The case against the DA consultant will continue in court on the six remaining charges

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Sam Ohta on Tuesday dismissed two of the eight remaining charges against Diana Teran, a senior adviser to the district attorney's office who was accused of improperly using documents the state said were confidential.

But Ohta also ruled that the case will proceed to trial on six remaining counts. The decision came after a four-day preliminary hearing in the case of Teran, who was charged under a law against computer hacking.

Four months ago, California Attorney General Rob Bonta's office said Teran broke the law in 2021 when she flagged the names of several sheriff's deputies for possible inclusion on a list of problem cops. Bonta's office said Teran only knew about those deputies and their alleged misconduct because of allegedly confidential documents sent to her three years earlier when she worked at the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

Teran's attorney, James Spertus, has repeatedly said that these documents were never confidential because they are actually public court records. But prosecutors have argued for weeks that any information sent to the Sheriff's Department is considered confidential under department policy, even if it is a public court order written by a judge.

Ohta read his 28-page opinion, which took more than an hour, ultimately concluding that while court records are public, Teran could have searched for the names of those officers in the Sheriff's Department's confidential personnel records system after the files in question were emailed to her. Those searches, he said, could reveal a connection between the public records and confidential information.

State and district attorneys declined to comment on the outcome of the case on Tuesday. But former Los Angeles District Attorney Gil Garcetti, who watched the hearing from the audience, said Ohta's decision was a disappointment.

“It's a sad day when a lawyer as good, ethical and diligent as she has worked within the scope of her authority and that framework is somehow criminalized,” he told the Times outside the courtroom.

The hearing spanned two weeks and featured several eyebrow-raising moments. At one point, a state investigator mistakenly said he thought court records were not considered public records because they cost money. He later said all information sent to the sheriff's department was confidential – even the receipt for a deputy's pizza order.

And although prosecutors have argued for months that Teran illegally took confidential personnel files, testimony showed there was no evidence she downloaded court documents from confidential personnel files she was authorized to access as part of her job. Nevertheless, an investigator testified that the state is still investigating additional allegations against Teran.

Throughout the hearing, Ohta repeatedly indicated that he was skeptical about the case. He often sighed at the prosecutors or rolled his eyes. A few times he questioned the merits of the charges – so that the outcome seemed like a reversal.

The decision advances a case that sent shockwaves through the state's legal community when Bonta unexpectedly announced it in April, just as District Attorney George Gascón – a fellow Democrat – was preparing for a tough re-election battle against a more conservative challenger.

Teran's duties included overseeing the district attorney's office's division responsible for prosecuting police officers, which was considered closely aligned with Gascón's agenda for law enforcement accountability and justice reform. The district attorney's office has said it does not comment on personnel matters, but confirmed that Teran no longer oversees the district attorney's ethics and integrity division. Public records obtained by a longtime prosecutor show Teran was still being paid in June.

The The allegations at the center of the current case date back to 2018. when Teran worked as a police constitutional consultant for then-Sheriff Jim McDonnell. Her usual duties included accessing confidential deputy files and internal investigations.

After leaving the Sheriff's Department in late 2018, Teran joined the District Attorney's Office, where prosecutors say in 2021 she sent a list of 33 names and supporting documents to another prosecutor for possible inclusion in internal databases of officers with problematic disciplinary histories. According to a 1963 U.S. Supreme Court decision known as Brady vs. Maryland, Prosecutors are required to produce all evidence favorable to the defendant, including evidence of police misconduct.

Accordingly an affidavit Signed by Tony Baca, a special agent with the state Department of Justice, several names Teran emailed to her colleague Pamela Revel were of officers whose files she had accessed while working at the Sheriff's Department.

A state investigator, after reviewing newspaper articles and public records requests, found that 11 of the names had never been mentioned publicly, leading to the claim that Teran would not have been able to identify them had she not had her special access while working for the sheriff's department.

The state has fought for months to keep the affidavit secret, refusing to release the officers' names and demanding protective orders at every step. When Bonta's office agreed to release the affidavit earlier this year, prosecutors left nine of the names redacted anyway.

Only the names of Liza Gonzalez and Thomas Negron – former lawmakers who were fired for dishonesty, according to court records – have been made public; the state has made no statement on this.

Before the first day of the hearing, Bonta's office filed an updated version of the criminal complaint, dropping charges against Gonzalez, Negron and another deputy identified in court records only as Deputy Doe 11. Prosecutors did not explain why they dropped those three charges, although Spertus later told the Times that one of them – Deputy Doe 11 – was a civilian employee, not a deputy.

At the beginning of the hearing The court heard from Deputy Todd Bernstein, who testified that most Sheriff's Department information is confidential under department policy and that public information – including public court records – is considered confidential once it is sent to the department, such as in the form of an email attachment.

Although prosecutors repeatedly pointed out that tracking software showed Teran accessed confidential personnel files hundreds of times while working at the Sheriff's Department, Bernstein testified that the software actually showed she did not download any files from the personnel records system related to the department's 11 employees.

The court also heard from Baca and another special agent who investigated the case. Much of their testimony focused on identifying the documents Teran allegedly sent to Revel and provided detailed descriptions of the metadata that linked them to files she had obtained years earlier from the Sheriff's Department.

Testimony showed that these files were court records and preliminary court orders — repeating claims Spertus has made in the past. For months, he claimed that the supposedly confidential files were all documents from lawsuits filed by the officers themselves seeking to overturn disciplinary decisions and firings.

Baca acknowledged, however, that while investigators combed through key newspaper articles and searched Google for public mentions of the deputies, he did not check whether their court records were available on the court's website because he was “not too familiar” with the platform. Additionally, he said, he does not consider the court's online records to be public because there is a fee to search.

“Because you couldn’t find it, is it confidential in your eyes?” Spertus asked in a more general question about the investigators’ research efforts.

“That’s true,” Baca replied.

In their testimony, the agents also said that some of the assistant district attorneys they interviewed disagreed with Teran's view of including materials in the district attorney's database on problem cops, portraying the database as more comprehensive than previous practice.

The judge continued to bristle at the state's questions. At one point, Ohta asked if prosecutors were trying to prove that Teran harbored anti-police sentiments and demanded to know how that related to the charges. Later, he asked why they appeared to be trying to prove that Teran was allegedly afraid of being arrested.

“A lot of people are afraid of being arrested by the sheriff,” Ohta said. “I'm afraid of being arrested by the sheriff.”

As the hearing unexpectedly entered its second week, Inspector General Max Huntsman – the county supervisor whose office oversees the sheriff's department – testified that he found Teran to be “extremely honest” during their work together. He said that when state investigators questioned him this year, he told them he was concerned their charges were “without basis in law or fact.”

Ohta, however, apparently disagreed. Although he agreed with Spertus that court records are public, he said that was not the deciding factor in whether Teran broke the law. Instead, he focused on whether the public documents contained names that linked them to confidential personnel files.

Since there was evidence that Teran had pursued several disciplinary actions against the deputies during her time with the Sheriff's Department, Ohta said it was likely that she might have searched the confidential personnel records system for their names.

He dismissed the two felony charges related to Deputy Does 3 and 5, saying there were no emails indicating Teran had pursued their cases and therefore it could not be “logically concluded” that she would have looked them up in the personnel file system.

Although Teran was released on $50,000 bail when she was first arrested in April, Ohta waived bail and released her on bond. She is due back in court on September 3.