Former Assembly staffer claims retaliation, hostile work environment in lawsuit

In summary

A former employee of Assemblymember Blanca Pacheco sued the Downey Democrat and her chief of staff, alleging that they retaliated against him for requesting medical leave and whistleblowing, subjected him to a baseless theft investigation and excluded him from meetings.

A former staffer for Assemblymember Blanca Pacheco, a Downey Democrat, has sued the lawmaker and her chief of staff, alleging they created a “hostile and abusive” work environment and retaliated against him for complaining about it.

Ari Ruiz Reyes, a former district director for Pacheco, alleges in a lawsuit filed last month in Los Angeles Superior Court that Pacheco and chief of staff Nikki Johnson subjected him to a “baseless” theft investigation immediately after he returned from medical leave. 

After he reported them to the Legislature’s Workplace Conduct Unit, which investigates retaliation and harassment complaints, Pacheco’s office stripped him of his job duties, excluded him from meetings and abruptly fired him in June, Ruiz Reyes said in the lawsuit. 

He is also suing the state Assembly and its Rules Committee, which serves as the Assembly’s human resources department and is chaired by Pacheco. 

Ruiz Reyes began working for Pacheco in 2024. He previously worked as an aide to U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters and, from 2016 and 2022, as a district staffer for former Assemblymembers Autumn Burke and Blanca Rubio, according to his LinkedIn page. 

Pacheco declined to comment, citing the need to protect employee privacy, but said she would respond to the lawsuit “through the appropriate legal channels,” her spokesperson Alina Evans said in a statement. Johnson also declined to comment.

Lia Lopez, chief administrative officer of the Assembly rules committee, said the Assembly “dispute(s) the allegations and intend(s) to defend against it” and declined further comment.

In August 2025, Ruiz Reyes was injured in a car crash during work, which left him with chronic back pain, the lawsuit said. After he returned from sick leave in September, the lawsuit alleges that Pacheco and Lopez met with him to investigate him for a missing office camera, excluded him from an all-staff meeting and directed his subordinates to report to Johnson’s assistant.

Sam Yebri, Ruiz Reyes’ attorney, declined to clarify what happened to the theft investigation. 

Within weeks, Ruiz Reyes went on leave again, between September and December, for what the lawsuit describes as stress-related medical conditions caused and worsened by the defendants’ conduct, including stress-induced hair loss. 

Ruiz Reyes filed a complaint with the workplace unit on Nov. 7, 2025 and submitted another complaint a month later. The unit closed the case without investigating in February, stating in a letter obtained by CalMatters there was not enough information “to support a connection to a protected class.” 

The WCU did not immediately return a CalMatters request for comment.

In those complaints, Ruiz Reyes accused Johnson of asking a staff member to take her to a hair salon during work hours and of allowing Capitol staff to work remotely while requiring district staff to work from the office. 

The case was closed “without conducting any investigation and without interviewing a single witness or requesting a single document,” Ruiz Reyes said in the lawsuit.

After he returned to work on Dec. 5, he said “the retaliation escalated,” and Johnson stripped him of the authority to approve expenditures, excluded him from the hiring of his subordinate and criticized him for his tone. Pacheco, he said, fired him despite knowing his concerns about Johnson.

“Mr. Ruiz is a career public servant with nearly a decade of legislative experience,” Yebri said in a statement. “California has enacted strong protections for workers and for legislative whistleblowers, and those protections should apply fully to those who work in the Legislature’s own offices.”