A veteran female Orange County prosecutor was awarded $3.5 million this week by a San Diego jury that found she was the victim of sexual harassment and a hostile work environment at the District Attorney’s Office, the latest verdict in a series of lawsuits related to the actions of a disgraced former supervisor and former close friend of DA Todd Spitzer.
Bethel Cope-Vega described Gary Logalbo, her former supervisor at the DA’s office, repeatedly sexually harassing her, including making late-night phone calls asking what she was wearing and saying she was naked in his dreams.
Cope-Vega, in testimony during the civil trial, also said Logalbo made explicit and demeaning remarks to her when she tried to distance herself in his office, telling her “You know, you don’t have to stand back there. Are you afraid? I’m not going to just bend you over that chair and take you from behind,” and “I’m not going to bite unless you ask me to.”
“Having to sue the job I continue to love has been heartbreaking,” Cope-Vega said in a statement released after the verdict. “This was never about money for me or the other victims — it has always been about standing up to injustice and doing what is right.”
The lawsuit was against the county of Orange. A county representative declined to comment on the verdict.
As a prosecutor, Cope-Vega in recent years has handled the county’s most shocking child-abuse related crimes. That has included the successful prosecutions of an Anaheim woman who committed “unspeakable” torture on her 10-year-old step-daughter and a couple whose infant son was left blind and quadriplegic due to malnutrition and exposure to extreme temperatures. In 2024, Cope-Vega was chosen as the “Outstanding Prosecutor of the Year” by the California District Attorney’s Association.
“My client is a devoted public servant whose only goal has ever been to serve her community with integrity,” said attorney Aaron Brock. “The County of Orange should not only be proud of her exceptional work but grateful for the dedication, fairness, and leadership she has brought to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office and to the community she serves.”
In late 2020, sexual harassment allegations came to light involving Logalbo, then a high-level DA supervisor who decades earlier had served as the best man at DA Spitzer’s wedding. Spitzer previously testified that he had grown apart from Logalbo over the years. But at least one of Logalbo’s accusers and her supervisor raised concerns about Spitzer’s potential role in an investigation into Logalbo.
County HR officials took over the investigation. Logalbo was placed on leave and quickly left the DA’s office. He died in 2021.
A county report ultimately found that Logalbo sexually harassed four female attorneys under his supervision. But the public release of that report — complete with potentially identifying details regarding victims and those who aided the investigation — by DA leadership “shocked” and “humiliated” the victims, who believed it was an act of retaliation for their participating in the investigation into Logalbo.
DA officials blamed the verdict in Cope-Vega’s civil lawsuit not only on Logalbo but also the County Counsel office, which handles legal matters for the Orange County Board of Supervisors and county departments.
“The Orange County District Attorney’s Office has always supported the victims of sexual harassment and their right to sue and receive compensation for their damages,” said Kimberly Edds, an OC DA spokeswoman. “The OCDA has and continues to advocate for all its employees to be free of discrimination and harassment. This verdict is about the harassment engaged in by a former Senior Assistant Deputy District Attorney; it is also a condemnation of the actions of County Counsel.”
Edds accused the county counsel, Leon Page, of being responsible for the public release of the report into Logalbo’s conduct.
“He hired an outside investigator who threatened our employees with termination if they did not participate in the investigation and promised them confidentiality,” Edds said. “Then County Counsel went on to publicly humiliate and victim-shame these women by deeming the confidential report a public document, failing to adequately protect their identities in that public document and then releasing it to the media. We are not in any way surprised by this verdict or the dollar amount since County Counsel broke its promises to these women and betrayed their trust.”
A representative for the county declined to comment on the DA’s statement regarding county counsel, citing a policy not to discuss pending litigation and settlements.
Several current and former DA employees have filed lawsuits related to Logalbo’s actions and the fallout from the investigation. In 2021, they agreed to six-figure settlements with the county, but those agreements were rejected by the Orange County Board of Supervisors.
The cases were transferred to a courtroom in downtown San Diego in order to avoid potential conflicts of interest regarding former prosecutors from the DA’s office who has since become judges.
Last year, a lawsuit brought by former DA supervisor Tracy Miller became the first of the Logalbo-related cases to go to trial. Miller over a two-decade long career as a prosecutor had risen to the upper echelon of the OC DA office, ultimately becoming the highest-ranking woman in the organization.
A previous jury awarded Miller more than $3 million in damages, determining that she had been targeted for harassment by Spitzer and Sean Nelson — Spitzer’s former second-in-command who is now an Orange County judge — and forced out of the DA’s office. Miller alleged the harassment against her intensified after she cooperated with an investigator looking into Logalbo and tried to protect his victims, including Cope-Vega.
During the trial related to Miller’s lawsuit, Spitzer and Nelson both repeatedly denied speaking out against or targeting the women who reported the sexual harassment by Logalbo.
But, as part of the verdict in the Miller case, jurors found Spitzer personally liable for $25,000 in punitive damages, which are meant to punish behavior. On top of the initial $3 million verdict for Miller, a judge later awarded $1.5 million in attorneys’ fees related to her successful lawsuit, increasing the financial exposure to the county.
Unlike the trial related to Miller’s lawsuit, Spitzer was not personally named as a defendant in the lawsuit brought by Cope-Vega.