LOS ANGELES—A former Long Beach police officer who is suing the city, alleging she was subjected to sexual harassment by a male sergeant and wrongfully fired while on vacation in 2022, is seeking a court order to acquire personnel records for two former colleagues as well as those regarding the plaintiff herself.
Plaintiff Alma Magana alleges she was terminated for complaining about a supervisor’s intrusions into her personal life while also contending she was mysteriously drugged off-duty and subjected to two unwarranted internal affairs probe.
Magana’s Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit alleges retaliation, sex discrimination and harassment, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Sgt. Jason Lehman, Magana’s former supervisor, and Lt. Robert Titus are also defendants in the case. In their court papers, defense attorneys deny Magana’s claims and say the city has immunity from all of them.
On Friday, Magana’s lawyers filed court papers with Judge Armen Tamzarian seeking select internal records of Lehman and Titus, with whom Magana filed a sexual harassment complaint regarding Lehman.
The information demands generally consist of any discipline records regarding Lehman, any probes by Titus into Lehman’s conduct, and any other investigations into Magana dating back to her 2014 hiring. A hearing is scheduled Nov. 4.
“The records requested are vital to the establishment of the allegations of the complaint in this matter that plaintiff was subjected to retaliation and termination for filing a sexual harassment claim against Lehman and that the LBPD, including Titus, had knowledge of and condoned the acts of sexual harassment being committed against peace officers of the LBPD, including plaintiff,” Magana’s lawyers state in their court papers.
According to Magana’s suit filed last Nov. 3, the plaintiff worked for the LBPD for several years in an exemplary manner, but the LBPD and Lehman began pretextually targeting her on the basis of her gender by “engaging in inappropriate sexual conduct and after she complained, retaliated against her leading up to her termination of employment.”
Magana began her law enforcement career in 2010 as a police explorer, was hired in March 2014 as a police services specialist, and in April 2015 began her courses at the police academy before becoming an LBPD officer, the suit states.
Lehman often quizzed Magana about who she was dating and tried to communicate with her through her personal phone, prompting her to block the sergeant on all her social media accounts due to his “persistent, harassing behavior,” the suit states.
Lehman also made Magana meet with him at random locations to try and talk about inappropriate and private topics with her, but when she declined to “succumb to his advances,” he harassed her and told her to “step it up” at work or be “more proactive,” the suit alleges.
Magana filed a complaint about Lehman in November 2020 with her supervising lieutenant, telling him that Lehman “made her hate going to work, but neither the lieutenant nor the department did anything about the problems,” the suit states.
“The department allowed Lehman’s conduct to go unpunished in perpetuation of its discriminatory practices toward female officers wherein harassment by male officers goes unpunished,” according to the suit, which further states that Magana was subsequently reassigned to traffic duty and other less desirable jobs.
Ten days after Magana complained about Lehman, she was detained by the Orange County Sheriff’s Dept. in Mission Viejo while off duty with her then-boyfriend and a third person she knew only by the name “Ish,” the suit states.
During the outing, Magana was allegedly drugged and the antihistamine diphenhydramine was found in her system. Later that night, Magana and her boyfriend began arguing and the plaintiff was arrested, the suit further states.
The LBPD investigated Magana’s actions that day, and in June 2022 the department found true four out of five allegations against her, including that she was insubordinate for refusing to submit to a breathalyzer test, the suit states.
The department found in favor of Magana while investigating her conduct during another off-duty encounter with another boyfriend in Palm Springs in September 2021, the suit states. Magana maintains the two internal affairs investigations were done in retaliation for her complaints about Lehman and were used to justify her October 2022 firing just as she was to return from vacation.
