ARVIN, Calif. (KERO) — Arvin Councilman Donny Horton has filed a claim against the city after an Arvin PD employee allegedly leaked a photo of him after a physical altercation.
- Jasmine Garcia, an Arvin PD employee, was arrested for allegedly leaking a photo of Councilman Donny Horton.
- The leaked photo shows Horton with injuries after a family altercation; Garcia faces felony charges.
- Garcia reportedly accessed and sent the photo via WhatsApp to other city employees.
- Councilman Horton is seeking $450,000 in damages from the city over the incident.
- Garcia has been on paid administrative leave since her arrest and is set to be arraigned on April 14th.
For your convenience, the skimmable summary above is generated with the assistance of AI and fact checked by our team prior to publication. Read the full story as originally reported below.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
We're learning more about an Arvin police employee who allegedly illegally leaked a photo of a bloodied city councilman. But that employee is now facing a felony criminal charge, and the city could be on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Property and Evidence Technician, Jasmine Garcia, was arrested on March 28th and is facing a felony criminal charge alleging she unlawfully accessed and copied data from a police computer without permission.
The data in question, a photo of Councilman Donny Horton suffering injuries to his face in May of last year. The photo was taken after Councilman Horton had been in a physical altercation with his sister, planning commissioner Joshlyn Horton.
Days after, court documents say a news reporter reached out to the police chief asking for the status of the case, attaching the photo of Horton.
"I give kudos to the reporting party on this, who brought it to my attention asking a simple question that allowed me to go through the checks and balances that we have here," said Arvin Chief of Police Alex Ghazalpour.
When an investigator from the district attorney's office questioned Garcia, documents say that at first, Garcia denied accessing the case and sending Horton's photo. But later, documents say Garcia admitted to sending the photo, which was taken when police responded to the fight between Horton and his sister.
The report states, "Garcia said the reason she sent the photo out was because she was venting because she was upset with how this case was being handled."
"This was a mutual combat misdemeanor not committed with our presence that we would handle on a day-to-day basis," said Ghazalpour.
Further auditing and internal investigation revealed that this wasn’t the only time Garcia had accessed sensitive information inappropriately. According to the documents, Garcia accessed a homicide case from 2019, and may have passed information to her roommate, who is the sister of the homicide suspect.
"I want to make it very clear that our department didn’t start doing audits after this alleged incident," stated Ghazalpour. "We have the ability to audit every report that comes through, every interaction that comes through, our body cams, a whole variety of things."
As of June 2024, Garcia has been on paid administrative leave.
For his part, Councilman Horton filed a demand letter asking for $450,000 in monetary damages from the city and threatening litigation if the city failS to respond. In a statement to 23ABC, he says,—
“It is apparent that my previous incident that was fully investigated and given to the DAs office where no charges were filed was brought to light by certain city employees involving the city union rep and a now elected public official in order to slander and cause harm to me and my family.”
Horton goes on to say—
“I am thankful this matter was investigated by the DA's office and look forward to it being resolved through the justice system. At this point, I have no further comments on this matter."
Upon asking both the City Manager and the Mayor the potential impacts the claim could have on the city, both preferred not to comment.
Garcia is scheduled for a hearing at Lamont Court on April 14th.
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