Carmen Trutanich Forms Committee To Run For District Attorney

By Gene Maddaus Fri., Apr. 15 2011 at 7:40 PM

Carmen Trutanich

Updated at 7:39 p.m. with Trutanich's campaign manager taking some swings at D.A. rival Alan Jackson.

L.A. City Attorney Carmen Trutanich filed paperwork today to begin his campaign for L.A. District Attorney. According to the L.A. County Registrar-Recorder's office, Trutanich submitted the papers to form a committee this afternoon.

Trutanich has long been expected to run to succeed D.A. Steve Cooley in 2012.

Cooley, meanwhile, still has not announced his retirement. In the past, he has said he would run for a fourth term only if no qualified candidates stepped forward. There has been tension between Cooley and Trutanich ever since January...

.... when campaign consultant John Shallman called Cooley and said he would be running Trutanich's campaign.

Cooley is widely expected to favor his chief deputy, Jackie Lacey, who would be the county's first black and first female D.A.

About a half dozen prosecutors have jumped into the race. Trutanich is widely considered the favorite, based mostly on name recognition.

When he ran for city attorney, Trutanich pledged to serve two full terms and not to seek higher office. That was an effort to box in his opponent, former Councilman Jack Weiss, who was widely expected to use the city attorney's office as a stepping stone.

Trutanich has previously said that he does not feel bound by that pledge, since Weiss did not also sign it. Updated below.

Shallman put out this statement:

"Mr. Trutanich has opened an exploratory committee for District Attorney after being deluged by leaders in law enforcement, including Sheriff Lee Baca, urging him to run. He is honored to have their encouragement, but right now he is singularly focused on his job fighting and preventing gang violence as City Attorney."

Update: Feel the groundswell. There is a new website that aims to draft Trutanich for D.A. The site is run by an anonymous "coalition of law enforcement officers, public safety advocates and community activists." It's registered to Jim Royer, a lieutenant with the Hawthorne Police Department.

"It's an opportunity to get the information out there and show there's active support," Royer said. "He has a stellar track record.... He has certainly brought an air of respectability back to the city attorney's office. L.A. led the nation in marijuana dispensaries. There were more dispensaries than there were Starbucks. He has distinguished himself as a person to combat that problem."

Royer noted that Trutanich had pledged a two-term commitment to the city. But Royer said, "circumstances, as with anything, changed. No one anticipated Steve Cooley would lose the attorney general's race."

Royer said the "Draft Trutanich" campaign is separate from the Trutanich campaign. He did not say how many members the group has, and said he holds no official title with the group. "I'm a person who was asked to provide a service and I did it," he said.

Other than boosting Trutanich, the site seems intent on shoving Cooley out of the picture:

With the retirement of Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley, the residents of our County must choose a new District Attorney in 2012. We believe that there is no better choice to succeed Steve Cooley than Carmen Trutanich.

Um, Cooley still hasn't retired...

Update 2: The Alan Jackson for D.A. campaign has put out a video mocking Trutanich for violating his pledge to serve:

Update 3 at 7:39 p.m.: Trutanich campaign manager John Shallman unloads this response:

"Mr. Jackson should show a little more respect for Sheriff Baca and the hundreds of law enforcement officers who have urged Trutanich to run. If Jackson had any strength of character or confidence in his ability to win, he would welcome Trutanich into the race rather than acting like a child having a temper tantrum."

"Carmen Trutanich is by far the most qualified candidate for District Attorney and one of the foremost experts in fighting and preventing gang violence. As such, Sheriff Baca and hundreds of law enforcement officers have asked him to reconsider his commitment and explore the possibility that he could do more good for more people as DA. So, that's precisely what he is doing. Exploring."

Tags:

Carmen Trutanich, District Attorney, Steve Cooley

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Asd

READ THIS EXPOSE ABOUT TRUTANICH'S SCAM DRAFT CAMPAIGN it's all a SCAM by Trutanich:http://losangelesdragnet.blogs...

Brett Hampton

Is anybody really surprised that a politician's promise to refrain from running for higher office was broken? Villaraigosa betrayed his constituents in the 5th City Council District when he ran for Mayor after promising explicitly not to do so, and it hasn't hurt him any. One only hopes that if Trutanich gets elected, he'll spend more time doing his job as D.A. than Villaraigosa has done doing his job as mayor.

Rick Abrams

There is a huge conflict of interest in Trutanich's running for DA. As the City Attorney for a rat's nest of corrupt politicos like Garcertii, the CRA, Wesson, LaBonge, etc, the person for Trutanich has learned confidential information abut billions of dollars of swindles. The City Atty could do nothing about this corruption as the City Atty is the Atty for these crooks. The City has no criminal prosecutor with jurisdiction to investigate anyone at City Hall.

Now that Nuch will assume an official that theoretically has a division to investigate corrupt politicos in the County (ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha ...) Sorry I had to take a laugh break thinking that these tools have any intention of ever launching anything more than a PR campaign.

Nonetheless as Voters, we should be bright enough to elect someone who just might, maybe, perhaps think about someday actually using the DA office to look at corruption -- rather than elect someone who by law will be forbidden to investigate his own clients.

But then on March 8th, Angelenos re-elected all the crooks to City Council. Thank G-d Al Capone cannot be raised from the dead as Angelenos would waste no time electing him Mayor.

Thephxrising

A new piece of shot to replace the old piece-of-shit? Lovely ...

No to Trutanich

The LA Sheriff has NO jurisdiction in the City of Los Angeles, the LAPD is what polices the City of LA so Baca's endorsement means nothing other than a show of allegiance between two politicians. Baca's popularity among his own Deputy Sheriffs is about as low as Trutanich's with his Deputy City Attorneys. Trutanich was a prosecutor in the DAs office for only a few years and almost 2 decades ago. He then became a defense lawyer for environmental polluters yet calls himself an "environmental litigator" to trick people. Now he is City Attorney where he has no jurisdiction to prosecute gang felonies, the DA does, yet he calls himself a gang prosecutor?! The officers who are supporting him should be ashamed of themselves - they know darn well he is not a gang prosecutor. The last time he prosecuted a gang trial was nearly 20 years ago, and as City Attorney his office is not allowed to prosecute any felony gang crimes whatsoever, that's up to the DA.Alan Jackson, Danette Meyers, and Bobby Grace have far more experience as gang prosecutors than Trutanich ever will. They are the true trial lawyers who have devoted their lives fighting crime. Trutanich is just an egotistical thug loudmouth who wants to make a political career for himself. He should learn from Mubarak-the same person he is trying to be like: if you lose the confidence of your own people you need to step down.

ScottZwartz

Without opining on Nuch's qualifications, the DA is a county position and hence what the County Sheriff thinks is highly relevant.

anonymous

Better still, Trutanich should go back to his store-front law practice in San Pedro.

Jack

Well done, Gene, on tracking down the people behind the "DaftTrutanich4DA" website. As the Go-Daddy website owner search function shows, it is Jim Royer who created the website. But who is Jim Royer, apart from being a lieutenant with the Hawthorne Police Department? If you do a little more research you will find that Royer is also "Past Region Chair" for the California Narcotics Officers' Association where Trutanich's investigator, Gary Schram, is the "Awards Chairman.' So it's not hard to see how Trutanich got Schram to get Royer to set up the website to create the illusion that hundreds of CNOA officers want Trutanich to run for DA. The reality is obviously different, but as Trutanich has shown from day one, he is more about creating illusions than honoring the truth - remember that AEG 'criminal aspects' investigation ...