{"id":210940,"date":"2026-03-09T00:36:06","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T00:36:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/210940\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T00:36:06","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T00:36:06","slug":"in-disputed-lawsuit-aide-says-carson-councilwoman-asked-him-to-spy-and-mow-lawn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/210940\/","title":{"rendered":"In disputed lawsuit, aide says Carson councilwoman asked him to spy and mow lawn"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A former assistant to Carson<\/a> Councilwoman Arleen Bocatija Rojas alleges that he was wrongly required to do household duties, including mowing her the lawn, and to use LAPD tracking tools for the councilmember\u2019s personal benefit. <\/p>\n

In a lawsuit filed by the former City of Carson<\/a> employee against the city in 2024, Justin Battle argues that he was terminated due to his complaints about the alleged illegal conduct and his refusal to engage in it. Battle also states in the complaint that Rojas repeatedly asked him to \u201cspy on and video and record\u201d fellow Councilmember Jim Dear. <\/p>\n

The city\u2019s attorneys responded to the suit in court documents filed last week, arguing that the case should be dismissed because he was terminated \u201cfor legitimate performance reasons and not because of workplace complaints.\u201d<\/p>\n

Battle was first hired by the city in 2019 as a recreation assistant. He also worked as an administrative intern before receiving the job of council aide to Rojas in March 2023. His position was terminated by November of that year.<\/p>\n

While he worked with Rojas, Battle\u2019s complaint alleges, she required him \u201cto be on call 24\/7\u201d and do her personal errands. In addition to mowing her lawn, he says he was asked to plan her vacations and pick up dry cleaning. The lawsuit also says Battle would pick up Rojas\u2019 daughter and use LAPD email authorization to \u201ctrack\u201d her daughter\u2019s phone usage.<\/p>\n

Battle also alleges that Rojas asked him to spy for her by tracking when Dear\u2019s girlfriend or wife would leave. Battle says he refused.<\/p>\n

The court document states that Battle raised his concerns about this \u201cimproper and illegal conduct\u201d to Assistant City Manager Robert Lennox on \u201cnumerous occasions.\u201d According to the complaint, Lennox reportedly told Battle he would speak to Rojas about this, but the requests didn\u2019t stop.<\/p>\n

When working this position, the city\u2019s attorneys\u2019 court documents say, Battle had a second job at an LAUSD middle school, where he worked 30 hours a week. The papers allege that his working hours at the school and with the city overlapped.<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s attorneys argue in new documents that when the city evaluated his work performance, \u201che had not met the required standards of the full-time position, given his unflexible scheduling demands, which did not allow him to sufficiently meet the needs of his council-member.\u201d <\/p>\n

Carson\u2019s attorneys also say Battle \u201ccannot establish the essential elements of his whistleblower claim\u201d and that his case lacks triable issues.<\/p>\n

A jury trial is set for June. <\/p>\n

City News Service contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former assistant to Carson Councilwoman Arleen Bocatija Rojas alleges that he was wrongly required to do household…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":210941,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[60731,1052,97020,1409,729,26484,9342,97019,4194,97018,5562,94121,131,133,132,97021,16975,24631],"class_list":["post-210940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-aide","tag-attorney","tag-carson-councilwoman","tag-city","tag-complaint","tag-court-document","tag-daughter","tag-disputed-lawsuit","tag-job","tag-justin-battle","tag-last-week","tag-lawn","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-phone-usage","tag-position","tag-rojas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210940","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=210940"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210940\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}