BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
A Santa Clara County taxpayer has sued District Attorney Jeff Rosen for allegedly wasting public money by paying a prosecutor not to work while also warning of severe budget cuts.
Rosen’s “failure to uphold (his) duties will continue to waste public funds and cause the taxpayers of Santa Clara County to suffer irreparable injury,” the lawsuit said. The lawsuit was filed by attorney Jim McManis on behalf of Sarah Scofield, 63, of San Jose.
McManis and Scofield don’t like how Rosen has handled Deputy District Attorney Daniel Chung, who is getting a $8,525 paycheck every two weeks while under Rosen’s orders to stay home.
Rosen has fired Chung twice, but the firings were reversed both times. Chung has sued Rosen three times and is running against him in the June election.
McManis is representing Chung in one of the lawsuits, and the other two were filed by the union for prosecutors.
In Rosen’s “state of the office speech” on Feb. 17, Rosen focused on the “allegedly catastrophic state of the county’s budget,” claiming the county’s $470 million deficit will require layoffs that will gravely impact public safety, Scofield’s suit said.
Rosen warned that his office could be forced to stop prosecuting tens of thousands of misdemeanors.
“Will people get hurt? Will they be killed? Will criminals go free? I don’t know,” he said.
Rosen paid Chung $314,596 from 2022 to 2025, Scofield’s suit said.
The county also hired attorney Jonathan Holtzman to defend Rosen’s firings for $450,000, according to public records.
Rosen’s spokesman Sean Webby declined an interview on Rosen’s behalf.
Scofield wants a judge to order Rosen and the county to allow Chung to return to work.
“Defendants would rather let Chung — a highly educated, highly qualified attorney — sit at home to prove their point: Don’t cross Rosen,” said the lawsuit, filed on March 25 in Santa Clara County Superior Court.
Guest opinion piece upset Rosen
The feud between Rosen and Chung goes back to February 2021, when Chung published an opinion piece that criticized “progressive prosecutors” in the wake of several hate crimes against Asians.
Rosen, 57, of Los Altos, suspended Chung for two weeks, but an arbitrator later reduced the suspension to one week.
In May 2021, Chung went to a Red Cross center where the families of mass shooting victims were gathered, without Rosen’s permission.
Rosen had Chung escorted out of the office and fired, but arbitrator Paul Roose reduced the punishment to a 30-day suspension.
Chung ran against Rosen in 2022 and used his candidacy as a platform to criticize Rosen. He claimed prosecutors slept with witnesses, used campaign funds to reimburse non-campaign costs and withheld evidence in serious criminal cases.
Chung said there was a saying in the office: “If you’re not one of Rosen’s chosen, you’re going to be frozen.”
Chung received 79,378 votes to Rosen’s 181,851, and Rosen was elected to his fourth term.
Chung then went to a training seminar in San Diego in April 2023, despite instructions not to do so. Rosen fired him again. A personnel board reduced the firing to a two-week suspension and reinstated Chung on June 23, 2025.
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