One of Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon's top advisers, Diana Teran, was charged a few months ago with 11 felonies for allegedly accessing police personnel files without permission to do so. The case was brought by California Attorney General Rob Bonta and came as a shock to many people. Why would Bonta, a Democrat, want to kneecap Gascon, a progressive Democrat, just as he was gearing up for reelection?

The answer to that question remains a mystery, at least to me. But the story gets even weirder because it's not entirely clear that Bonta has a very strong case. Indeed, while the case started out with 11 felonies, three of those were dropped earlier this month by prosecutors. And this week, another two were tossed by the judge overseeing the case. That still leaves six of the original charges and the case will proceed to trial on those six. Here's what Diana Teran is accused of doing:

Diana Teran, a former Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department advisor who later oversaw ethics and integrity operations at the D.A.’s office, is accused of illegally using confidential personnel records. State prosecutors allege Teran broke the law three years ago when she flagged several sheriff’s deputies’ names for possible inclusion on an internal district attorney’s database of officers accused of misconduct.

According to state prosecutors, Teran only knew the deputies’ names and alleged misdeeds in her role at the D.A.’s office because she’d accessed their records in 2018 while still working at the Sheriff’s Department.

The core issue is a list of 33 cops which Teran sent to another prosecutor for what's known as a Brady list. A Brady list is a list of cops with problematic disciplinary histories which the DA's office is required to keep because it is legally required to inform defense attorneys of any information that might bolster the defense case. But the reason for this case is the claim that some of the names on that list did not come from publicly available sources.

The affidavit says several of the names Teran emailed to fellow prosecutor Pamela Revel were deputies whose files she had accessed while working at the Sheriff’s Department. After searching news articles and public records requests, a state investigator found that 11 of the names hadn’t been mentioned in public, which led to the allegation that Teran wouldn’t have been able to identify them were it not for her special access working at the SheriffDepartment.

But as mentioned above, the number of charges has gone from 11 to six as the evidence in the dropped charges seems lacking. For instance, one of the charges was dropped because the name wasn't that of a cop at all but a civilian employee of the department. 

Meanwhile, Teran's attorney is arguing that none of the information on her list was confidential. All of it allegedly came from public documents. Prosecutors claim that even if some of the names were public, Teran may have used her access to databases of information to gather additional information which she then brought with her to her new job. 

Throughout the hearing that took place over the last week, Judge Ohta often seemed not terribly convinced their was a solid case here. 

Throughout the hearing, Ohta repeatedly signaled skepticism about the case, often sighing at state prosecutors or rolling his eyes. A few times, he questioned the point of the prosecution -– so the outcome appeared something of a reversal...

The judge frequently bristled at the state’s lines of questioning. At one point, Ohta asked whether prosecutors were trying to show that Teran harbored an anti-police bias and demanded to know how that was relevant to the charges. Later, he questioned why they appeared to be trying to show Teran was supposedly worried about being arrested.

“A lot of people are afraid of being arrested by the Sheriff’s Department,” Ohta said. “I’m afraid of being arrested by the Sheriff’s Department.”...

Nevertheless, he ruled that the remaining six charges would proceed to trial.

Because evidence showed that Teran had been tracking some of the deputies’ disciplinary cases during her time at the Sheriff’s Department, Ohta said it was a reasonable inference that she might have searched their names in the confidential personnel data system.

So unless some kind of plea deal is made, prosecutors will get a chance to prove their case against Teran at trial. But again, the real question is why the Democratic AG brought this case at all given that it has the potential to damage Gascon when he is already struggling. If there's a political angle to this I'm not seeing it yet.