A Los Angeles police officer who sued the city for a hostile work environment after he said colleagues made racist and discriminatory comments has been criminally charged for recording some of those comments.
Daniel Flores, 43, was charged with 16 felony counts of eavesdropping on or recording confidential communications, the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office announced on July 31.
The charges come weeks after Flores filed his lawsuit, which claimed he heard a supervisor and other colleagues working in the Los Angeles Police Department’s Recruitment and Employment Division make derogatory comments based on race, national origin, gender or sexual orientation.
California is an all-party consent state, meaning that all people involved in a private conversation must consent to being audio recorded. In some states, only one person involved needs to consent, which means someone can legally record a conversation they are part of without the other person knowing.
LA top prosecutor Nathan J. Hochman gave a warning to anyone who records others without their knowledge, saying his office would prosecute “illegal eavesdroppers.”
“It doesn’t matter where you work or who you are – a neighbor, a coworker or, in this case, a police officer. Your right to privacy in a confidential conversation is protected, no matter who is doing the recording or, with few exceptions, why they are doing the recording,” Hochman said.
The recordings were made while Flores was assigned to the unit responsible for conducting background investigations for job candidates in 2024, Hochman’s office said. “Some of the conversations allegedly included sexist, homophobic and racist remarks,” the prosecutor’s office acknowledged.
“We deplore the sexist, homophobic and racist remarks made by certain LAPD employees, and they should be held accountable for such statements. However… one cannot simply choose to break the law because one wants to pursue a personal agenda,” Hochman said.
Flores could face up to 13 years in state prison if convicted. He is due in court on Aug. 10.
Attorneys for Flores did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“Today the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office charged a police officer with a crime for reporting racism inside the Los Angeles Police Department,” defense attorney Alan Jackson told the Los Angeles Times. “Not the officers who were recorded using racial, sexist, and anti-gay slurs. Not the officers who sat in a government building and said those things while holding the power to decide who becomes an LAPD officer. The officer who reported them.”
Jackson told the outlet he intends to argue in court that Flores made the recordings within the scope of his job and was investigating misconduct in the workplace.
According to a report by the Times, Flores turned in about 90 recordings to the LAPD’s internal affairs department. An administrative investigation by the LAPD found him guilty of policy violations and recommended suspension without pay for 22 days, Flores’ civil attorney Greg Smith told the Times; that disciplinary action has not yet been finalized.
USA TODAY has reached out to the LAPD for comment.
The recordings stirred up a wave of backlash against the police department when their existence was first reported on by the LA Times in 2025. Mayor Karen Bass said in a statement to KTLA at the time that the officers who made the comments were “stuck in the past.”
“Growing LAPD’s ranks is a top priority of this Administration and for our city’s safety, so this conduct is especially outrageous and unacceptable,” Bass said in 2025.