Los Angeles school board candidate Graciela Ortiz has been removed from her job as Los Angeles Unified's counseling administrator pending a confidential investigation, school district officials confirmed., leading a school employees union to withdraw its support for the March 5 election.
The investigation was launched after a civil lawsuit was filed alleging that Ortiz and a political ally are responsible for the actions of a campaign worker, who pleaded no contest to sexual misconduct with an underage volunteer. Both the perpetrator and the victim were involved in campaign work in 2021 for Ortiz and Efrén Martínez, according to the lawsuit, filed Jan. 9 in Los Angeles County Superior Court.
Martinez is running for the 57th state Assembly District, which covers parts of central Los Angeles, south Los Angeles and southeastern Los Angeles. Ortiz is a member of the Huntington Park City Council and is running to represent District 5, which runs north to south along an eastern swath of the Los Angeles Unified School District, encompassing Eagle Rock and cities such as Maywood and Bell.
In the criminal case, Billy Valdivia, the campaign worker, also pleaded no contest to a weapons charge, according to court records. He is also a defendant in the civil suit.
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for the female victim of sexual abuse, identified as “BA.”
An attorney for Ortiz and Martínez, Robert P. Sievers, demanded that the case be dropped in a letter to the plaintiff's attorney, calling the accusations “malicious and defamatory” as well as a carefully timed political “smear.”
Neither Ortiz nor Martínez responded to questions the Times emailed them. They also did not agree to be interviewed. Neither Sievers nor attorneys at Lyfe Law, which also represents Ortiz and Martínez, responded to emailed questions..
Political consultant Mike Trujillo provided a general statement via text message and email to detailed questions.
“Like Taylor Swift's 'Shake It Off', the court will dismiss this lawsuit on political grounds. Additionally, all major public safety organizations, like our own LAUSD school police officers, have endorsed Councilwoman Graciela Ortiz because they know she will make our schools safer,” said Trujillo, who added that he is also working for candidates in the other three board races.
“This is our response/comment to every question you have asked,” he added in a text.
Ortiz, 43, lost a previous run for the school board in 2019 to Jackie Goldberg, who is retiring. Ortiz's position on the council is part-time. Her full-time job has been as a school support administrator supervising counselors. But during the events recounted in the lawsuit, she was a school counselor, as she had been for most of her career with the district, which she began in 2006.
Los Angeles Unified confirmed that Ortiz has been removed from her position “pending the outcome of a formal investigation,” a district spokesperson said. The district declined to provide additional information.
Citing issues raised in the lawsuit and the ongoing investigation, one union, California School Employees Association Chapter 500, has withdrawn its endorsement of Ortiz. That union represents about 4,000 employees, including library assistants and administrative and business services staff at schools.
Ortiz has the support of the campaign's biggest spender: Local 99 of the Service Employees International Union, which represents about 30,000 employees, including cafeteria workers, custodians, teacher aides, security aides and bus drivers.
Local 99 has spent $708,191 through Friday on Ortiz's behalf, and has also provided members for door-to-door campaigning.
Ortiz “has consistently demonstrated a deep commitment to supporting children and families,” Local 99 spokeswoman Blanca Gallegos said Thursday. “As we understand it, it was Graciela's cooperation in the investigation of the incident that led to” Valdivia's no contest plea.
A campaign volunteer.
During the 2018-19 school year, BA attended Marquez Middle School in Huntington Park. He met Ortiz, who was a counselor and faculty advisor for the Key Club, to which the student belonged, according to the lawsuit.
Ortiz recruited BA and other students to work on his unsuccessful 2019 school board campaign, a special election to fill a vacant seat, the lawsuit claims. The COVID-19 pandemic closed schools in March 2020, but BA reconnected with Ortiz that same year at a Christmas toy drive, the lawsuit states.
At Ortiz's urging, BA joined another campaign effort in early 2021 to help Martínez win election to the local Democratic Party Executive Committee, according to the lawsuit.
He also participated in the 2021 effort for Martínez Valdivia, described in the lawsuit as a “personal friend” of Martínez who created videos and advertising for the campaign office and led volunteers as they did campaign work.
The lawsuit alleges that Ortiz “was the primary person in charge of the campaign, organizing volunteers and giving daily talks at campaign headquarters to instruct volunteers on what to do, including interactions with Billy Valdivia,” who helped run the bell. efforts of young volunteers.
Valdivia, who was 44 years old at the time, socialized with underage students, buying them alcohol and giving them rides, according to the lawsuit. He would leave BA in the end, gradually grooming the 16-year-old for a sexual relationship, sometimes taking her to her apartment, the lawsuit alleges.
BA told his family about the physical contact and they notified Huntington Park police, who organized a sting operation, according to the lawsuit. BA requested a one-on-one meeting with Valdivia, and when he arrived, driving a vehicle borrowed by Martinez, agents arrested him, the lawsuit states.
Officers found photos and videos on Valdivia's phone that supported BA's account, according to the lawsuit. At the time of his arrest he was carrying an unregistered firearm. At least one other gun was found at his residence, the lawsuit states.
Valdivia was charged with three felony weapons offenses and one misdemeanor count of molesting or sexually abusing a victim under 18 years of age. He pleaded no contest to two charges: improperly carrying a loaded firearm in public and the nuisance/annoyance charge, according to criminal court. records.
He received a two-year suspended sentence that included credit for 46 days in custody and had to register as a sex offender, court records show.
Questions of the lawsuit
At issue in the civil lawsuit against Martínez and Ortiz is whether they were negligent in hiring and supervising Valdivia and allowing him to interact with minors.
The lawsuit alleges that Ortiz and Martinez should have run a background check on Valdivia and that, if they had, they would have found court records showing he was a potential risk.
A review of limited court documents, which include a name and a case number, indicates that an individual named Billy Valdivia faced gun charges in the 1990s. The Times could not verify whether this is the same person because the Case records, which would include the date of birth, have been destroyed.
Court records also show a domestic dispute involving an individual named Billy Valdivia with the same date of birth as the campaign worker. In this case, Valdivia's then-wife alleged that he was violent and requested a restraining order against her, according to court documents. The restraining order was briefly in effect. There is no indication that charges have been filed.
Both the gun cases and the domestic dispute occurred more than 20 years ago.
Valdivia and his attorney in the criminal case, Albert Robles, did not respond to emails and phone calls from The Times.
In his letter, emailed to the Times by BA's attorney, Sievers denied a connection between BA and the Ortiz and Martínez campaigns: “This claim is also not true as BA was never a volunteer or part of the 2020 campaigns and “No one in the campaign knows her.”
However, Mike Navia, a former Huntington Park Police Department detective who oversaw the case, said BA was a campaign volunteer during the relevant period and had regular contact with Ortiz, Martinez and Valdivia.
Navia no longer works for the city, having lost his job following a public dispute when, as a police union leader, he criticized city officials, including Ortiz.
BA attorney Thomas Scully presented a letter of recommendation that Ortiz wrote praising BA's 2019 campaign help.
He added that it is standard practice for a victim to sue an employer because the perpetrator usually has no assets to recover as damages.
“The duty of care is heightened in this case because the victim was a minor,” Scully said. “She had been removed from a school environment where there was a special relationship between her and a former school counselor that would lead her to reasonably believe that she, as a volunteer, would be cared for.”
