Cunliffe Retains Noted Lawyer to Plead Her Defense

Sylvia Cunliffe, who is battling to keep her job as head of the Los Angeles General Services Department, has retained Godfrey Isaac, the lawyer who defended former Coroner Thomas Noguchi in Los Angeles County’s bitter fight to oust him as chief medical examiner.

Isaac, whose combative style marked Noguchi’s protracted but unsuccessful legal struggle, said Wednesday that he has been hired to challenge charges of mismanagement and favoritism against Cunliffe. The target of a criminal investigation and other city probes, Cunliffe is presently on a 45-day paid leave as investigators continue their inquiry into the General Services Department.

Cunliffe, 54, is accused of favoring relatives and friends in the rental of city-owned property, of mismanaging the city’s fourth-largest agency and of misusing confidential personnel information in a memo she wrote last month to council members discrediting a department “whistle blower.”

Isaac, calling the accusations “vicious and unfair,” said his client, whose $90,243-a-year job is protected by Civil Service, will vigorously fight the charges.