Fired Official Settles With City

The city of South Gate has agreed to pay $1.6 million to a former assistant police chief who claimed in a lawsuit that he was wrongly dismissed.

The settlement ends litigation involving three top-ranking police officials whose contracts were rescinded in 2003 by City Council members who said the lawmen were overpaid.

Mark Van Holt, 42, had accused the city of breaching his five-year contract, retaliating against him and allowing a hostile work environment within its police department.

City officials, who had denied the allegations, approved the settlement in a closed session Thursday. The case was set to go to trial next week in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

Van Holt was an administrative sergeant in the Maywood Police Department when he was hired in June 2002 as deputy police chief and, within a few months, promoted to assistant chief of police. He was paid $120,696 annually, according to court records, plus a $2,700 allowance for a cellphone and other job-related equipment.

Van Holt followed in the footsteps of his boss in Maywood, Rick Lopez, who was hired as South Gate’s police chief. At the time, the blue-collar city southeast of Los Angeles was heading toward a bitter election that recalled city Treasurer Albert Robles and three council members.

The recalled officials were blamed for draining the city treasury, in part, by offering employees like Van Holt lucrative contracts that the new City Council deemed “unconscionable.” Robles was indicted on charges of fraud, money laundering and public corruption.

Attorney Bradley Gage characterized his client and Lopez as police reformers who were intent on investigating alleged misconduct within the department, only to be fired.

“They wanted to end the corruption that has plagued the city of South Gate for some time,” he said. “They came in to do the right thing and they got harassed and they got retaliated against.”

The contracts of Van Holt, Lopez and Deputy Chief Carl Heintz were revoked in May 2003.

At the time, council members acknowledged that they faced possible litigation but said they believed a court would agree that the deals were so lucrative that they constituted an illegal gift of public funds. The city has settled a federal suit filed by Lopez for $190,000 and a claim by Heintz for about $70,000, city officials said.

Van Holt is now a traffic officer in another police department, Gage said.