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FIRST ON FOX: Newly launched video exhibits Los Angeles District Lawyer George Gascon’s prime aide arrested after interrupting police who pulled over his then-fiance throughout a site visitors cease on their manner house from a marriage in 2021.
Joseph Iniguez, the present No. 2 prosecutor in Los Angeles, was using shotgun when police pulled the couple over for a suspected site visitors violation.
Iniguez was Gascon’s chief of employees on the time, and final 12 months he acquired a $10,000 settlement from Azusa after he sued over the incident, alleging a federal civil rights violation. He has since been promoted to chief deputy district lawyer.
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Joseph Iniguez sits beside his boss, Los Angeles County District Lawyer George Gascon, on the Reform L.A. Jails Summit + Day Social gathering: Psychological Well being Issues, on November 09, 2019, in Pasadena, California. (Jesse Grant/Getty Pictures for Patrisse Cullors)
Iniguez, who recorded the video on a cellphone, may be heard telling officers, “You’ve got pulled over the flawed particular person, let me let you know.”
“This isn’t proper,” he says. “For this reason after they discuss regulation enforcement and like our interactions with regulation enforcement – he did the proper factor tonight, and drove me. We had been at a marriage.”
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Iniguez was accused of repeatedly interrupting an Azusa police officer who was making an attempt to query his then-fiance after a site visitors cease. (Azusa Police Division)
Iniguez additionally urged the officers to verify his license plates, which may have revealed to them that he labored for the Los Angeles County District Lawyer’s Workplace.
“Run our plates, and see what you discover,” he mentioned. “Truthfully. I am not saying something, simply see what you discover.”
Additionally throughout the encounter, he repeatedly urges his fiance to not communicate with the officers.
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After arresting the driving force, the officer informed Iniguez he was underneath arrest as effectively. (Azusa Police Division)
“FSTs are utterly voluntary and never required by regulation,” he shouts as an officer makes an attempt to interview the driving force.
FST refers to discipline sobriety checks, which police use to evaluate potential drunkenness.
A nonetheless picture taken from jailhouse surveillance video exhibits Los Angeles Chief Deputy District Lawyer Joseph Iniguez making a cellphone name from lockup after a 2021 arrest for public intoxication. (Azusa Police Division)
“If he has possible trigger, he’ll arrest you,” Iniguez continues. “…He has affordable suspicion, so he says, to conduct a site visitors cease. OK.”
Below a California regulation, Authorities Code 26540, prosecutors aren’t allowed to help within the protection of any suspected criminals in any respect.
“A district lawyer shall not throughout his incumbency defend or help within the protection of, or act as counsel for, any particular person accused of any crime in any county,” the code reads, in accordance to FindLaw.
An Azusa, California, police officer escorts George Gascon’s right-hand man Joseph Iniguez right into a cell after a 2021 cease for public intoxication. (Azusa Police Division)
After his fiance is handcuffed, the officer approaches Iniguez and arrests him too.
“Sir, you are at the moment in public, and also you’re intoxicated,” he says. “You are being positioned underneath arrest proper now. Flip round for me. Put your fingers behind your again.”
Further video exhibits Iniguez on the jail however doesn’t embody audio.
One other prime Gascon aide, Diana Teran, faces an 11-count felony indictment for allegations that she improperly accessed Brady materials towards Los Angeles sheriff’s deputies.
Iniguez chats with regulation enforcement after his 2021 arrest. (Azusa Police Division)
Teran is accused of accessing a sheriff’s workplace database about its deputies when she labored there after which taking that info along with her to the district lawyer’s workplace to work for Gascon, who was elected on an anti-police platform. Below Gascon, she “impermissibly” used the improperly obtained information to help, based on the California Lawyer Basic’s Workplace.
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Her protection lawyer, James Spertus, beforehand informed Fox Information Digital that he expects to clear his consumer and that the state has a weak case.
The Affiliation of Deputy District Attorneys, the county prosecutors’ union, has named each Iniguez and Teran in a 2022 lawsuit alleging they each ordered subordinates to interrupt the regulation.
Neither Iniguez nor Gascon’s workplace instantly responded to requests for remark late Monday night.
Fox Information’ Kyle Schmidbauer contributed to this report.
Video exhibits LA DA George Gascon’s right-hand man arrested in DUI cease: ‘You’ve got pulled over the flawed particular person’
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