LOS ANGELES – A Los Angeles County sheriff’s sergeant has reached a tentative settlement in her lawsuit in which she said her chances of promotion were hurt because a recruit the sergeant found to be physically unfit for hiring was a friend of then-Sheriff Alex Villanueva’s spouse.
On Thursday, Sgt. Lina Pimentel’s attorneys filed papers with Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Cherol Nellon notifying her of a “conditional” resolution in the plaintiff’s discrimination and harassment case with the expectation a request for dismissal will be filed by June 30.
No terms were divulged, and it was not immediately clear whether final approval of the settlement is up to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.
According to her suit, Pimentel was hired in January 2007, served as a patrol deputy and in August 2019 and was given a highly regarded recruit training officer job at the Sheriff’s Academy. She later took part in the decision to dismiss recruit Natalie Garcia, a longtime LASD custody assistant and close friend of Vivian Villanueva, the spouse of the ex-sheriff, the suit stated.
In retaliation for plaintiff dismissing her friend as unqualified, Vivian Villanueva allegedly made threats at Pimentel’s workplace, called her two obscene names reserved for females and warned others to keep Pimentel away from her because, “I will go off on that (epithet),” the suit stated.
In a sworn declaration, Pimentel contended that although she had no direct interactions with Vivian Villanueva about Garcia, the then-sheriff’s wife’s alleged harassment and use of slurs were done with the intent to impact the plaintiff’s ability to do her job as a drill instructor.
Pimentel further said that a month after she filed her lawsuit in January 2022 she was promoted to sergeant. The plaintiff’s lawyers’ alleged in their court papers that it was common department knowledge at the time that Vivian Villanueva approved and disapproved of employee hirings and promotions within the LASD and that department executives saw the then-sheriff take photos of promotion and transfer lists and send them to his wife for consideration.
One executive saw names ordered removed from the lists and denied deserving promotions at Vivian Villanueva’s direction in retaliation against whistleblowers, according to Pimentel’s lawyers’ court papers.
Garcia, a longtime LASD custody assistant, was making her second attempt to complete the academy, but Pimentel, Garcia’s drill instructor, determined that she was physically unable to complete the course, the suit stated.
Pimentel’s upward advancement has been “effectively terminated” because of Vivian Villanueva’s personal attacks on her, according to the suit.
County lawyers maintain in their court papers that the county cannot be held liable for the actions of a non-employee such as Vivian Villanueva, who retired from the LASD in 2018, before Pimentel’s training assignment began. The attorneys also maintain that Pimentel did not suffer a negative employment action.
“If every minor change in working conditions or trivial action were a materially adverse action, then any action that an irritable, chip-on-the- shoulder employee did not like would form the basis of a discrimination suit,” county attorneys maintain in their pleadings.
Vivian Villanueva was dismissed as a defendant in Pimentel’s suit in July 2022. Alex Villanueva was defeated for re-election in November 2022 by former Long Beach Police Chief Robert Luna.
