In a Shocker, City Attorney Carmen Trutanich Looks Beaten in District Attorney's Race

By Gene Maddaus Wed., Jun. 6 2012 at 2:01 PM

Carmen Trutanich: Beaten

Update, 2 p.m.: Mike Feuer signals he is not dropping his bid for city attorney, which may mean the end of Nuch's career at City Hall East. More below.

The crowd at the Croatian American Club of San Pedro watched the election returns Tuesday night in a state of shock and disbelief, as hometown hero Carmen Trutanich went down to apparent defeat in the race for L.A. County district attorney.

With almost all the ballots counted early Wednesday, Trutanich was in third place. He was trailing two lesser known prosecutors, Chief Deputy District Attorney Jackie Lacey and Alan Jackson, who it appears will face each other in the November runoff.

Speaking to a dwindling group of supporters after 1 a.m., Trutanich did not concede, but blamed the media for a "major league onslaught" against his candidacy.

"Barack Obama is getting hammered right now," Trutanich said. "I think the negative campaign against me is worse."

Trutanich was considered the frontrunner, in large measure because he out-fundraised his next closest opponent by a factor of 2.5-to-1. He was also better known, as the only candidate in the six-person field who had run for office before.

Jackie Lacey: Top vote getter

No one in any campaign expected Trutanich to finish second, much less third. Some rivals worried that he would win the election outright with more than 50% of the vote, and some were prepared to call it a victory if he were held under 40%.

With 99% of the votes counted early Wednesday, Lacey led the field with 31.9%. Jackson finished second with 23.7%, about 8,600 votes ahead of Trutanich, who had 22.3%. It seemed unlikely that Trutanich could overcome that deficit with late absentee and provisional ballots.

Trutanich's campaign strategist, John Shallman, attributed the apparent defeat to negative media coverage, which started almost as soon as he got into the race in February.

"They had a pretty nice trap set, and it's been negative ever since," Shallman said. "We counted 42 negative articles... It was a constant barrage of negative press."

In his remarks, Trutanich hinted that he may not run for re-election as city attorney next year. Though he said he will make that decision sometime in the future, he also said, "We have a year left in the city attorney's office."

Assemblyman Mike Feuer has already announced his candidacy for city attorney, and it's not entirely clear that he would drop out if Trutanich opted to seek re-election. Asked that question in March, he said that Trutanich was so overwhelmingly favored in the district attorney's race that the question wasn't worth thinking about.

Alan Jackson: Looks headed to a runoff

Feuer had raised $345,000 as of Dec. 31, and likely has much more than that now. That would give him a big head-start over Trutanich, who had just $4,000 in his city officeholder account as of two weeks ago.

"I don't know what we did wrong in terms of running the city of L.A.," Trutanich told the crowd. "There's absolutely no corruption in the city of Los Angeles, as far as the city attorney's office goes. They hit me on street artists. I still think of it as graffiti. Obviously the marijuana crowd came out... We've done everything properly. There's no shame in what we've done. Negative campaigns work."

Trutanich laid particular blame at the feet of talk radio, including hosts like John & Ken, who trashed him routinely.

"The people have spoken," Trutanich said. "We fought a hard fight. We fought truly a negative machine."

When Trutanich went home, he was trailing Jackson by about 5,000 votes. He said he would take another look at the numbers in the morning, and decide whether to concede then.

Lacey won the first round despite struggling to raise money last year. She had a big advantage in the endorsement of her boss, D.A. Steve Cooley, and eventually found her footing. Unlike Trutanich and Jackson, Lacey never ran a TV commercial, preferring to put her limited resources into slate mailers. Shallman noted that the L.A. Times endorsement played a key role in Lacey's strong finish.

In an e-mail message early Wednesday, Lacey's consultant, Parke Skelton, attributed her victory to four factors: "superior candidate, we bought almost every slate, Cooley, newspaper endorsements."

John Thomas, the strategist for Alan Jackson, attacked Trutanich early and often. Last year, the Jackson campaign circulated a web video that slammed Trutanich for going back on his pledge to serve two terms as city attorney. Jackson also sued Trutanich to prevent him from claiming to be the "Los Angeles Chief Prosecutor" on the ballot.

