Riders Lawyer: Judge Stepped Into OPD Internal Affairs Investigation Because City's Probe Was Failing

The federal judge overseeing the Oakland Police Department is taking over an investigation into how the police leadership initially responded to allegations of sexual exploitation because the city's probe was failing and moving too slowly, according to one of the attorneys who brought the lawsuit leading to court oversight.

Judge Thelton Henderson ordered Oakland officials on Tuesday to provide a court-appointed attorney with records of the internal affairs investigation into charges that several officers sexually exploited Jasmine Abuslin, the teenage daughter of a police dispatcher. The revelations originating in Oakland led to a law enforcement scandal implicating officers in at least six Bay Area agencies.

Henderson's order appears to override a similar investigation initiated by Mayor Libby Schaaf in May when she hired Morin Jacob, a private attorney with the law firm Liebert Cassidy Whitmore.

The East Bay Express, which has broken several major developments in the sexual exploitation case, first reported that a court-appointed attorney was taking over the case.

City officials were most likely not cooperating with Jacob, leading to the slow pace of the investigation, said civil rights attorney Jim Chanin, who along with John Burris brought the Riders civil rights lawsuit that placed the Police Department under federal oversight in 2003.

"It's been almost a year and there's still been nothing," Chanin said Wednesday. "It appears to me that the court is frustrated and wants this to be over and completed."

Oakland police officials say there's been no stalling.

"The city has cooperated and will continue to cooperate with the compliance director's review and investigation of IAD case 15-0771," OPD spokeswoman Officer Johnna Watson said in an emailed response.

Henderson's order directs the Oakland City Attorney's Office to provide privileged or protected information to attorney Edward Swanson, who in the past investigated problems with disciplining officers for misconduct.

Jacob was reviewing "the propriety and integrity" of the internal affairs investigation and tracking down city employees who may have leaked information about the scandal to the press, a move criticized by free speech advocates, journalists and political experts as a witch hunt. It's unclear whether she had the same access to records Swanson now has under the court's order.

At least five months in, the leak investigation had yielded no results.

Jacob has not filed a report on her work and no city workers were disciplined based on anything she learned, according to Oakland city spokesman Harry Hamilton.

"A determination has not yet been made by the city on the role of Morin Jacob moving forward," Hamilton said in an email.

The city paid her $11,682.50 so far, according to Hamilton.

Jacob has not returned a request for comment.

"There has been enormous progress with OPD," Chanin said, adding that the number of complaints and uses-of-force incidents have dropped recently. "To some degree we've seen the culture change that we all wanted to see."

But he said court oversight will likely continue until the court is satisfied with the probe into the sexual exploitation case.

"This investigation and the delays don't help," Chanin said.

The city moved in September to fire four officers and discipline another seven for their involvement in the sexual exploitation case. Alameda County prosecutors then charged five current and former OPD officers with crimes stemming from the case.

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Alex Emslie of KQED news contributed to this report.