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The 11-count felony case alleging anti-police misconduct from Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon’s top ethics officer stemmed from the drunken arrest of one of his most trusted confidants, who recorded himself clashing with officers and interrupting their investigation, according to court documents.
California Attorney General Robert Bonta announced the charges against Diana Teran in April.
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According to an affidavit obtained by Fox News Digital and Fox News, the case against her grew out of an investigation launched into the December 2021 arrest of Joseph Iniguez, who was Gascon’s chief of staff at the time and has since been promoted to chief deputy district attorney.
VIDEO SHOWS LA DA GEORGE GASCON’S RIGHT-HAND MAN ARRESTED IN DUI STOP: ‘YOU’VE PULLED OVER THE WRONG PERSON’
Diana Teran, the former head of the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office’s Ethics and Integrity unit, pictured in an April booking photo after her arrest on 11 felony charges for allegedly taking and/or misusing data on sheriff’s deputies without authorization.(Los Angeles County)
Azusa police took Iniguez to jail after stopping his then-fiance in December 2021 for an alleged traffic violation and on suspicion of drunken driving. Earlier this week, Fox News Digital obtained video of the arrest – which showed him telling officers, “You’ve pulled over the wrong person, let me tell you.”
According to a police report connected to the incident, Iniguez threatened to have the arresting officer placed on the “Brady list,” although that exchange is not heard on the video.
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The list is a database of officers who have been accused of wrongdoing and can be used by defense attorneys to discredit them in court.
Read the affidavit
In the clip recorded on his cellphone, Iniguez urged the officers to check his license plates, which could have revealed to them that he worked for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. He admitted to drinking at the wedding and repeatedly interrupted the officer as he attempted to question the driver. Also during the encounter, he urges his fiance not to speak with the officers, a potential violation of DA policy and state law.
Iniguez sued Azusa over his arrest, alleging a federal civil rights violation, and received a $10,000 settlement, described by critics as a “nuisance payment,” last year.
Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon meets with media in Grand Park on March 5, 2024, in Los Angeles.(Myung Chun/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
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‘WOKE’ CALIFORNIA PROSECUTOR ‘IRONICALLY IN CHARGE OF ETHICS’ CHARGED WITH FELONIES
On Tuesday, the Azusa Police Department said in a statement that its officers fully complied with state law and internal policies.
“City of Azusa and Chief [Rocky] Wenrick stand firmly behind our employees and the decisions made during [Iniguez’s] arrest,” the department said.
But while looking into Iniguez’s alleged Brady threat, investigators say they found evidence against Teran.
An Asuza, California, police officer escorts George Gascon’s right-hand man, Joseph Iniguez, into a cell after a 2021 stop for public intoxication.(Asuza Police Department)
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“The investigation commenced after an LADA official who oversees the databases threatened to put a police officer in the LADA’s Brady database after the officer had arrested him for disrupting a December 2021 traffic stop investigation of his fiance,” the affidavit reads. “Our investigation of that official led to the conduct of Diana Maria Teran, who was an LADA special advisor with constructive responsibility for the Brady and ORWITS databases at the LADA.”
TOP ADVISER TO LEFT-WING CALIFORNIA DA CHARGED WITH NEARLY A DOZEN FELONIES
According to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Brady material covers criminal convictions, false statements and administration investigations involving dishonesty or “serious misconduct” against law enforcement officers. The Officer and Recurrent Witness Information Tracking System (ORWITS) is a similar but separate database with less vetting.
Joseph Iniguez sits beside his boss, Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon, at the Reform L.A. Jails Summit + Day Party: Mental Health Matters, on Nov. 9, 2019, in Pasadena, California. (Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Patrisse Cullors)
Before joining Gascon’s office, Teran worked in oversight for the sheriff’s department and had access to more than 1,600 confidential files on members of law enforcement, as well as documents related to internal affairs investigations.
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She left the sheriff’s department in 2018, but after joining Gascon’s office in 2021, allegedly continued to use material from those files, which she is now accused of illegally taking and accessing.
“Teran repeatedly used data from those LASD personnel files and internal emails and documents in a surreptitious attempt to add peace officer names to LADA’s Brady and ORWITS databases.”
