Things seem to just keep getting worse for Santa Barbara County Chief Trial Deputy Josh Lynn. On June 8, he lost the District Attorney election to Senior Deputy District Attorney Joyce Dudley after a yearlong mudslinging fest. Now he’s been placed on extended paid administrative leave.
According to Lynn, on June 11, he received a call from acting District Attorney Ann Bramsen telling him “not to come in to work” the following week.
Lynn said an investigator with the District Attorney’s Office later served him disciplinary documents at his home.
“It has the exact same language as the [documents] I would send out to people for Ann, but without any of the disciplinary information saying what I did wrong,” Lynn told the Sun in a recent interview.
The former DA candidate said he also had to turn over all of his county-owned property, including his computer and other documents.
On June 14, Bramsen sent out a press release regarding Lynn’s absence from the office.
“I have extended his paid administrative leave until a resolution can be reached,” Bramsen said in the release. “This is a personnel matter; therefore, I am not able to, nor is any other county employee able to, answer additional questions to provide any other information. Once this matter is concluded, you will be advised.”
Lynn, for one, isn’t satisfied with the statement.
“I don’t think it’s either legal, healthy, or appropriate,” he said.
Lynn claims that since the election, Dudley has moved into the District Attorney’s office with Bramsen’s blessing. As of press time, the Sun was unable to confirm this with District Attorney representatives, but other news sources have reported it as fact.
“The thing is, [Ann] can be fired, too, so she’s doing whatever Joyce tells her to do,” Lynn said.
“I’m in total purgatory right now,” he continued. “After 15 years of reporting there, it doesn’t look like I’ll be coming back to work … if they smear my good name, it’ll affect my career and my ability to feed my family.”
Calls made to Dudley seeking comment were not returned as of press time.
This article appears in Jun 17-24, 2010.