Newly-installed Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan Hochman has fired a prosecutor whom his predecessor, George Gascón, had hired to prosecute police shootings but failed to prosecute any, after billing the county for $1 million.
The Los Angeles Times reported Monday:
[Lawrence] Middleton was brought on by former Dist. Atty. Gascón in 2021 to reconsider charges in four separate shootings that former Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey’s administration declined to prosecute. Middleton’s contract expires in June, but Hochman has “the option to terminate” the agreement early and is in discussions with county lawyers to do so, the district attorney’s office said.
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Middleton’s hiring was an early attempt by Gascón to deliver on campaign promises to improve police accountability measures inside a prosecutor’s office that rarely, if ever, charged police in on-duty shootings before his election. But it also contributed to growing tensions between Gascón and his line prosecutors, who were frustrated by the idea their decisions could be overridden by an outsider. The amount of money the county planned to spend on an independent investigator added to the tensions: Some derisively called the veteran prosecutor “Millionaire Middleton.”
Records show Middleton billed the county for just over $1 million between June 2021 and October 2024. The average annual salary for a prosecutor in Los Angeles County is approximately $135,000, according to the Assn. of Deputy District Attorneys. Middleton’s pay came directly from the district attorney’s office’s budget, according to a county spokesperson.
As Breitbart News reported at the time, Gascón was elected in 2020 at the height of the Black Lives Movement, with the backing of millions of dollars spent by left-wing billionaire Democrat donor George Soros. He defeated Lacey, the first black woman in the job, who was targeted by the movement as a symbol of law enforcement. He immediately set about implementing radical “criminal justice reform” policies, which the public blamed for a rise in violent crime.
Hochman was sworn in less than two weeks ago, and immediately set about reversing Gascón’s policies, such as preventing line prosecutors from seeking sentence enhancements for particularly violent or egregious crimes. He also pledged to form task forces to deal with specific crimes affecting local residents, such as home break-ins.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.