Los Angeles City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto is facing fresh questions about what happened to her text messages after a whistleblower case turned a routine personnel dispute into a fight over whether key communications were produced or quietly wiped away during discovery.
Subpoenas turn up almost nothing
In new court filings, former criminal-branch chief Michelle McGinnis says she subpoenaed text messages between Feldstein Soto and Chief Deputy City Attorney Denise Mills and came up nearly empty. According to the filings, Feldstein Soto produced zero texts, and Mills produced just three, even though the subpoenas specifically asked for messages on Signal and other apps.
McGinnis argues that the outcome defies common sense and goes to the heart of her claims about why she was pushed out of the office. Her attorney says the near-total lack of messages between two top officials is central to the case. As reported by the Los Angeles Times.
City officials say they complied
The city attorney’s office is not buying the insinuation that something nefarious happened. The deputy city attorney representing Feldstein Soto and Mills blasted McGinnis’ latest petition as “uncomprehensible” and pointed out that the office has already turned over thousands of pages of documents to the plaintiff’s lawyers.
Feldstein Soto said in a declaration that she “diligently searched for any documents” and produced records related to McGinnis. Court papers state that Mills performed a factory reset of her phone after subpoenas were served, described as an effort to retrieve backups. McGinnis’ attorney calls that move tantamount to spoliation and argues “it is obviously relevant and critical...to see what Ms. Feldstein and Ms. Mills were saying to one another.” As reported by the Los Angeles Times.
Pattern at City Hall
This dust-up over missing messages is not happening in a vacuum. It lands on top of a steady stream of staff complaints and records clashes in the city attorney’s office and across City Hall, where some employees and watchdogs say there is a culture of intimidation and a habit of keeping official paper trails short.
Those workplace allegations, combined with heightened scrutiny over how officials preserve their electronic communications, raise the political stakes on what might otherwise be just another discovery fight. Reporting has outlined multiple internal complaints and the growing focus on how the office handles its records. As reported by Governing.
What spoliation could mean
In legal circles, the word “spoliation” gets tossed around when relevant evidence vanishes after litigation is on the horizon. Legal guides and practitioners note that deleting or failing to preserve communications at that point can open the door to sanctions, including adverse-inference jury instructions, monetary penalties, or limits on what a party can introduce at trial.
Both a primer from the American Bar Association on electronic evidence and commentary from the Bar Association of San Francisco describe how courts weigh preservation duties and potential remedies when electronic records disappear during discovery. For background on how judges typically approach those questions, see the American Bar Association and the Bar Association of San Francisco.
What comes next
McGinnis’ petition is now in the hands of a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge, who will have to sort out what was preserved, what was not, and whether any extra discovery or sanctions are warranted. The parties are poised to battle over preservation obligations, relevance, and the scope of electronic records they still have to exchange.
A judge has already allowed related whistleblower claims to move forward, signaling that the dispute is not going away quietly and could head toward evidentiary hearings if the court concludes some gaps need fixing. For background on earlier rulings and the broader case, see coverage from Mar Vista Voice.
