LOS ANGELES COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY S OFFICE

BUREAU OF FRAUD AND CORRUPTION PROSECUTIONS

PUBLIC INTEGRITY DIVISION

STEVE COOLEY   District Attorney - RICHARD 0. DOYLE   Director

CURT LIVESAY - Chief Deputy District Attorney

CURTIS A. HAZELL - Assistant District Attorney

May 26, 2004

Mr. Hal Netkin

P.O. Box 3465

Van Nuys, California 91407

Re:PDO Case No.: 04-0489

Dear Mr. Netkin:

I am in receipt of your letter to Jan Maurizi dated May 17, 2004, in which you request a criminal investigation into the refusal of Fred Leaf to comply with your request for documents pursuant to the California Public Records Act (PRA). For the reasons stated below I must respectfully decline to initiate an investigation at this time.

Although the PRA requires those agencies Covered by the act to comply with requests for identifiable public documents, a failure to provide documents, even if willful, does not subject the offending public official or employee to criminal prosecution. The remedy for a failure to comply with a PRA request is described in California Government Code §6258 and §6259. Those statutes allow the party seeking the documents to file a lawsuit seeking injunctive or declaratory relief or a writ of mandate enforcing the right to inspect or receive the public documents sought. Should the plaintiff prevail, §6259(d) allows for the awarding of costs and attorney fees.

Since there are no criminal statutes contained within the PRA, this office has no jurisdiction to become Involved. You may wish to contact an attorney to explore your available remedies.

Very truly yours,

STEVE COOLEY

District Attorney

By D. Dey

DAVID E. DEMER.JIAN

Head Deputy

Public Integrity Division

sg

766 Hall of Records

320 West Temple Street

Los Angeles, CA 90012

(213) 974-6501