"We see tonight as a huge victory," Thomas said in a statement. "The Jackson campaign took on Carmen Trutanich and saved the people of Los Angeles County from a politician who was more concerned about winning the next office instead of winning the next case. We were outraised, outspent and outsized by the City Attorney, yet we prevailed because voters clearly want a modern prosecutor not a politician."

Update, 2 p.m.: Assemblyman Mike Feuer is not backing off his city attorney bid: "I respect the City Attorney, hope to sit down with him shortly and plan to move forward with my campaign," Feuer said in a statement.

Update 2, 4:15 p.m.: Trutanich tells the L.A. Times that as of right now, "I have every intention in the world of pulling papers and filing them" to run for a second term as city attorney.

So this could be the start of a game of chicken, as Feuer and Trutanich try to scare each other out of the race. Or the two could end up clashing in March.

According to precinct returns, Trutanich finished second within the Los Angeles city limits to Jackie Lacey by about 8 percentage points. Trutanich won only 3 of the 15 L.A. City Council districts: the 15th, which includes his hometown of San Pedro; and two Latino districts, the 7th (Richard Alarcon) and the 1st (Ed Reyes). He did poorly in the Valley, finishing third in the 12th (Mitchell Englander) and 2nd (Paul Krekorian), behind Lacey and Alan Jackson.

Update 3, 5:25 p.m.: Trutanich still has not actually conceded the D.A.'s race, though his chances of getting into the runoff appear quite slim. According to the L.A. County Registrar-Recorder, there are about 162,000 ballots left to count. Trutanich would have to beat Jackson by roughly 5.5% among those ballots to overtake him. Yet he ran about 1% behind Jackson among ballots cast on election day, and the most likely scenario is that he would continue to run slightly behind Jackson among provisional and late absentee ballots.

First posted at 3:36 a.m.

Tags:

Alan Jackson, Carmen Trutanich, D.A., district attorney, Jackie Lacey, John Shallman

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On Reflection

Santorini Hotel - The haters will always hate...that is what they do best. Cry for the loss of LA's one chance via Carmen Trutanich to expose and clean up systemic corruption in the DA's office, from the top to the bottom. I guess LA will get the city it deserves. Speaks volumes that Cooley endorsed Lacey a rather unremarkable candidate with few achievements to her name other than the fact she is a perjurer which was also reported in the LA Times. Good luck LA if she gets elected in November, you are going to need it, especially when her blood sugar levels drop; only Cooley and his gang of thugs will sleep easy in their beds knowing their elected puppet will be protecting them to the end...perhaps? I Smile for the man Carmen Trutanich, a man of integrity and honor. He fought a clean race, without reverting to enlist vermin such as the odious Berger aka Joe Friday who from day one of the race displayed his unprofessional, unstable, sociopathic personality to attack Trutanich. This creep played a dirty, cowardly game at every opportunity. He started his internet blog against Trutanich which he thought was well hidden in the UK and used a pseudonym to hide behind until uncovered and exposed in his own name, David Berger. Driven by promised rewards from his superiors to do this he also carried a grudge for losing the last election to Trutanich. Berger aka Joe Friday and his weasel friends should hang their heads in shame for all their dirty tricks against Trutanich, they are indeed very sad, small, dark people! Yes Santorini I choose to smile for one reason...the lengths they went to in order to discredit Carmen Trutanich, a decent and upstanding man of the law showed their immense fear of good defeating evil. This gives me hope in the knowledge that those warriors of the light will not allow the dark, demonic forces to triumph easily and without a struggle. It is not over yet..rightly so, those corrupt souls do not sleep easy in their beds and are forever looking over their shoulder. It is just a matter of time before their evil and corrupt actions are exposed; soon they will turn on each other and willingly throw one another to the lions...at that time, in the name of Justice, I will be wearing a smile wider than the Grand Canyon:)

Santorini Hotel

Do we smile or cry for this?

anonymous

"Feuer is the main backer behind two bills in the Assembly aimed at accelerating funding for Los Angeles County transit projects. One bill would extend the length of the Measure R half-cent sales tax beyond its 30- year life-span, and the other would add urban rail transit projects to the list of development types eligible to receive special legal protection from state environmental review challenges". Studio City Patch This man is in the pockets of Unions and developers. While over 13% of LA residents are unemployed, he wants to sock us with a permanent half-a-cent sales tax so MTA bureaucrats can continue to make their 6-figure salaries even as few rail lines are built. The second measure would exempt developers from environmental requirements so they can freely build those huge projects next to transit. If you think Trutanich is bad, you don't want Feuer. He will willingly particpate in defiling our city with unwanted density. There is another candidate "Attorney Gregory Smith, who has represented Los Angeles police officers and firefighters in lawsuits against the city, is also running for the office. Smith has said that as city attorney, he would take steps to stop retaliation by the police department against complaints by officers. He said earlier this year that the city should also require any judgments against the department for retaliation to come out of the LAPD's budget". -Studio City Patch.

