Employee Misconduct

The Los Angeles County Commission for Children and Families is calling for an audit of the county's probation ombudsman and the grievance process for youths in detention halls and camps. The commission's leader, Patricia Curry, sent a letter to supervisors Tuesday requesting an independent review of the ombudsman's procedures, reports and phone service to ensure that complaints of mistreatment are investigated. The request follows a Times story about probation officers who were convicted of crimes or disciplined for inappropriate conduct involving current or former probationers, including several cases of officers molesting or beating youths in their care.

A senior Defense Department official conducted unauthorized investigations of Iraq reconstruction efforts and used their results to push for lucrative contracts for friends and their business clients, according to current and former Pentagon officials and documents. John A. "Jack" Shaw, deputy undersecretary for international technology security, represented himself as an agent of the Pentagon's inspector general in conducting the investigations, sources said.

As officials grapple with the city's most troublesome housing crisis in recent years, Donald J. Smith, executive director of the Housing Authority of the city of Los Angeles, has stepped down. Smith, who served as executive director of the Housing Authority for the last 10 years, was scheduled to retire April 30, but on Thursday officials confirmed that Smith's retirement became effective Wednesday.

A former supervisor of a Los Angeles County animal shelter in Baldwin Park pleaded no contest Monday to a felony charge that he prepared false documents concealing the fact that court-ordered community service work assigned at the shelter was not being performed. Jaime Meraz, 44, a Chino resident who is a 20-year employee of the Los Angeles Department of Animal Care and Control, entered his plea before Municipal Court Judge Rand Schrader, who set sentencing for July 2 in Superior Court.

Former Assistant City Atty. Betsy Mogul, wife of an ex-Los Angeles police officer charged with two contract murders, was acquitted Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court of a charge of lying on a Department of Motor Vehicle form to cheat the state out of taxes. Jurors deliberated for about four hours before finding Mogul, 41, not guilty of a single perjury count--a charge that led to her dismissal from her $78,000-a-year post.

FHP Inc., trying to counteract what it termed "negative publicity" over a medication error that led to the death of an elderly cancer patient at its Fountain Valley hospital, has sent letters and facsimiles to its major shareholders providing an explanation of the incident.

Dozens of tax evaders in Los Angeles have been given protection against criminal prosecution for the last 11 years in a unique program in which they made anonymous payments to the Internal Revenue Service and placed tax returns in secret safe deposit boxes, investigators told a congressional hearing Tuesday. The Los Angeles office approved the unprecedented amnesty-type program without permission from Washington, an investigator said.

Security guard William D. Owen arrived for his 1995 job interview in posh Emerald Bay with a sharp suit, a firm handshake and a state license that assured his soon-to-be employers that he was a sentry to be trusted. But before long, he was leaving his graveyard shift at the exclusive oceanside enclave with his pockets stuffed with new credit cards and checks pulled from the mail boxes of vacationing millionaires.

The CIA's independent watchdog has recommended disciplinary reviews for current and former officials who were involved in failed intelligence efforts before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The proceedings, formally called an accountability board, were recommended by the CIA inspector general, John Helgerson, sources familiar with the findings said. It remains unclear which people are identified for the accountability boards in the highly classified report spanning hundreds of pages.

Six employees at Taft High School were reassigned Tuesday while school district and law enforcement officials investigate an alleged hazing incident in the boys locker room on the Woodland Hills campus. Los Angeles Unified School District officials declined to identify the employees who were removed from the school and assigned to district offices, but district sources said Principal Sharon Thomas and volleyball coach Arman Mercado were among them.