Demotions

Sharon Harper, demoted last year from Los Angeles County's second-highest executive job, has been on paid medical leave since November and has yet to report to her new job in the Sheriff's Department, according to county officials. Harper was forced out of her $260,000-a-year job less than two weeks after The Times reported that county auditors found that she had improperly helped her son-in-law obtain a county job that was "overcompensated" by nearly $1,000 a month. The fight over Harper's demotion now shows signs of heading to civil court, with the recent denial of her appeal clearing the way for her to file a lawsuit against her employer.

CLEVELAND — When Jordan Walden lost his closer job after giving up a walk-off home run to Tampa Bay's Brandon Allen on Thursday, he was not demoted to a seventh- or eighth-inning role. The right-hander whose 98-mph fastball earned him a trip to the All-Star game last season has been reduced, at least temporarily, to a mop-up guy until he can start throwing his slider for a strike. "Our preference is to get him into a low-profile inning and let him work on some stuff," Manager Mike Scioscia said.

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) is seeking to demote a senior Air Force officer for his role in the secret 1990 bailout of McDonnell Douglas, the nation's largest defense contractor. Grassley wants to make an example out of Lt. Gen. Edward Barry Jr. by demoting him just before his retirement. "We have to stop rewarding those who don't follow the law, waste money and are bad managers," Grassley said in an interview. "I am zeroing in on individual accountability."

SAN DIEGO - A Marine sergeant who criticized President Obama on Facebook was notified Wednesday that he is being dismissed from the service with an other-than-honorable discharge. Gary Stein, 26, a nine-year veteran who served in Iraq, will be demoted to lance corporal, and his discharge status will make him ineligible for most federal veterans benefits, after Brig. Gen. Daniel Yoo accepted the unanimous recommendation of an Administrative Separation Board. The panel found that he made disparaging comments about Obama that were detrimental to good order and discipline and violated military law. Civilian lawyers for Stein said they would continue to fight in federal court to prevent Stein from being dismissed or to win his reinstatement.

In a surprise move, officials have told the warden at the state prison in Lancaster either to retire or accept a demotion--likely the result of a series of problems that have plagued the year-old prison, including the escapes of a convicted murderer and three other inmates. In a brief statement issued Friday, state prison officials said, "The California Department of Corrections has made a decision to restructure the management team (at the Lancaster prison) . . .

Longtime talent agent Ed Limato, whose clients include such stars as Denzel Washington and Mel Gibson, is on his way out of International Creative Management as part of a restructuring of the agency's ranks. Limato's lawyers were negotiating his departure on Friday in the wake of his demotion from co-president to agent in the agency's motion picture division. The agency has been undergoing major changes since the acquisition of literary agency Broder Webb Chervin Silbermann last year.

The top development official for the city of Long Beach has been demoted after coming under scrutiny for going on junkets with a lobbyist with business before his office, officials announced Friday afternoon. Director of Development Services Craig Beck has been reassigned as a manager of the Oil and Gas Department's Business Operations Bureau. He will start the new post Monday, earning a salary of $140,000 a year -- a 20% pay cut -- said Debbie Mills, the city's acting human resources director.

Russia demoted three top navy commanders and sacked eight other admirals in a clear-out that some experts said was punishment for the Kursk nuclear submarine catastrophe in which 118 crewmen died. Senior military officials denied a direct link with the Kursk disaster, but the demotions came just hours after President Vladimir V. Putin received a preliminary report from Russia's top law officer into August 2000 naval exercises during which the Kursk sank.

The South Pasadena Police Department has demoted three lieutenants and three sergeants and cut their pay as part of an effort to put more police officers on the streets. City Manager Sean Joyce said the demotions are not punitive, but part of a restructuring plan designed to put more of the department's 33 sworn officers in the field. "The restructuring is a result of Interim Chief [John] Anderson's review of the department," Joyce said.

The House rejected a Republican-led bid to force Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) to give up his chairmanship of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee while the ethics committee reviews his financial and tax records. The proposal failed, 226-176. Issues include Rangel's failure to report $75,000 in rental income and his use of a rent-controlled apartment as a campaign office. Rangel, 78, denies intentional wrongdoing.

Sometimes ending up back where you started isn't such a bad thing. Consider the peculiar case of Devin Ebanks , who began the season as a Lakers starter before drifting toward the end of the bench and then obscurity in the Development League. Now Ebanks is back in a prominent spot, starting his sixth consecutive game for the Lakers on Tuesday when they played the San Antonio Spurs at Staples Center. Ebanks' latest opportunity arose when Kobe Bryant was sidelined because of a sore left shin.

