LA County Claims Board Signs Off on $1.1 million Settlement of Conny McCormack Corruption Lawsuit

[Wilms]

County Signs Off on $1.1 million Settlement

Daily News Wire Services

03/16/2009

~snip~

The settlement proposal must now go before the Board of Supervisors for consideration.

Alvarez Lecesne, his wife Desnee, and their co-worker, Kristen Heffron, filed the suit in February 2007. They allege that while working for the Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk's office, they became the targets of discrimination by the department's director for refusing to engage in unethical activities, which they claimed eventually cost them their jobs.

~snip~

According to their complaint, former Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Conny McCormack discriminated against elderly and non-white employees and managed the department by "dispensing favors; helping friends, often at the public's expense; and circumventing established procedures and rules, rather than serving the public good."

McCormack retired at the end of 2007 after 12 years as the county's top election official, following a protracted battle with Secretary of State Debra Bowen over electronic voting machines.

~snip~

Among other things, Lecesne alleges that McCormack tried to persuade him to inflate promotion test scores for one friend and participate in an attempt to defraud an insurance company on behalf of another friend, and then retaliated against him when he refused.

~snip~

http://www.contracostatimes.com/california/ci_11924151