Garcetti Names Women to 2 Key Executive Posts

Two women, one an African-American, were among the top three members of the executive staff named Wednesday by incoming Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti, as he restructured parts of the office to “restore public confidence.”

Sandra Buttitta, who now heads the sexual crimes/child abuse division, will be chief assistant district attorney and the first woman to hold the No. 2 post. She had been Garcetti’s assistant in the Torrance branch office, which Garcetti headed before defeating Ira Reiner last month.

Audrey Collins, while not the first African-American to be named an assistant district attorney, is the first black to rise through the ranks to a top management position. Prominent Los Angeles defense attorney Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. was appointed to the post in 1978 and held it for two years.

“I hope it says the district attorney will be responsive of the community it serves, which is a minority community,” Collins said of her appointment.

As part of his restructuring, Garcetti, who will take office next week, also named Frank Sundstedt an assistant district attorney. Sundstedt, currently head of the organized crime division, is one of the prosecutors in the Reginald Denny beating case.

Garcetti said his goal is to ensure “a team effort, rather than the district attorney being off by himself, not getting involved.”

To help him map strategy, a team from RAND Corp., the Santa Monica think tank, is working for no fee “to assist us in focusing on our objectives and team approach,” Garcetti said. A team of three led by Joan Petersilia, head of RAND’s criminal justice program, has already met with Garcetti and others in the office, according to a RAND spokesman.

Garcetti said he will leave several posts unfilled until the study is completed. But management of the bureau overseeing all district attorney branch offices will be divided so that three directors--rather than the current one--will “be more responsive” to problems faced by individual prosecutors, he added. The new directors will “get involved with judges, get involved with police departments. They’ll have a much more pro-active approach,” Garcetti said.

The office needs to “restore confidence,” Garcetti said. “If people don’t have confidence in how we perform, it creates a real breakdown in how we govern.”