LA fire chief sued after firing employee who allegedly caught her embezzling funds
Los Angeles Fire Chief Kristin Crowley was named in a lawsuit filed by a former longtime employee who said she spoke up about months of egregious misconduct by the chief and another top official — and was harassed and fired in retaliation, a report said.
The suit, filed against the city of Los Angeles, adds to an inferno of controversy over Crowley and other officials’ leadership amid the most expensive wildfires in California history.
Former LAFD Fire Administrator Jenny Park, a civilian employee of more than ten years, claims she got the axe after raising concerns about Crowley’s habitual misconduct since she took the top spot in 2022, which included nepotism, bullying, and a refusal to return $37,000 paid to her in error, the court filing obtained by the Daily Mail alleges.
Park also alerted city officials when another high-ranking official, Deputy Chief Orin Saunders allegedly awarded a lucrative contract that carried a conflict of interest.
That year, Crowley and Saunders raked in $654,000 and $576,000, respectively, in pay and benefits that year, according to department records provided to Transparent California.
The pair allegedly ran the department like their personal clubhouse, handing out promotions that were not based on merit, giving special treatment to people they personally liked – and bullying those they didn’t.
Park claims she first brought up the issues to Crowley and Saunders directly, then complained to city officials who did nothing to address the problems.
Instead, Crowley and Saunders did their best to bully, isolate and “intimidate her into silence,” smearing her behind her back, excluding her from panels and events, and openly humiliating her in front of her colleagues, the court filing published by the Mail alleges.
Crowley finally notified Park of her termination just before Christmas of 2023 – ousting the department’s highest-ranking woman and Asian-American employee in one stroke.
The Los Angeles Fire Department did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
Park had joined the fire department as a civilian in 2013 after serving as a deputy attorney for the city.
She loved her job, quickly rose through the ranks, and had planned to stay for the rest of her career, Park’s attorney Martin Aarons told the Mail.
Aarons described Park’s firing as a carefully planned scheme that involved months of undermining and character assassination.
He said such moves have been part of her standard playbook since taking the top job in 2022 – after her predecessor resigned amid his own firestorm of scandal.
“After Chief Crowley started, over the course of the next 18 months it became clear that if you didn’t go along with what she wanted to do then you were all of a sudden persona non grata,” Aarons told the Mail.
