Drakodaidis letter and Mauk response

Or­ange County on Fri­day re­leased a re­dac­ted copy of a con­tro­ver­sial let­ter writ­ten by a top ad­min­is­trat­or who went on med­ic­al leave a week after mul­tiple sexu­al as­sault and bat­tery charges were an­nounced against Car­los Bustamante, a former ex­ec­ut­ive in a de­part­ment she over­saw.

The let­ter comes one day after Chief Ex­ec­ut­ive Tom Mauk’s resig­na­tion in the wake of cri­ti­cism over how the county handled al­leg­a­tions against Bustamante, ac­cused of mul­tiple crimes against sev­en wo­men over a span of eight years. He has pleaded not guilty.

After the charges were an­nounced, Al­isa Drakodaid­is, the deputy chief ex­ec­ut­ive in charge of the pub­lic works de­part­ment, among oth­er du­ties, took a med­ic­al leave. The let­ter in­dic­ates that the ab­sence was caused by fear of “re­tali­ation” or “threatened re­tali­ation” from the Board of Su­per­visors and the dis­trict at­tor­ney’s of­fice.