Former Sheriff Alex Villanueva, who is running again for his old job, has been dropped as a defendant in a lawsuit filed by a veterinarian who contends members of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department fabricated a memo to cover up the 2020 death of a bomb-sniffing dog.
Plaintiff Yolanda Cassidy contends in her Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit that the communication at issue falsely stated that she examined the dog — a black Labrador named Spike — and could not determine what killed him. Cassidy alleges false light and invasion of privacy/misappropriation of likeness. She is claiming financial losses of about $15 million and her attorneys’ court papers state she has a major depressive order related to emotional distress from the alleged false accusations.
On Monday, Cassidy’s attorneys filed court papers with Judge Alison Mackenzie asking that Villanueva be removed as a defendant. The court papers did not offer a reason.
According to Cassidy’s complaint, when Spike died in the care of a sergeant under suspicious circumstances after overheating in a patrol car, Villanueva and a sheriff’s department chief “were so concerned about covering up the tortuous death of a police dog, they resorted to fraud to hide it, with no concern for harming innocent individuals to achieve their ends.”
The defendants “fabricated” that Cassidy saw Spike after he died and concluded that the dog may have died from natural causes, according to the suit, which further states that they were “fully aware that Ms. Cassidy never treated or saw Spike and therefore would not have offered and did not offer opinions of Spike’s death.”
“Dr. Cassidy was highly successful in her job and in 2022 she was on the verge of launching her own veterinarian clinic,” the suit states. “She was well-respected and her reputation was stellar. Unfortunately, Ms. Cassidy’s privacy was violated and her reputation was destroyed by corrupt sheriff’s department officials.”
During his successful 2022 campaign to unseat Villanueva, former Long Beach Police Department Chief Robert Luna stated that Villanueva was so corrupt that he even covered up Spike’s death, according to the suit.
Last December, the judge denied a defense motion to dismiss Cassidy’s case. The county attorneys contended the subject memo did not contain any provably false or defamatory statement, nor did it attribute to plaintiff any accusation of wrongdoing, negligence or professional misconduct.
Instead, the memo stated “indisputably true facts” about an October 2020 meeting as well as protected opinions about the possible causes of the K9’s death, according to the county attorney’s court papers.
No reasonable reader would have interpreted the memo as highly offensive or as exposing Cassidy to hatred, contempt or ridicule and she admitted that she has suffered no reputational harm, according to the county attorneys’ court papers, which further stated that Cassidy opened her successful practice after the memo was published and continues to serve law enforcement clients.
“There is simply no evidence that any defendant knew the statements were false or acted with reckless disregard for the truth,” the county attorneys state in their pleadings.
The suit was filed in July 2023 and trial is scheduled Oct. 8.