BASEBALL URBAN LEGEND : Orlando Hudson was sent to the minors as punishment for referring to the Toronto Blue Jays general manager as a "pimp. " In the spring of 2002, current San Diego Padres second baseman Orlando Hudson was still a prospect trying to make the Toronto Blue Jays. Hudson was the Blue Jays' fourth-best prospect in 2002 (according to Baseball America - Josh Phelps was their #1 prospect at the time. Jayson Werth was #2 and Gabe Gross was #3) but his spot on the major league squad was far from assured.

The resilient Eric Hurley just had one more hurdle tossed in front of him: a demotion to the Angels' minor league camp. In the last three years, Hurley has undergone shoulder surgery, operations on a broken left wrist and suffered a small skull fracture when hit by a comebacker. Two avenues seemed evident for the 26-year-old: say enough is enough, or get back on the mound. "I hope bad things come in threes, and that's over," Hurley said before pitching Friday. "I know I can pitch at a high level.

It was just minutes into his workday when Los Angeles County Sheriff's Sgt. Mark Moffett saw a gun aimed straight at his head. The man gripping the gun, he told investigators, was a fellow sergeant staring at him from a glass office inside the Compton sheriff's station. "I'm gonna kill you," Moffett said his colleague mouthed at him. "I'm gonna kill you. " Moffett said the threat was one of many that Sgt. Timothy Cooper directed at him over the years, a vendetta he alleges was motivated by Cooper's ties to a secret deputy clique.

Reporting from Portland, Ore. -- Three games had come and gone before Devin Ebanks finally appeared on the court, a rapid fall from starting small forward to end-of-bench afterthought. "Definitely, I'm frustrated," Ebanks said Thursday in a quiet moment outside the visitors' locker room before the Lakers played Portland. "It's a little block in the road right now and the key is to keep working hard. Matt [Barnes] wasn't playing when I was [starting] and he handled it professionally so I've got to be the same way. " Ebanks had a goal coming into his second NBA season — win the wide-open competition at small forward.

Everything is bigger in Texas. UCLA has two quarterbacks in its controversy. Texas has three. The Longhorns will play either sophomore Case McCoy or freshman David Ash against UCLA on Saturday at the Rose Bowl, unless the choice is Ash or junior Garrett Gilbert. Then again, it might be Gilbert or McCoy. To borrow and adjust the old Texas Ranger motto: One riot, three quarterbacks. This is bedlam compared to the quarterback peace that reigned when Colt McCoy rode roughshod over the Big 12 Conference two seasons ago. The line of succession back then seemed clear.

At the end of a week in which he narrowly lost the Quebec referendum on sovereignty and announced his own eventual resignation, Quebec Premier Jacques Parizeau demoted his Finance Minister. In a Cabinet shuffle Friday, Parizeau moved Jean Campeau from the finance portfolio to transport, a significantly less prestigious post. Quebec separatists were defeated 50.6% to 49.4% in Monday's referendum on Quebec sovereignty.

A psychologist at St. Elizabeths Hospital alleges she was transferred and punished after recommending that presidential assailant John W. Hinckley Jr. be permitted to leave the grounds for unsupervised visits with his parents. "My career was fine, no problems--until I wrote the recommendation in 1996," said Susan Lerner, a 15-year employee who said she has clashed with officials at the psychiatric hospital ever since. "Had it been any other patient, this never would have happened."

Reporting from Salt Lake City -- It is five hours before game time and Spring Mobile Ballpark, the picturesque home of the minor league Salt Lake Bees, is empty except for two figures on the field. Reggie Willits, wearing a gray T-shirt and black athletic shorts with No. 7 on one thigh, is at the plate, bat in hand, honing his craft with a hitting coach. For Willits, 30, an outfielder unassuming in character and undersized at 5 feet 9 and 185 pounds, this does not involve slugging baseballs over the fence; in 414 major league games, he has never hit a home run. Instead, he spends 45 minutes bunting balls toward third base and first, polishing one of the fundamental skills he used to carve out a niche as a valued Angels reserve from 2007 until this past June.

Start with a picture on the cover of the 2009 USC media guide. It shows Taylor Mays charging down the field, shoulders at a forward tilt, as if poised to lower the boom on an unsuspecting receiver. That fall, Mays was a two-time All-American safety who had passed up a choice spot in the NFL draft to return for his senior season. His future appeared limitless. Now fast-forward to this week, to a young man who arrived at the Cincinnati Bengals' training camp fighting for his NFL life.