Orange County supervisors Tuesday announced settlements of a pair of unrelated lawsuits involving a crash in Santa Ana with an Orange County Sheriff’s Department vehicle and a sexual harassment claim against a former Orange County prosecutor.
Megan Doan and Jan Tan were “significantly injured” in the Dec. 29, 2023, crash at 17th and McClay streets, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit alleged that Deputy Jeremiah Wayne Peyus was speeding without the vehicle’s emergency lights or sirens activated.
The supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday for the proposed $8.75 million settlement.
The board announced on Tuesday it had finalized the sexual harassment claim when the plaintiff accepted $800,000 Sept. 29.
The woman filed a lawsuit last year against the county, former prosecutor Jess Rodriguez as well as Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer and prosecutor Rebecca Reed and former prosecutors who are now Orange County Superior Court judges Rick Zimmer and Robert Mestman.
The woman began working for the Orange County District Attorney’s Office in April 2020. She said she was also sexually harassed by former prosecutor Gary LoGalbo, who has since died and was at the center of a sprawling series of sexual harassment cases that led to a couple of verdicts against the county, which settled the remaining claims.
The woman said she didn’t file a claim in the LoGalbo cases because she was told she would be fired if she didn’t pull back a judicial application candidacy that was under review by the state, the lawsuit alleged.
The woman alleged that Rodriguez, who resigned, made “repeated and unwelcome sexual advances” toward her. She said he would send “lewd” text messages to her such as, “I need to get in so me quality time watching you bend over to reach the projector.”