{"id":103501,"date":"2025-12-21T06:48:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T06:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/103501\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T06:48:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T06:48:10","slug":"former-oc-prosecutor-who-won-harassment-case-wins-1-54-million-in-attorneys-fees-orange-county-register","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/103501\/","title":{"rendered":"Former OC prosecutor who won harassment case wins $1.54 million in attorneys\u2019 fees \u2013 Orange County Register"},"content":{"rendered":"

A judge has awarded $1.54 million in attorneys\u2019 fees to former senior prosecutor Tracy Miller, in addition to the $3 million jury verdict she received earlier this year<\/a> in a retaliation and harassment lawsuit against Orange County officials.<\/p>\n

A San Diego County Superior Court jury in June found that District Attorney Todd Spitzer and his former second-in-command, now Judge Shawn Nelson, harassed and retaliated against Miller \u2014 the highest-ranking woman in the Orange County District Attorney\u2019s Office at the time \u2014 after she sought to protect and support younger female prosecutors who reported sexual harassment by former supervisor Gary Logalbo. Jurors also found that the County of Orange failed to take reasonable steps to prevent the harassment and retaliation.<\/p>\n

The jury awarded Miller $3 million in damages and imposed $25,000 in punitive damages against Spitzer personally. The court on Dec. 12 awarded Miller an additional $1,542,215 in attorneys\u2019 fees, according to a statement released by her attorney.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis ruling reinforces that civil rights laws have real meaning and real consequences,\u201d John D. Barnett, Miller\u2019s attorney, said in a statement. \u201cThe attorneys\u2019 fee award recognizes the extraordinary effort required to hold powerful public officials accountable and ensures that victims of retaliation are not deterred from seeking justice because of the cost of litigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barnett\u2019s statement said both the $3 million judgment and the attorneys\u2019 fee award will be paid from Orange County\u2019s general fund. County officials declined to comment on the attorneys\u2019 fee ruling or questions about how the payments would be funded, which county programs could be affected, or how much the county spent defending the case.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Orange County District Attorney\u2019s Office spokesperson Kimberly Edds said the office supports victims of sexual harassment and their right to seek compensation, but does not share the jury\u2019s conclusion that Miller was harassed or retaliated against.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe District Attorney\u2019s Office disagrees with the jury\u2019s verdict that Miller was harassed or retaliated against, but we respect its decision,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n

Miller\u2019s lawsuit is the first of at least five pending cases filed by current and former female prosecutors alleging sexual harassment by Logalbo and retaliation after the allegations surfaced.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A judge has awarded $1.54 million in attorneys\u2019 fees to former senior prosecutor Tracy Miller, in addition to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":103502,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,7,1312,1846,100,611,1492,29463,136,56204],"class_list":["post-103501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-california","tag-courts","tag-lawsuit","tag-news","tag-orange-county","tag-public-safety","tag-sexual-harassment","tag-top-stories","tag-workplace"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}