Sprint

You have posed the most relevant, important and critical question of 2012 in Los Angeles County and beyond. You ask the question which no journalist or civic leader has dared to utter. You can't see it. You Can't hear it. But you question reveals to us that you can smell it. And it stinks. It is the elephant in the room. Gov. Brown and AG Harris don't sell their endorsements. Theirs not enough money in skimming the City Treasury to pay Shaq's price. Those endorsements were not bought or bartered. They were extorted. Who can extort the Guv, the AG and Shaq? The largest and most powerful R.I.C.O. we have ever seen or imagined right here in L.A. County. This R.I.C.O. has law enforcement jurisdiction over the Four Seasons Hotel, The Bel Age, The Mondrian, The Hyatt Sunset, The Ritz-Carlton M.D. R. and others. This R.I.C.O. has security agents in every non-federal courtroom in L.A. County. This R.I.C.O. has a fleet of sophisticated aircraft equipped for surveillance and targeted remote operations - including clandestine nightime cover of darkness body drops in canyons and hillsides. This R.I.C.O. has extensive capabilities in software and website development and spyware, video production and document production and archiving. This R.I.C.O. has extensive and strategically located real estate properties and secured covert operation centers. This R.I.C.O. has monopoly law enforcement jurisdiction over the most critical smuggling route into Sothern California from offshore for the transport of human and material contraband. This R.I.C.O. has entered its 14th year of prime and undisputed access exploited for collection of private, personal information which is documented and stored for its future value in exerting control over politicians, judges, celebrities etc. This R.I.C.O. can direct the use of personell under the public payroll for carrying out private harassment and vendettas over non-public matters. This R.I.C.O. was involved in a million dollar operation conducted from a lavish Beverly Hills mansion which rotated in young foriegn girls for weekends to associate with men who had no proper business to do so. This R.I.C.O. has extorted gov. Brown, CA AG Harris, US AG Holder and the I.R.S. This R.I.C.O. is the most dangerous threat to sieze total control of institutional power during a crisis. And they are poised and eager to do it.

Sprint

" Not insane. Just lying - as usual.

Sprint

"We fought a hard fight" "I don't know what we did wrong in terms of running the city of L.A.," "We have a year left in the city attorney's office." Mr. Trutanich - you keep refering to "we". Exactly who belongs to this group you call "we"? Do you mean "we" as in the directors of the Los Angeles Police Protective Union who bankrolled your campaign to win the election as L.A. City Attorney 3 years ago? What figure do you offer as an approximation of their ROI (Return On Investment)? Sir Trutanich - thou doth protesteth more than enough to leave serious doubts about whether you have the ethical fortitude to resist the opportunities available to your position for collusion in search of illicit monetary gain. " We've done everything properly." "There's no shame in what we've done." Alright then Mr. Trutanich. then lets see detailed and complete tax returns and financial disclosure statements for you and your assistant city attorney's who have been routinely losing the farm in sttlements and judgements arising from lawsuits by LAPD personnel alleging unlawful management practices.

VenturaCapitalist

Shallman, attributed the apparent defeat to negative media coverageGee, they covered the fact that you're a lying sack of dog excrement. How unfair!

Judd Weiss

Amazing how out of touch Trutanich is. Why does he think there was so much negative press? Could it possibly be due to his own actions? You know... the blatant bullying, the lying, the many allegations of corruption....

"I don't know what we did wrong in terms of running the city of L.A.," Trutanich told the crowd. "There's absolutely no corruption in the city of Los Angeles, as far as the city attorney's office goes... We've done everything properly. There's no shame in what we've done."

Brad098765

Just like Oregon......all dumb politicians who fight state voter approved medical marijuana are being ousted........good riddance you piece of garbage