Teran’s defense attorney has said he believes she will beat the state’s charges.
Iniguez has not been charged or accused of wrongdoing in connection with the case against Teran.
A still image taken from jailhouse surveillance video shows Los Angeles Chief Deputy District Attorney Joseph Iniguez making a phone call from lockup after a 2021 arrest for public intoxication.(Asuza Police Department)
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“No one is above the law,” said Bonta, a Democrat, in a press release announcing the charges against Teran.“Public officials are called to serve the people and the State of California with integrity and honesty. At the California Department of Justice, we will continue to fight for the people of California and hold those who break the law accountable.”
Gascon previously defended his Brady policy and said he would cooperate with state investigators.
“When I took office, we developed a protocol that ensured we complied with our constitutional obligations under Brady, which requires us to turn over potentially exculpatory evidence to the defense, a category that includes law enforcement’s prior misconduct, while simultaneously complying with state and federal law around privacy,” he said. “I stand by that protocol.”
His office deferred questions on the Iniguez incident to his private attorney.
Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon is running for re-election amid harsh criticism and concerns about crime.(Hans Gutknecht/MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images)
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Iniguez’s fiance, who was driving the car before the stop, was handcuffed but not charged, and authorities later dropped the public intoxication case against Iniguez.
He also came under fire in recent weeks after the district attorney’s office said it would remove the two lead prosecutors on a child murder trial from the case before sentencing over an apparent conflict of interest – involving Teran. He later backtracked, and they remained on the case after it was transferred to a unit Teran had no connection to.
The state convened a similar task force in response to the 2016 state audit that found more than 5,000 untested evidence kits across the state, some dating back to the 1980s. While rape kit backlogs was a nationwide problem, New Mexico had the largest backlog per capita.
The Skanner has covered politics, policy and other community issues in Oregon and Washington for five decades.
An array of front pages from The Skanner, one of Oregon’s only Black-owned news outlets, that ended operations on Jan. 30, 2026, after 50 years of publication.
Screenshot via Historic Oregon Newspapers / OPB
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A 50-year pillar of Portland media known for reporting on policy impacts in undercovered areas — and one of the state’s only Black-owned news outlets — is shutting down.
The online newspaper was one of just a few Black-owned publications in the state before its website became inactive. The closing of The Skanner comes as Oregon’s journalism industry continues to shrink and consolidate.
As first reported by Willamette Week, The Skanner ended operations on Jan. 30.
Bernie and Bobbie Dore Foster started the newspaper in 1975, according to interviews with the Oregon Historical Society. The newspaper printed a weekly paper until 2023, when it converted to digital-only. Bernie Foster said The Skanner is closing completely now due to rapid changes in technology.
“I hope the new generation of people, that they will leave the city of Portland and this country in better shape than when they found it,” Bernie Foster told OPB.
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The Skanner joined the Portland media scene five years after the Portland Observer, one of the state’s only other Black-owned publications.
Together, the media outlets have helped train many journalists and writers, including Portland communication consultant and essayist Donovan Scribes.
“The Observer and The Skanner were important places to be able to cut your teeth,” Scribes told OPB, “and also be taken seriously within your craft as a writer and your ability to give analysis on situations.”
Scribes first worked as a reporter at The Observer before moving to The Skanner in 2014. He spent two years at the paper at a pivotal time in U.S. history: the growth of Black Lives Matter from a rallying cry and hashtag to a grassroots movement.
Scribes said working at The Skanner during that period solidified and grew his love of Black-owned publications.
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“Black media is important to telling stories that otherwise may not be told,” Scribes said.
During his time at The Skanner, he was reading through police reports in the Portland region and continued to notice the phrase “gang-related shooting.”
Scribes would then see the phrase in news stories, so he asked one of the officials in the region to sit down for an interview with him for The Skanner.
Scribes asked what the threshold was for calling something gang-related.
“In the conversation, it essentially came out that there was no rationale for the statement,” Scribes told OPB. “That Q&A being published, it was such a big thing for a lot of people in the community to finally have it be laid out that there was no rationale — because it’s something that was so normalized.”
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Lisa Loving was among the editors who worked with Scribes.
