MADERA – The Madera County Board of Supervisors has released a statement saying they have recently been made aware of allegations of serious workplace misconduct made against District Attorney David Linn.
“Several employees of the District Attorney’s Office allege that since assuming his office in early 2015, District Attorney Linn has engaged in a pattern of harassing and abusive conduct toward his department’s employees on a consistent and routine basis,” says the Board in a statement released today.
“This includes, but is not limited to, allegations of racist comments; sexist, lewd and offensive comments; and generally abusive, threatening and profane comments directed toward numerous employees throughout the District Attorney’s Office.
“The Board of Supervisors takes allegations of this nature very seriously. A Board-adopted policy entitles all County employees the right to work in an environment free of abusive conduct, discrimination and harassment.”
Because the District Attorney is an elected official, the Board says their remedies are extremely limited and corrective action such as termination cannot be exercised.
As a result, the Board of Supervisors will hold a special meeting on Monday, Nov. 27, at 9 a.m. to consider publicly censuring District Attorney Linn, and has no further comment at this time.
Linn says he absolutely denies all of the allegations.
“The Board of Supervisors is aware of the fact that I am attempting to clean up Madera County, and that I am prepared to prosecute graft and corruption within the Board,” says Linn. “I believe the voters elected me for that purpose. I also believe that this is a political reaction from Board and the Administration due to my well-known policy against government corruption within the county. There may be further hearing on this matter, however I fully intend to carry out the duties of the District Attorney.”
Linn says he thinks the timing of this announcement was due to the fact that he will be out of town for the next week for the Thanksgiving holidays, and the fact that he is running for reelection.
