering that she accused two Long Beach detectives of withholding information that, had she reviewed the preliminary hearing transcript, she would have realized wasn’t so.
The matter is partially recounted in an April 5, 2022 decision/order by the Commission on Judicial Performance (“CJP”) imposing on Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Judith L. Meyer a public admonishment. Its action against Meyer is curious given that the judge acted in the interests of fairness, admitting error on her part and seeking to undo harm.
Meyer’s mea culpa came in 2018. It related to a pretrial hearing before her on May 15, 2017. Daniel Delatorre, the sole defendant, was accused of being one of at least two men who jumped out of an SUV on Sept. 10, 2010, gunning down a 23-year-old man who was walking along a street in Long Beach.
Then-Deputy Public Defender Alison Hudak, now in private practice, asserted at the hearing that then-Long Beach Police Detectives Malcolm Evans and Todd Johnson, both now retired, had engaged in misconduct, including providing false evidence. Christides was assigned to conduct the trial and had been the prosecutor at the Oct. 11, 2016 preliminary hearing. The CJP’s decision/order says that Christides, at the pretrial hearing. “did not contest…Hudak’s allegations about the detectives or call the detectives as witnesses to provide testimony rebutting the allegations.”
Believing what she was told, Meyer declared that “the behavior of the detectives is appalling and unethical and inappropriate” and barred testimony by two of the prosecution’s three witnesses. That prompted Christides (after conferring with her supervisor) to move for a dismissal, being unable to proceed solely with the testimony of one witness, a 15-year-old who heard but did not view the killing. The motion was granted and Delatorre went free, with charges not refiled.
★
The CJP’s report says:
“Approximately one week after the May 15, 2017 hearing, supervisors from the Long Beach Police Department came to Judge Meyer’s chambers. The supervisors informed Judge Meyer that DDA Christides had submitted a complaint regarding Detectives Evans and Johnson to the Long Beach Police Department’s ‘Brady Investigation Unit’ and that the department was conducting its own investigation.”
The U.S. Supreme Court’s 1963 decision in Brady v. Maryland requires disclosure to the defense of exculpatory information.
Nearly a year later, Evans and Johnson visited Meyer and pointed out portions of the preliminary hearing transcript, causing the judge to alter her view as to the detectives’ conduct. The CJP was to find in its decision that the transcript “seemed to indicate that the detectives had not, in fact, engaged in misconduct.”
After the in-chambers meeting, Meyer proceeded to write a letter to then-Long Beach Chief of Police Robert Luna (now Los Angeles County sheriff) telling him that “based on the information I have at the present time, it appears that both detectives conducted themselves appropriately in this case, and I find no fault with their investigation.” The CJP, for various reasons—including Meyer having met with the officers and having used her judge’s letterhead in writing to Luna—found Meyer’s conduct to have been “at a minimum, improper.”
Not only the conduct of Christides, but also the action by the CJP, warrants renewed attention.
★
Christides cannot be blamed for the CJP’s questionable action in chastising Meyer. The candidate can be faulted, however, for blindly accepting Hudak’s accusations in court—if that occurred, as portrayed by the commission—and for proceeding to seek discipline of the officers without independently investigating the contentions, if that took place. The prosecutor disputes the accuracy of those impressions.
She continues to insist that the officers had withheld from her information as to a supposed eyewitness to the slaying, Juan Valdez, having been in custody on suspicion of a robbery when he identified Delatorre as a killer. Valadez was released shortly after his identification and no prosecution of him ensued.
Christides says:
“[O]ur obligations under Brady are critically important. The witness’s custody status and the circumstances of his release constituted Brady material. Although I questioned the detectives about this witness on multiple occasions, I did not receive this information from them. Instead, I learned of these facts through my own investigation and by speaking with officers who were not directly involved in the Delatorre case.
“Once I discovered the information, I immediately disclosed it to the defense and informed the court. The court subsequently ruled that the witness’s identification would be excluded from evidence at trial. In light of that ruling and related evidentiary issues, and after consultation with my supervisor, I was directed to announce that the People were unable to proceed and to prepare a Brady memorandum through our chain of command documenting the circumstances.”
Christides comments:
“My performance evaluations from that time period are available on my website. As you will see, they reflect no negative findings regarding my preparation, professionalism, or interactions with law enforcement or the court.”
★
The CJP was in error as to Christides having simply acquiesced in Hudak’s assertions. Those assertions by the deputy public defender, as reflected by the preliminary hearing transcript, were based on information relayed to her by Christides. Moreover, Christides, too, provided Meyer with information as to the supposed misconduct. A report by the Long Beach Press Telegram says that “Christides filled in the judge with details.”