Loving, a journalism educator and author of the nonfiction book Street Journalist, started as a reporter and then moved into an editor role at The Skanner on-and-off from 2000 to 2015.
“Some of the best stories we ever did were stories where people walked in The Skanner office and just brought rolling suitcases full of documents about how they were treated badly at a local hospital, or boxes of documents about what’s happened to their child in the juvenile justice system,” Loving told OPB. “In a way, you could say The Skanner was a microcosm of how the African and African-American communities fit in the Pacific Northwest.”
Many of the print editions covering decades of The Skanner are archived with the Oregon Historical Society. The website currently shows a note saying the URL is “not found.”
Loving hopes there’s also a way to preserve the content that was on The Skanner’s website.
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“It’s the history of African Americans in the Pacific Northwest, it’s a history of communities that were built around African Americans in the Pacific Northwest, and who are the allies, who are the accomplices, who are the enemies,” Loving said. “There’s so much in there, and that is a huge loss to anyone who lives here.”
Sign up today for OPB’s “First Look” – your daily guide to the most important news and culture stories from around the Northwest.
ST. GEORGE, Utah (KUTV) — Researchers claim pediatric care capabilities are declining nationwide, with many hospitals not having full equipment or staffing for childcare units.
“If a patient or child is sick, they should go to their nearest emergency department, and they should be confident about the care they’re going to get,” said Dr. Ken Michelson, a researcher working at the Children’s Hospital of Chicago. “The capabilities of hospitals to provide care for children are declining. And it’s unfortunate to see, but over the past two decades, hospitals have either reduced their commitment to pediatrics or have gotten out of the business of pediatrics altogether.”
These limitations are felt in Utah. One family in St. George is celebrating their daughter’s health a year after she nearly lost her life. It was on her birthday last year that the family traveled to three hospitals across the state before receiving adequate care.
MORE | Southern Utah
“It’s just like sheer terror at the thought of losing a child,” said Taryn Bennion, mother of 3-year-old Penelope “Nellie” Bennion.
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Last February, Bennion noticed Nellie having trouble breathing. Doctors told her she had RSV and two types of COVID. While she was rushed to the St. George Regional Hospital, just a three-minute drive away, they said they didn’t have the equipment to incubate her.
“It was so frustrating, and it got to the point where you just think, ‘Where am I supposed to go? Where do I take my child?’” Bennion said.
Nellie was then flown to Salt Lake, but Primary Children’s Hospital was full, requiring another transfer to Lehi. Bennion says she was worried whether Nellie would make it in time.
“It makes me rethink because if they don’t have the right equipment, if we don’t have what we need, then what’s the point?” Bennion asked, adding that she had chosen to live in the area due to the close proximity to the hospital. “I think that we need to change how the children are treated in hospitals. They need to get the equipment we need to actually take care of the children because they’re our legacy. They are the ones who are going to be here after we’re gone. They’re the ones who are going to inherit what we leave behind, and we need to take care of the next generation.”
2News reached out to Intermountain Health asking if they have changed or plan to update equipment in St. George and whether they expect pediatric units to be full with this year’s measles and flu outbreaks.
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They said the region of Southern Utah has seen major escalations in RSV, flu, and measles cases, which may cause hospital patients to be referred to other areas. They also say they are always looking to address pediatrics in the area, but more severe cases will be referred to larger pediatric units in Salt Lake City, Lehi, or the new children’s hospital groundbreaking in Las Vegas later this year.
“St. George Regional Hospital provides high quality care to all our patients and is one of the leading hospitals in the region,” said St. George Regional Hospital. “As part of an integrated health system, we provide access to specialized care across the region to ensure that area residents have access to the best care possible.”
Nellie is now back to what her mom calls her “sassy self” and says she’s excited to meet Donald Duck at an upcoming birthday trip to Disneyland.
While the family is grateful to have her back, Bennion says they still live nervously, worried they won’t notice or fix a sickness in time.
“If it’s anything respiratory, I get paranoid,” she said. “I always in the back of my mind am wondering if it’s going to happen again. I’m kind of afraid to like leave the house nowadays because of all that that’s breaking out.”
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Intermountain Health shared that it is always important to get your children seen if they show signs of fast, hard and sustained breathing.
