DA'S CHILD SUPPORT STAFF FACES PROBE FOR 2ND TIME; WRONGDOING REPORT SENT TO ANTONOVICH.

Byline: Bhavna Mistry Staff Writer

New allegations against the District Attorney's Bureau of Family Support Office in Palmdale have prompted Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich to call for a second investigation of the office.

Charges surfaced this week after the Board of Supervisors received a letter from a family support employee who said co-workers submitted 300 default judgment cases that were incomplete, resulting in a delay in custodial parents getting child-support payments.

``All 300 were technically incorrect,'' said Jean Huston, justice deputy for Antonovich. ``The court had to return all 300 cases.''

Wayne Doss, director of the Bureau of Family Support, says the error was not the office's fault but the Superior Court's. Officials said documents were sent in two packages to the court, and the first set was misplaced before the second one arrived.

Proof of service notices required for family court matters were sent to the Los Angeles County Superior Court via a county messenger 30 days prior to the default judgment, Doss said.

When the default judgment arrived and the court found no proof of service notices, the cases were declared incomplete, Doss said.

Since the error was found, the District Attorney's Office has asked the private company that serves notices about court appearances to reissue the proofs of service, which will be done at no additional charge.

``The supervisor has not bothered to ask us about this,'' Doss said. ``The supervisor is relying on the allegation from the employee.''

In the four-page hand-written note, the employee said the mistakes were made by the same employee whose actions had been scrutinized in a March investigation after she mistakenly caused driver's license-suspension warnings to be sent out to 20 parents.

Other allegations in the letter included a supervisor using work time to solicit money for the lottery, charging employees 25 cents a month for cleaning supplies and asking for reimbursement for paper towels used in the lunch room.

``This employee has made allegations in the past which have been unsubstantiated,'' Doss said. ``He works in the unit and wrote the letter on what he perceived.''

On Tuesday, Antonovich is expected to make a motion instructing the county Chief Administrative Officer and Department of Human Resources to conduct an investigation into these new allegations.

``We want them to report back to us in 30 days,'' Huston said.

The motion also calls for District Attorney Gil Garcetti to report the disciplinary action taken against those responsible should the new allegation be substantiated.

The earlier investigation found that the office mishandled confidential client information and solicited favorable speakers at a public hearing in exchange for child care and transportation, as well as caused the license-suspension notices to go out to parents whose child support was paid up.