A deputy public defender is suing a veteran prosecutor who allegedly orchestrated a retaliation-driven smear campaign against the plaintiff after she became romantically involved with the defendant's estranged husband.
Deputy Public Defender Christina Behle's Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit, filed Friday against Deputy District Attorney Lisa Tanner, seeking unspecified damages. Tanner did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the lawsuit, which alleges invasion of privacy, intentional and negligent interference with prospective economic advantage and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Behle began working out of the Van Nuys courthouse in 2013, where Tanner also worked at the time, the suit states.
According to her lawsuit, Behle, a senior grade IV deputy public defender and mother of two, separated from her husband in 2012 and became romantically involved in June 2015 with Deputy Public Defender Michael Tanner, who was separated from Lisa Tanner.
The relationship between Behle and Michael Tanner left Lisa Tanner "deeply enraged," the suit alleges. Tanner was living at the time with her boyfriend, but after Michael Tanner introduced their children to the plaintiff, she "made the conscious decision to publicly and professionally humiliate (Behle) in retaliation," the suit alleges.
Last October, Tanner told her daughter to obtain access to her father's smart phone in order to gather material of "an intimate and compromising nature" regarding Behle's relationship with him, including text messages and "intimate and compromising photos" of Behle, according to the suit.
Lisa Tanner forwarded the private information to her own phone and later sent Behle one of the intimate photos, along with a message to "send your pathetic photos to someone else's husband," according to the lawsuit. After a colleague filed a complaint on Behle's behalf, the plaintiff learned from "credible sources" that intimate photos of her were being "shared and discussed," the suit alleges.
"Plaintiff specifically was told that Ms. Tanner shared the personal and intimate photos of plaintiff to dozens of DA's office employees at the Van Nuys office," the suit says.
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Behle was so upset she had to take the next week off from work, according to her lawsuit, which states that she continues to suffer emotional distress knowing that her colleagues within the Bar and on the bench have seen her photos and heard descriptions of what is depicted in them.
She alleges she also was denied a promotion to a grade V position because of the publication of the private information. Behle's late grandfather, Wilbur "Bill" Littlefield, spent four decades with the Los Angeles County Public Defender's Office, including 17 years as its chief.
