D.A. Official With Gripe Wins Benefit

Two years after he left his job over an undisclosed health problem, a top investigator for the Orange County district attorney’s office who says he was retaliated against for secretly recording conversations with peers for a state inquiry has won full medical retirement.

Under Monday’s 6-2 vote by the Orange County Retirement System’s board of directors, Michael Clesceri will receive half his annual salary of about $116,000 for the rest of his life. Clesceri, an assistant chief of investigations who was on medical leave since May 2002, said Tuesday that he’s glad the ordeal is behind him.

“I’m very happy for me and my family and law enforcement, that this has been put to rest,” Clesceri said.

A spokeswoman for Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas did not return a call seeking comment.

Clesceri, who is also a Fullerton city councilman, worked as a police officer for nearly 20 years before Rackauckas hired him in 1999 to work as a supervisor in his investigations bureau.

He was enlisted by state Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer’s office for an investigation that was launched after prosecutors came to believe that Don Blankenship, the chief of investigations for Rackauckas, lied to investigators looking into allegations of corruption and influence-peddling in the district attorney’s office. Lockyer, who authorized the secret recordings, said they were limited to a few conversations.

Blankenship was not charged with any crime. He filed a lawsuit last year against Clesceri, Lockyer and two of Lockyer’s officials, seeking damages for alleged civil rights violations. A judge has since dismissed Clesceri as a defendant, agreeing that the covert recordings were legally justified.

During the 40-minute hearing before the retirement board, Clesceri read a two-page statement, saying he had “worked under the constant threat and fear of losing my job if I did not engage in unlawful behavior or assist in covering it up.”

The retirement board, in reaching its decision, did not consider anything outside Clesceri’s medical condition, said Richard A. White, a sheriff’s sergeant who serves as the board’s public safety representative and who made the motion to approve the benefits.