Gascón Drops Charges Against Protestor Accused Of Train-Wrecking Attempt
LAPPL News Watch
December 9, 2020
Newly elected Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón on Tuesday dropped all charges against a protestor accused of attempting to wreck a train at the scene of a demonstration against the Sheriff’s Department.
Attorneys for the protestor — Emanuel Padilla, a 34-year-old toy designer from Hawthorne — had claimed that the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department and the district attorney’s office under former head Jackie Lacey had trumped up the charges and that the department was retaliating for Padilla’s activism.
Gascón directed a prosecutor to dismiss all charges against Padilla, but the prosecutor refused, according to Max Szabo, a spokesman for Gascón’s transition team. A different deputy district attorney ultimately stood in during a brief dismissal hearing late Tuesday in the Compton courthouse, Szabo said. Szabo declined to comment further on the prosecutor’s refusal to dismiss the charges, saying it was a personnel matter.
Padilla was charged last month with one felony count of a train-wrecking attempt, which carries a maximum sentence of life without parole, and one felony count of unlawful obstruction of a railroad track. He had pleaded not guilty and been denied bail.
1 comment:
This is just the beginning of the decline and fall of the county of Los Angeles. It will get MUCH WORSE before it gets better.
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