Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman and the union representing general police officers issued a harsh rebuke to embattled city Atty. Heidi Feldstein Soto said Tuesday morning she is endorsing one of her challengers, County Prosecutor John McKinney, in the upcoming election.
Hochman said he analyzed the field and decided the city attorney’s office “desperately needed” an experienced litigator like McKinney, who has been a prosecutor for 28 years and has handled some of the city’s highest-profile trials.
“In the L.A. City Attorney’s office we need someone who actually has courtroom experience, someone who understands how to win a case,” Hochman said. “Someone who really not only talked the talk, but also walked the walk.”
Hochman and leaders of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union that represents the majority of LAPD officers, stood shoulder to shoulder in support of McKinney. The league recently revoked its endorsement of Feldstein Soto.
Feldstein Soto has been under fire for weeks, with his office accused of failing to properly notify other city officials about the hack of confidential files, in which 337,000 documents, videos and photos were leaked online. The documents run into millions of pages, and most of them appear to come from civil lawsuits against the city that have been settled in court. According to the sources, who previously spoke to The Times and requested to remain anonymous, the files were not password protected because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation.
The city attorney’s office previously responded to questions from The Times, citing a public report released April 17 that said the initial investigation indicated “the incident was contained within that third-party environment, and no other city applications, systems or department records were accessed or impacted.”
While many of the documents dealt with relatively minor issues, others contained sensitive information about police officers. The Times used leaked documents last month to reveal how the LAPD disciplined officers who blew up a city block after miscalculating the weight of fireworks seized in South L.A. in 2021.
Chris Wacker, vice president of the sergeants police union, said officers’ frustrations with Feldstein Soto go far beyond the data breach. Wacker said the city had paid out huge sums in civil cases under Feldstein Soto’s administration, some of which the union believes it paid improperly.
“Los Angeles has seen a dramatic increase in lawsuits, settlements and judgments against the city, costing taxpayers millions of dollars in losses,” he said. “City attorneys should not simply react to lawsuits after they are filed. They should proactively work with city departments to identify legal risks before they turn into costly litigation.”
Feldstein Soto has also been accused of abusing his office and using the city’s prosecutorial powers for personal vendetta in several lawsuits, allegations he has repeatedly denied.
McKinney said he believed the city attorney’s office could do more to reduce homelessness and criticized Feldstein Soto’s handling of a range of misdemeanor crimes, including animal cruelty and trespassing. He said he is a supporter of “broken windows” policing – the idea that enforcing fewer laws will reduce felony crime and deter criminals from committing worse crimes – and criticized Feldstein Soto’s handling of the data breach.
If such an incident occurred under his watch, he said, “his first call would be to the (Los Angeles Police) Department, the second would be to the FBI and the third would be to the people affected.”
Feldstein Soto’s office said senior LAPD officials and the city’s IT department were alerted as soon as the leak was discovered, and the FBI is investigating.
However it is rare for a county district attorney to run for his city-level counterpart – the pre-district attorney. Atty. George Gascón did not offer an endorsement in the 2022 contest, which Feldstein Soto won – Hochman and McKinney are political allies who have assisted each other before.
When Hochman emerged from the crowded 2024 primary field to challenge Gascón, McKinney supported him and served as a campaign surrogate.
A longtime trial prosecutor who oversaw several high-profile cases, including winning a conviction against the man who murdered beloved L.A. rapper Nipsey Hussle, McKinney was promoted to oversee all special prosecutions in the office after Hochman’s election night victory.
Hochman said his endorsement was more about the things McKinney did right rather than the things the incumbent did wrong.
Feldstein Soto still has the support of U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) and Mayor Karen Bass, who is fighting her own uphill re-election battle.
California Justice Department Deputy Attorney General Marissa Roy is running on the left side of the field and has the endorsement of the county’s Democratic Party, the Democratic Socialists of America and her boss, California Atty. General Rob Bonta. Roy has said that she wants to transform the office into “the city’s largest public interest law firm”, aiming to combat wage theft, tenant harassment and other issues affecting working-class Angelenos.
Calls to Roy’s campaign were not immediately returned Tuesday.
Los Feliz attorney Ada Ashouri is also running.
Hochman and the LAPD union’s announcement could jump-start McKinney’s flag-carrying campaign. He has raised only $78,000 since entering the fray, far less than Roy or Feldstein Soto.
McKinney is relying on some of Hochman’s previous campaign resources, hiring the man who managed Hochman’s victory in the 2024 district attorney race and fund-raiser Trey Kozasik, who operates Pluvius Group.
The group was successful in helping Hochman build a huge war chest during his run for office in 2024, but its work helping raise money for President Trump in Los Angeles has also been scrutinized before. The city has frequently found itself in litigation against the Trump administration in recent years, with McKinney likely having to lead these efforts if elected.
McKinney, a registered Democrat, previously told the Times that he would defend city residents in court, “no matter who is in the White House.”
“I am deeply troubled by the activities of some federal law enforcement agencies that have come to Los Angeles and are deliberately attempting to terrorize our people,” he said.
Times staff writers David Zanisser and Libor Janney contributed to this report.
