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Tony Atkins, Denise Nelesen (spouse of Bonnie Dumanis)

In the rough-and-tumble battle to decide Los Angeles County's top prosecutor, San Diego's District Attorney and her minions are backing the campaign of incumbent Jackie Lacey.

Meanwhile, ex-L.A. cop and best-selling crime writer Joseph Wambaugh of Point Loma is kicking in for Lacey's challenger, former San Francisco District Attorney George Gascón.

The latest San Diego D.A. money to make it into Lacey's campaign, according to disclosure records, comes from San Diegans Against Crime Sponsored by the San Diego County Deputy District Attorneys Association, which came up with $1000 on August 1.

Ex-San Diego D.A. Bonnie Dumanis gave $1500 in December 2018, and her appointed successor, subsequently ratified by voters, Summer Stephan, gave the same on November 20 of last year.

Denise Nelesen, a retired aging program specialist for the county who is married to Dumanis, contributed $500 to the Lacey effort in February of this year. Other heavy financial hitters for Lacey working for San Diego's D.A. have included investigator Paul Choi, who gave $1000 on December 7, 2019.

Joseph Wambaugh

Wambaugh, author of such hard boiled crime classics about L.A. police as the Onion Field, Lies and Shadows, and The Choirboys, made his $100 contribution to the Gascón campaign last November.

Wambaugh's backing for Gascón has been outflanked by other cops, including the San Diego Police Officers Association's Political Action Committee , which delivered $5000 to a committee called Families & Communities Supporting Jackie Lacey for District Attorney 2020 Sponsored by Peace Officers Research Assn. of California on August 18, per San Diego city disclosure filings.

Gascón has been pounding Lacey for what he claims is her laxity of prosecutions against police who kill suspects, as related by a July 1 Los Angeles Times account.

"In this moment, when policing is on trial so to speak, and some municipalities across the country … are talking about approaching public safety and law enforcement through different models, what [Lacey] represents is certainly out of step with people who are taking to the streets," UCLA professor of social sciences and African American studies Darnell Hunt told the paper.

David Allan Lacey

"Yes, people are going to be talking about social justice and reform, but I think in the end, the majority of voters who show up in November are going to be equally concerned about their safety," retorted Lacey.

Her husband David Allan Lacey was charged in August with three misdemeanor counts of assault with a firearm for a March incident in which he showed up at the couple's Granada Hills front door brandishing a revolver at Black Lives Matter protesters.