ALAMEDA COUNTY, Calif. — A deputy district attorney in Alameda County is accusing District Attorney Ursula Jones-Dickson and other senior prosecutors of retaliating against her after she reported what she described as unlawful practices, conflicts of interest and due process violations within the office.
Deputy District Attorney Alexandra Grayner says she faced multiple transfers and was ultimately placed on administrative leave after raising concerns about alleged misconduct and submitting a whistleblower complaint.
In the whistleblower report filed with the county in February, Grayner alleges a serious conflict of interest between the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office and the Alameda County Civil Grand Jury that had not been properly resolved. She also reported alleged criminal extortion, unlawful arrest warrants and denials of due process.
According to the report, Grayner notified Jones-Dickson in February 2025 of what she believed was unlawful activity. She alleged there was insufficient evidence in many criminal welfare fraud cases and that numerous matters were not reviewed under judicial scrutiny because prosecutors in the Public Assistance Fraud unit did not submit arrest warrants.
Grayner also challenged the office’s use of arraignment letters, arguing they were unlawful because recipients were not legally required to appear in court based solely on those notices.
“Grayner also reported that when defendants did not appear to their arraignments after the District Attorney’s Office mailed them arraignment letters, courts systemically issued bench warrants for the defendants’ arrest that were unlawful because unless there had been a prior arrest or service of a summons requiring the defendants to appear, and the defendants were not legally required to appear at their arraignments,” the county report states. “Grayner reported how the District Attorney’s Office’s practice of mailing arraignment letters — which prosecutors treated like a summons — resulted in the denial of due process for a significant portion of criminal defendants in Alameda County.”
During the 2025 investigation, Grayner and her then-supervisor, Simona Farrise, were asked to prepare a memo regarding the Public Assistance Fraud unit.
“Most subjects of PAF [public assistance fraud] criminal investigations are Black and brown women,” Grayner and Farrise wrote. “For years they were charged with felonies even though the evidence in their criminal case files did not meet the minimum standards applied to other fraud cases charged by this office.”
The memo also stated: “It is lawful for welfare fraud investigators to conduct their investigatory calls and to make express and implied threats of criminal charges. It is also lawful for SSA [Alameda County Social Services Agency] to encourage repayment of debts owed to it. However, combining these two acts together turns otherwise lawful conduct into criminal extortion because the express or implied threat of criminal charges encourages repayment of debt through coercion and fear.”
The original report further states that Grayner alleged investigators began using criminal investigative calls as opportunities to collect debts owed to the Social Services Agency after she stopped filing welfare fraud charges.
Based on reporting by Oaklandside, Grayner said she was removed from her Public Assistance Fraud assignment in March 2025 shortly after making those reports.
In April 2025, Grayner also raised concerns that the district attorney’s office should have withdrawn from advising the Civil Grand Jury while that body was investigating alleged wrongdoing by then-District Attorney Nancy O’Malley and members of her staff in 2021 and 2022.
When Grayner first joined the office, she was assigned to serve as legal adviser to the Civil Grand Jury, a panel of 19 rotating civilians that investigates local government operations and issues annual reports. After her first week, she concluded the arrangement created a conflict because the jury was simultaneously investigating the district attorney’s office.
In response, the office was reportedly walled off from matters involving its own staff, and the legal adviser role was transferred to the county counsel’s office.
According to Oaklandside, Grayner was later asked to write a memo explaining why she believed those steps had not fully resolved the conflict-of-interest concerns.
Former District Attorney Nancy O’Malley told Oaklandside that Grayner’s claim the conflict had gone unaddressed was incorrect. “In my opinion, she’s not correct in saying that the DA’s office is the lawyer for the grand jury,” O’Malley said.
Grayner also alleged that Rob Warren, the deputy district attorney advising the grand jury at the time, was under extreme stress and that the conflict contributed to his death in 2021.
“Rob Warren, a deputy district attorney who had served as legal advisor to the civil grand jury for approximately ten years, took his own life in November 2021 for reasons that appear directly related to the conflict of interest,” Grayner wrote.
O’Malley told Oaklandside she was “offended” by Grayner’s assertion that the grand jury matter contributed to Warren’s death.
Later in 2025, the county appointed Jones-Dickson to serve out the remainder of the district attorney’s term. Grayner said she then reported the renewed conflict-of-interest concerns to the new district attorney after the attorney-client relationship with the Civil Grand Jury resumed in summer 2023.
That complaint led to the formal whistleblower report and, Grayner alleges, additional retaliation.
“In April of 2025, in retaliation for Grayner’s reporting of activity that Grayner reasonably believed to be unlawful, Jones-Dickson transferred Grayner out of her role in the Consumer Justice Unit to a different position in the Insurance Fraud Unit,” the county report states.
In May 2025, after Grayner filed a grievance with the county over her transfer from the Public Assistance Fraud unit, she was reassigned again, this time to work as a misdemeanor attorney.
While in that assignment, Grayner said she observed additional issues involving arraignment letters and reported them to her supervisor, a Fremont judge and later Judge Gaffey.
“The next day, on August 21, 2025, Grayner was placed on a retaliatory administrative leave for exposing unlawful conduct at the District Attorney’s Office. Grayner was given no explanation for her administrative leave,” the report states.
According to Oaklandside, Grayner remains on administrative leave and has not received an explanation.
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