However, the commission was accurate in noting that Christides did not “call the detectives as witnesses to provide testimony rebutting the allegations.” An observer remarks:
“[W]hat was so crazy about all of this was the detectives were in the hallway during all this. Not once did she offer to bring them into court to make a statement, or have a hearing with the detectives and this witness. It just seemed like she was against these detectives from the start. Usually prosecutors defend the detectives. She was throwing them under the bus from the start.”
Christides says that while she prepared an internal “Brady memorandum,” she did not report the detectives to the Police Department for alleged misconduct. Note, the CJP did not find that she did do so, only that representatives of the department represented to Meyer that she had. (She also disclaims having made the complaint about Meyer to the CJP). There is a lack of proof to the contrary.
★
The nagging questions, however, remain: Did she err in contending that the detectives withheld information that should have been disclosed? If so, was she remiss in not reviewing the preliminary hearing transcript, in normal course in preparing for the trial—and, in particular, before leveling her accusations?
Evans sent a complaint to the State Bar about Christides in which he said:
“An internal investigation by both the Long Beach Police Department and the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office have found that Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney (DDA) Angie Christides has misrepresented facts to the court. Detective Johnson and Detective Evans believe DDA Christides has either intentionally misrepresented facts to the court or was grossly incompetent in her professional conduct as an attorney. DDA Christides’ inappropriate conduct led to the release of a murder suspect and the intentional misuse of the Brady reporting system to try and conceal her misconduct by defaming two senior homicide detectives.”
The transcript of the preliminary hearing shows that in the cross examination of Evans by then-Deputy Public Defender Gregory Lesser (now a Los Angeles Superior Court commissioner), there was this discussion of Valdez having been in custody:
“Q. …[W]ere you contacted by another detective within the—within the Long Beach Police Department indicating that Mr. Valdez wanted to speak with you?
“A. Correct.
“Q. Was Mr. Valdez in custody at that time?
“A. He was.
“Q. And so I — and was it you and Detective Johnson that interviewed him?
“A. Correct.
“Q. You both interviewed Mr. Valdez that date while he was in custody?
“A. Correct.”
And the transcript reveals this discussion of Valdez’s identification of the defendant:
“Q. When you had Mr. Valdez identify the photo of Mr. Delatorre, that was a single photo of Mr. Delatorre. it wasn’t in a six-pack; correct?
“A. Correct.”
★
Hudak revealed at the 2017 prehearing that Valadez (whose name is misspelled in the transcript) had identified Delatorre as one of the killers based on being shown only a mugshot of Delatorre, rather than picking him out of a photographic lineup with six faces, known as a “six pack.” Evans alleged in his complaint to the State Bar that “DDA Christides was not prepared and did not point out that this was covered during the preliminary hearing on October 11, 2016.”
The transcript shows that Lesser asked Evans: “When you had Mr. Valdez identify the photo of Mr. Delatorre, that was a single photo of Mr. Delatorre. it wasn’t in a six-pack; correct?” The witness responded: “Correct.”
An Oct 3, 2018 letter to Evans from Andre Allen, an investigator for the State Bar, says:
“After carefully reviewing the information you provided, this office has concluded that we would not be able to prevail in a disciplinary proceeding.”
★
Was Christides a conscientious prosecutor who abided by her obligations under Brady by revealing exculpatory matter as soon as it became available to her, as she portrays?
It doesn’t seem so. It appears that she thoughtlessly denigrated two police detectives and misled the court. I can’t imagine that she did so willfully, that is, that she had full recollection of what had come out at the preliminary hearing. Meyer, who presided over that proceeding, didn’t. But Meyer had no obligation to review the preliminary hearing transcript in advance of the trial. Christides did.
Beyond besmirching the law enforcement officers through allegations she should, with care, have known to be false, she brought about the “walking” by a man who might have committed a senseless and apparently race-based killing of a 23-year-old Black man. Yes, might. It was determined at a preliminary hearing that probable cause existed for binding Delatorre over for trial. Why did that trial not take place, at which a jury would have determined if guilt had been shown beyond a reasonable doubt? There’s a one-word answer:
Christides.
★
As a side-note: Christides says on her campaign website that if elected, she would “make history as the first Greek American judge to serve on the court, an important milestone that reflects the rich diversity of the community our judiciary serves.”
We should vote for her because of her ethnicity? Should that factor ever matter in choosing candidates?
It would obviously reflect bigotry to say, “Christides should be defeated because she’s a Greek American.” Yet, inferentially, she’s saying that Lee should be defeated because she is not a Greek American.
Lee is president of the Korean Prosecutors Association and a board member of the Korean American Federation of Los Angeles. From that, her ethnicity may be discerned. Christides is impliedly saying, “Hey, we have enough Korean Americans on the bench; vote for me.”
The fact that it’s not phrased that way overtly does not detract from the fact that the message is there.
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