{"id":497457,"date":"2026-10-16T00:14:30","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T00:14:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/497457\/"},"modified":"2026-10-16T00:14:30","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T00:14:30","slug":"former-oc-prosecutor-who-alleged-sexual-harassment-retaliation-receives-800000-settlement-orange-county-register","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/497457\/","title":{"rendered":"Former OC prosecutor who alleged sexual harassment, retaliation receives $800,000 settlement \u2013 Orange County Register"},"content":{"rendered":"

A former Orange County prosecutor has agreed to an $800,000 settlement with the county after alleging that a supervisor sexually harassed her and high-level managers retaliated against her<\/a> while she was working at the Orange County District Attorney\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

The former female prosecutor alleged in her lawsuit that Jess Rodriguez, then-head of the OC District Attorney\u2019s felony sexual assault unit made \u201crepeated and unwelcome advances\u201d toward her. Those alleged advances included \u201cinappropriate and sexualized comments, graphic discussions of personal sexual activities and sending lewd messages,\u201d according to her lawsuit.<\/p>\n

The settlement was confirmed in a closed session report from the Oct. 13 Orange County Supervisors meeting. A spokeswoman for the county declined to comment further, citing a policy not to discuss pending litigation.<\/p>\n

An attorney representing the woman \u2014 identified in court filings by the pseudonym \u201cJane Doe\u201d \u2014 could not immediately be reached for comment on Thursday. Rodriguez also could not be reached.<\/p>\n

The former prosecutor alleged that Rodriguez texted her \u201cI need to get in some quality time watching you bend over to reach the projector\u201d and \u201cGimme something to have sweet dreams about tonight,\u201d among other messages.<\/p>\n

The woman tried to rebuff Rodriguez\u2019s advances, her lawsuit alleged, by talking about being in a committed relationship. But because of \u201cprior retaliation against colleagues who complained about misconduct,\u201d at the OC District Attorney\u2019s Office, she \u201creasonably believed that reporting Rodriguez\u2019s behavior would jeopardize her career advancement,\u201d the lawsuit alleged.<\/p>\n

The former prosecutor alleged that after several months of rebuffing Rodriguez\u2019s advances she began experiencing \u201chostility\u201d from Richard Zimmer and Rebecca Reed, who at the time were high-level supervisors in charge of the DA\u2019s felony panel. They refused to allow her to offer \u201creasonable plea deals\u201d to defendants in cases she was assigned, according to the lawsuit, and colleagues with less tenure were promoted ahead of her.<\/p>\n

The OC District Attorney\u2019s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Zimmer, who is now a judge, did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent through an Orange County Superior Court spokesman.<\/p>\n

The harassment, discrimination and retaliation allegations were investigated by the county\u2019s Equal Opportunity Access Office, according to the lawsuit. The former prosecutor resigned from the OC District Attorney\u2019s Office in September 2024. Several months later, according to the suit, the Equal Employment Opportunity Access Office investigation ended with a finding that the claims were \u201cnot substantiated.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former Orange County prosecutor has agreed to an $800,000 settlement with the county after alleging that a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":497458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164,1312,723,138,1846,100,136],"class_list":["post-497457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-courts","tag-crime","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-lawsuit","tag-news","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497457","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=497457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}