An Irvine business attorney has launched an online petition drive urging the arrest of Dillon Alley, an Orange County district attorney investigator, for felony assault following the March 9 courthouse beating of a criminal defense lawyer tied to the region’s ongoing jailhouse informant scandal.
In his petition, Andrew Levine called Alley’s actions “cowardly” and “despicable” after leaving Santa Ana-based lawyer James Crawford with cuts, bruises and a fractured facial bone.
“[Alley] viciously attacked a criminal defense attorney in Orange County who was recently awarded a new trial for his client after exposing yet another instance of misconduct within the district attorney’s office,” Levine wrote. “[Crawford] was beaten savagely . . . This recent escalation into violence is part and parcel of a culture within prosecution circles, and particularly within the the Orange County district attorney’s office, that mistreats and abuses criminal defendants as they assert their constitutional rights, and abuses and intimidates the legal professionals assisting defendants in their efforts.”
He is asking California Attorney General Kamala Harris to arrest, prosecute and convict Alley, a former Gardena police officer, who, according to court records, was involved in a 1990s shooting that resulted in a financial settlement.
Tony Rackauckas’ DA staffers claim they are cooperating with police investigators but are guided by secrecy demands contained in California’s controversial, so-called police officer’s bill of special rights.
Police union officials dispute Crawford’s version of events while.
So far, Levine’s petition has won the signatures of nearly 560 individuals in less than a day.
Go HERE to view the online drive.
Go HERE to see the OC Weekly breaking news story about the incident.
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.