Aides’ Jobs Are Shuffled : Reiner Shifts Power to Career Prosecutors

Just before taking over as district attorney, Ira Reiner announced the appointment of 18 chief advisers, 10 of whom had served him in the Los Angeles city attorney’s office.

Now, little more than a year into his first term, four of those 10 have resigned, two within the last month. Reiner hasn’t decided whether to replace them, aides say.

In addition, the jobs of the two remaining special assistants who followed Reiner from the city attorney’s office--Barry C. Groveman, head of the environmental crimes unit, and worker safety unit chief Jan Chatten-Brown--have been restructured. Rather than reporting directly to Reiner, they have been placed under the wing of a head deputy, like other prosecutors.

Meanwhile, a fifth ranking aide, Kathy Moret, director of prosecution support services, has announced plans to quit at the end of January.

The job shuffles, observers within the office of 660 prosecutors say, have shifted power more firmly into the hands of career prosecutors whom Reiner appointed to the highest-ranking positions--in particular, Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Gilbert Garcetti. At this point, Garcetti, the No. 2 man in the office who has 17 years of experience as a prosecutor, is “the key person” in the administration, said Cheryl Ward Smith, who recently resigned her post as special assistant in charge of family support, domestic violence, sex crimes and child-abuse matters. “You have to trust him implicitly. And (Reiner) does. There’s no question about it.”

None of the career prosecutors appointed by Reiner to high-ranking positions have left. They include Assistant Dist. Atty. Curt Livesay and Richard W. Hecht, who is in charge of most prosecutions downtown as director of the bureau of central operations.

While those leaving said they are moving on to greener pastures, others suggest that they became frustrated after having their special relationships with Reiner usurped. Indeed, for the most part, the newcomers appeared to have little impact on the direction of the nation’s largest district attorney’s office.

Smith, for example, said that she has had no involvement in decisions on specific child abuse cases.

“In a sense we’re sort of forgotten,” she said. “They didn’t really know how to use me.”

Both those who have left and those who remain acknowledge that there was some friction caused by Reiner’s original decision to bring in a high-level group of outsiders. Predictably, they say, the career prosecutors resented the newcomers, some of whom had never handled a felony case.

The appointees insist, though, that they did not leave because of an inability to get along with career prosecutors or Reiner.

Personal Reason

For example, Lynn Miller, special assistant for consumer affairs, said she quit last summer to take a private job in Northern California near her fiance. Smith and former field deputy Ted Goldstein, who had served Reiner in various capacities for more than five years, decided to return to posts in the city attorney’s office before they lost their job tenure there.

Moret and administrative assistant Neil Rincover left without having new jobs.

Several longtime prosecutors have privately expressed surprise and, in some instances, relief at the departures. Some remaining Reiner loyalists, meanwhile, have raised concerns.

“I’d like to have seen a few of the (departed) remain around a little longer,” said longtime Reiner aide Groveman. “I’d like to feel that . . . the family ties with the other people I’ve known for years that came over would have perhaps remained a little more intact.”

Clouds on Horizon

Groveman added that he still has access to Reiner and is pleased with his own post, even though “there are some things on the horizon that will probably develop.”

The restructuring of the special assistants’ jobs, Reiner’s spokesman said, was designed to make the office run more efficiently.

Under the new setup, said Press Secretary Schuyler Sprowles, decisions are “handled in an organized, efficient way. When you’re as prominent as Ira Reiner, there are demands on your time that are unbelievable.”

The departing appointees praised Reiner in interviews but also recommended that he hire replacements for them. So far Reiner hasn’t, and hasn’t decided if he will, Sprowles said. Reiner, who announced his appointments at a relatively rare press conference, has repeatedly declined comment on the departures. Unlike many officials, he did not issue routine statements of gratitude for his aides’ service.

Rincover, the political aide who worked on Reiner’s last election campaign, suggested that the departure of those who have had Reiner’s ear could affect his former boss’ political ambitions.

Different Relationships

“I think there’s always value in having long-term relationships,” noted Rincover, who otherwise praised his ex-boss. “He doesn’t have that anymore. Whether the people advising Ira now are any better or worse than the ones who left remains to be seen.”

Sprowles, on the other hand, said the departures pose no problem.

The district attorney does not need his own brain trust within the office, Sprowles said, because he has the counsel of high-ranking prosecutors. For advice on his political career, the press secretary added, Reiner relies on a “kitchen cabinet” of outsiders, consisting of attorneys William Wardlaw, Robert Thomson and Mickey Kantor, businessman Loren Rothschild and AFL/CIO leader Jim Wood.

“They’re friends, and Ira is more comfortable in politics working with close personal friends than working with department heads of the office he holds,” said Sprowles, who announced his resignation last summer but later reconsidered.

During his initial year as the county’s top law enforcement official, Reiner has maintained a low-key image, in contrast to his brasher style as city attorney and city controller. But there are signs that support from his attorneys has eroded somewhat.

Controversy Erupts

Smith, who served as chief of criminal operations in the city attorney’s office under Reiner, quit in the midst of a controversy that erupted in November when Reiner created an advisory committee to determine why few women or minorities are in top positions in the office. Smith had been appointed by Reiner to head the advisory committee.

Shortly after Reiner issued a memo announcing the committee’s formation, anonymous counter-memos mocking and attacking Reiner’s initiative sprouted on the office’s bulletin boards. Before long, the district attorney attended a meeting to clear the air with board members of the office’s Assn. of Deputy District Attorneys, which endorsed him during his 1984 campaign.

“The honeymoon is over,” one prosecutor, concerned that white men might no longer earn promotions, said after the session.

‘The Gutter of Fear’

During the furor, Smith became the target of criticism from Reiner in private for stating publicly her opinion that many deputy district attorneys believed that they would suffer reprisals if they freely voiced their own opinions on controversial issues. The committee’s aim, she said, was to lift the office “out of the gutter of fear.”

Within days, Smith was replaced as head of the committee. A few days later, she quit her job. The resignations of Smith, who said she left to get involved “in more substantive things” in the city attorney’s office, and of Rincover were followed by another anonymous memo that was circulated in the office. “Reiner dumps deadbeats,” read the note. It referred, at least in part, to Smith’s stewardship of Reiner’s highly publicized roundup of “deadbeat dads”--parents who are delinquent in child support payments.

Praised Anyway

Despite the contretemps, Smith continues to praise the Westside Democrat.

“I got a lot of support from Ira during the year. . . . His style is wonderful,” she said. “You’re like water reaching your own level working under him.”

But she added that there is room for improvement in communications.

Reiner, she suggested, “has to get more involved with people. Some people see him as standoffish. . . . People want to know him. They only know him through his image in the press. . . . It gives a false impression that he doesn’t care for you, but he really does. . . . Just once in a while, I think it would be good for the rank-and-file deputy and support staff for him to be out there to just pop in.”

Sprowles acknowledged that Reiner’s main contacts with most of his troops comes in staff meetings in his office but said this is merely a matter of management style.

Ira Reiner “is not like Tommy Lasorda; he’s more like Tom Landry,” Sprowles said, referring to the Dodgers baseball manager and the Dallas Cowboys football coach. “Lasorda is a great cheerleader, and Landry is a great coach.”