A day after being awarded more than $3 million in a harassment trial against DA Todd Spitzer, former DA supervisor Tracy Miller on Friday reflected back on a meeting years ago when a young female prosecutor struggled through her emotions while describing the sexual harassment she was facing in the office.
The young prosecutor was among several women allegedly targeted by then DA supervisor Gary Logalbo, a one-time close friend of Spitzer’s. A San Diego jury this week found that Miller — once the highest ranking woman in the DA’s office — was forced out by Spitzer and Shawn Nelson — then the office’s second-in-command, now an OC judge — after she tried to shield the women Logalbo was accused of sexually harassing from retaliation.
“She was crying, she was shaking, she was rocking back and forth describing the sexual harassment she had endured for a long time from Todd Spitzer’s best man and best friend,” Miller said of the female prosecutor, who was then in her 20s. “She told me ‘Sometimes I cried, sometimes I laughed, sometimes I went along with it — and none of it worked, it wouldn’t stop.’
“I told her in that office, ‘I am double your age, and the harassment I face from Todd Spitzer and Shawn Nelson — sometimes I cry, sometimes I laugh and go along with it, sometimes I told them to stop, none of worked.’
“I made a mistake in that office that day, I did something I regret — I forgot to tell that young woman, ‘Sometimes we fight!” Miller added.
During a news conference on Friday morning, Miller urged county leaders and groups to distance themselves from Spitzer in light of the verdict.
“The county of Orange, it is time to step up, you need to protect the employees who work in that (DA) office,” Miller said. “It is your responsibility. We were left with no one protecting us.”
Along with the $3 million in damages due to be paid by the county, Spitzer himself was hit with an additional $25,000 in punitive damages. Those damages don’t include what the county paid for their own attorneys, or the cost of Miller’s attorneys that could be recouped from the county due to the verdict. The $3 million in damages — unless overturned on appeal — would come from county general fund revenue, a county spokesperson said.
And waiting in the wings are a series of other lawsuits set to go to trial — involving at least five current and former female prosecutors — over the Logalbo sexual harassment allegations and related fallout at the DA office. A county investigation found that Logalbo — who died in 2022 — sexually harassed four women. And the lawsuits allege that Spitzer, after the abuse came to light, “embarked on a campaign of retaliation against the women.”
“The people of Orange County deserve better from their district attorney and their county leaders,” Miller said. “The people deserve better than the board of supervisors spending millions and millions and millions of taxpayer dollars defending this corrupt DA.”
Faced with the potential for multiple other costly verdicts, county officials declined to comment on Friday about whether they are currently seeking to settle the various lawsuits. County spokeswoman Molly Nichelson cited a policy not to comment on active litigation.
Miller, her attorneys noted, paved the way for countless other female prosecutors at the OC DA office as she rose through the ranks to the top command staff. Spitzer — when he took the reins of the DA office in 2019 — kept Miller and the rest of the top office leaders in their positions. But cracks in the relationship between Spitzer and Miller quickly showed.
Spitzer and Nelson, Miller alleged, routinely berated and humiliated her, at times reducing her to tears. They described her as “babysitting” her subordinates, while saying her male colleagues “managed” those they supervised, Miller said. Friends say the Miller they had always known as “bubbly, outgoing and strong” suddenly seemed “withdrawn, fearful and sad.” And Miller said that when Spitzer threatened to dismantle a community anti-gang program she had created, Miller decided she had no choice but to leave the DA office.
Spitzer during testimony in the trial denied harassing Miller or retaliating against her and said he had grown apart from Logalbo years earlier. A county attorney told jurors that Miller’s frustrations were due to the higher expectations Spitzer brought with him for employees when he took over the office.
In a statement released after the verdict, Spitzer described having “inherited an office in chaos” and said it was “no secret that there was a lot of frustration on my part with her (Miller’s) lack of performance in handling… very serious matters.”
But the DA also added that “I accept full responsibility for any and all actions that occur in my administration” and said “In hindsight, I realize I was not as sensitive to the issues Ms. Miller was facing at the time as I should have been, and for that I am truly sorry.”
Along with the harassment and retaliation allegations, jurors in the civil trial heard extensive testimony about more than a decades worth of controversies at the OC DA’s office under both the current and former administration. That included the informant scandal under former DA Tony Rackauckas and a related federal investigation as well as controversies involving allegedly racially charged comments Spitzer made about a defendant in a capital murder case that led a judge to find he had violated the state Racial Justice Act.
The challenge, Miller’s attorneys said on Friday, was pulling all those threads together for jurors in order to provide the context for what Miller experienced at the DA office.
“There was a lot to say and there was a lot of moving parts to the case,” Attorney John Barnett said. “It happened over several years. It involved shifting politics. There were extremely complicated factual and legal issues to present to the jury in a short amount to time.”
Spitzer’s at-times emotional testimony was key, Miller’s attorneys said.
“He got angry on the stand, he was yelling on the stand,” Attorney Bijan Darvish said. “What I told the jury was they just got a small glimpse of what Tracy Miller went through for years.”
The trial and verdict in Miller’s case were closely watched by the attorneys representing the other women who have filed lawsuits against the county related to the Logalbo harassment and the alleged retaliation by Spitzer.
“I think it finally affirms to the victims of the retaliation and sexual harassment that there are voices are finally being heard,” Attorney Carly Nese said. “We are all here and we are going to fight and hold them accountable.”