Two people suspected of illegally recording conversations between four Latino political leaders who caused a riot at City Hall will not be charged with a misdemeanor.

Los Angeles Police Department. Heidi Feldstein Soto has decided not to prosecute Santos Leon and Carla Vasquez, a couple who worked for the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, where the 2021 conversation took place.

Prosecutors in the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office had already declined to file felony charges against Mr. Leon and Mr. Vasquez.

The secretly recorded audio was released in 2022, causing a national uproar and leading to the resignations of City Council President Nury Martinez and then-union president Ron Herrera.

On Tuesday, a Feldstein Soto spokesperson said in an email that there was “insufficient evidence to meet the constitutional standard of proof” for misdemeanor charges against Leon or Vasquez.

Spokesman Ivor Pyne declined to say when the decision was made. Under California law, it is illegal to record conversations without the consent of the participants, with rare exceptions.

“First, my client has always been adamant that he was not responsible for the recordings,” said Bob Schwartz, Leon’s attorney. “Secondly… whoever made the recording performed a great public service in the best tradition of whistleblowers as we now know them.”

Leon no longer works for the union, Schwartz said.

Vazquez has previously proclaimed his innocence. On Tuesday, her attorneys Michael A. Goldstein and Hagop Kuyumjian said they had not been informed of the city attorney’s office’s decision not to file charges.

“If that is true, Mr. Vasquez will surely be relieved that neither the prosecutor’s office nor the city attorney’s office will be filing charges in this case,” they said in a statement.

The decision of Mr. Feldstein Soto’s office is The Associated Press first reported.

The 2021 recordings feature lengthy conversations with Martinez, Herrera, and City Council members Gil Cedillo and Kevin de Leon, focusing on the city’s rezoning process. and included racist or derogatory remarks.

By the time the recording surfaced a year later, Mr. Cedillo had lost his reputation for re-election. Mr de Leon, who is currently in a tough re-election battle, apologized for his involvement in the conversation. Opponent Isabel Jurado made the recording an issue in her campaign and highlighted it during candidate debates.

In January, Los Angeles police questioned prosecutors in the area. Atty. Georges Gascon’s office plans to indict Leon and Vazquez on charges of illegal conversation recording and wiretapping.

According to a memo from the District Attorney’s Office explaining the decision not to press charges, the recordings were posted on Reddit between September 19, 2022 and October 6, 2022, and on Twitter by a recently created account. Charges that were found to have been amplified.

Both accounts were connected to the Gmail handle “laupolitic@gmail.com,” which police linked to the addresses of Vasquez and Leon’s home internet service providers.

Prosecutors determined that “the crime was committed by one or both of these individuals,” but police were unable to determine how the audio was created or what device was used to create it, and they were unable to determine who uploaded it to Reddit. It was not possible to determine which Ultimately, the Gascon City Prosecutor’s Office referred the case to the City Attorney’s Office for consideration of misdemeanor charges.

“Both suspects have not given statements and are represented by separate attorneys,” the memo said.

Los Angeles police sought charges not only for a 2021 conversation involving Herrera and three City Council members, but also for a September 2022 call between Herrera and another individual that involved wiretapping.

De Leon and Cedillo filed separate lawsuits last year in Los Angeles County Superior Court, alleging that the recording caused permanent damage to their reputations and careers. Both lawsuits allege invasion of privacy and negligence.

The Labor Federation, Mr. Leon and Mr. Vasquez are defendants in Mr. Cedillo’s lawsuit. Only staff members are named in Mr. de Leon’s lawsuit.

De Leon criticized Feldstein-Soto’s decision, saying she “shirked her duties as a criminal prosecutor” by refusing to press charges.

Mr. Cedillo also strongly disagreed with the findings, saying the district attorney, Los Angeles Police Department, and a civil trial judge had found the secret recordings to be “criminal conduct.”

“I think this is incredibly unfair to the people of Los Angeles and the people who expect to be able to go anywhere in the city, the state, this country and sit down and have a personal conversation,” Cedillo said. spoke.