They have prosecuted streetwalkers. Imprisoned drug dealers. Gone after graffiti. And busted landlords for blight.

Ayelet Feiman is one of four neighborhood prosecutors assigned to the new Valley Bureau office in Van Nuys, CA. The neighborhood prosecutor program has fallen victim to the Los Angeles budget crisis and hiring freeze. The City Attorney's office went from 21 neghborhood prosecutors in 2009 to eight, four of whom work in the San Fernando Valley. (Andy Holzman/Staff Photographer)

Now the acclaimed Neighborhood Prosecutor Program that for eight years has helped patch "broken windows" across Los Angeles has fallen victim to the budget knife.

At its peak last year, the City Attorney's Office assigned two dozen prosecutors to police stations citywide to pursue petty crimes, chronic nuisances and quality-of-life complaints.

But this year the neighborhood prosecutors have been reduced to eight - half in the San Fernando Valley. And instead of working near a police captain, they are based near the Van Nuys courthouse.

"Because of budget cuts, we have to use each of these attorneys to prosecute cases," said Bill Carter, chief deputy to City Attorney Carmen Trutanich. "We don't have the luxury of having them sit in the police station.

"We need to give every prosecutor a shovel. We've all got to work to be in court."

Launched by former City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo in 2002, neighborhood prosecutors set up shop in each police station to better enforce quality-of-life laws.

Working under what criminologists called the "broken window theory," each attorney prosecuted the nagging misdemeanors that can lead to blight and serious crime. Fix the broken window quickly, the theory says, and you prevent graffiti, vandalism and escalation to bigger crimes.

Their mission: to work with cops, officials and residents to chase cases that historically fell through the cracks - drug dealing, prostitution, panhandling, nuisance properties, street racing, graffiti, code violations and more.

Once a neighborhood prosecutor bit into a "problem," or case, they followed it until it was solved, or a conviction was made.

From 2002 through April of this year, neighborhood prosecutors at 19 police stations attended more than 27,000 community meetings, handled more than 20,000 complaints and prosecuted nearly 9,000 criminal cases, with a conviction rate of nearly 90 percent.

In a report last fall, the Los Angeles Police Department credited neighborhood prosecutors working side-by-side with police with dramatically reducing crime.

"They are extremely valuable," said Deputy Chief Kirk Albanese, head of the Valley Bureau, which once had seven neighborhood prosecutors. "They've been especially helpful in reducing Part II crime - graffiti, prostitution, drunk-in-public, which leads to Part I, or serious crime.

"Their loss will be felt. We'll try to do the best we can with the few that remain."

Commander John Sherman, who once led Topanga Division, said he's also a big fan of the program.

"They've been a very important component to policing in the San Fernando Valley," he said. "They became an in-house member of the law-enforcement team. ... City leaders have a lot of tough fiscal decisions to make."

Budget woes the culprit

The problem is money. In the past two years, the City Attorney's budget has been slashed by $25 million, or 28 percent, Carter said, forcing the loss of 90 attorneys and 70 staff.

That leaves 540 attorneys to pursue criminal cases and defend the city against civil liability.

Since the city's more than 300 civil attorneys must be retained to defend the city against $2 billion in pending slip-and- fall, use-of-force and employment liability cases, Carter said, there are far fewer criminal attorneys to prosecute the 100,000 misdemeanors every year.

The budget crunch has also forced the City Attorney to slash in half the number of outside attorneys it once paid $32 million a year, and to recruit 60 outside reserve deputies who try city cases for free.

The result: most of the city's neighborhood prosecutors have been assigned elsewhere to assist with the burgeoning workload.

"We're public safety officers and we've taken the biggest hit of any public safety office," said Carter, a former U.S. attorney. "The problem is, if you keep cutting, who's going to take these cases?

"We fully support the Neighborhood Prosecutor Program ... but it won't be at the same level it was."

The newly combined Safe Neighborhoods and Gangs Division will employ eight neighborhood prosecutors.

Of those, four - prosecutors Ayelet Feiman, Tamar Galatzan (also an elected Los Angeles Unified school board member), Nicole Lohman and Rafi Astvasadoorian - will work for the Valley Bureau alongside two gang prosecutors and several nuisance abatement attorneys.

While not assigned to a specific police station, each will pick the most important battles.

"We're trying to focus on the highest priority safety issues - foreclosed properties and associated nuisance activity, persistent transient problems, street prostitution, drug and gang activity," said Mary Claire Molidor, senior assistant city attorney in charge of the division.

A boon to the community

Residents said the prosecutors have been vital to community fixes.

When Don Schultz had a problem with an abandoned house and pool down the street from his Van Nuys home, he called various agencies to no avail.

But a call to a neighborhood prosecutor led to the algae-ridden pool and its potential mosquitoes being drained within a week.

And that doesn't include the legion of hookers, pimps and johns jailed by the program.

"I'm a big fan and supporter and a user of the program," said Schultz, president of the Van Nuys Homeowners Association. "I think the city retrenching is another stain on the quality of life in Los Angeles."

When Garth Carlson had trouble with homes full of drug addicts in Reseda, he called a neighborhood prosecutor, who pressured absentee owners to evict them.

"I think (they're) great," said Carson, a member of the Reseda Neighborhood Council. "Trying to deal with any department in the city is terrible.

"But the neighborhood prosecutor has been available to take care of problems as they crop up."

Making a difference

One such neighborhood prosecutor is Feiman, a mother of two with another on the way. For six years, she's battled community blight out of Foothill, Mission and until recently, Topanga stations.

Over the years, she's handled complaints from trashpickers stealing recyclables to improper supermarket weights and measures.

When neighbors complained about octogenarians with mountains of smelly trash hosting rats in their back yard, she didn't try to jail them. She organized a community cleanup with social service and city agencies - while helping clean the yard herself.

When others complained of persistent graffiti by the railroad through Panorama City, she navigated numerous government agencies to pressure the warehouse owner to apply some whitewash.

And when a City Council office complained of chronic blight along San Fernando Road in Sylmar, she mounted a yearlong campaign to purge the corridor of prostitutes, apartment building and motel violations, illegal garage conversions and illicit street vendors by leading a phalanx of enforcement agencies.

At the end of the sweep, community members hung a "Welcome to Sylmar" sign.

"We vertically prosecuted dozens of violators," said Feiman, 36, who grew up in the San Fernando Valley. "I took the cases from beginning to end. This is an example of what the Neighborhood Prosecution Program aims to do.

"We are here. We're open for business. We may be lean, but we're mean. And we're working together to tackle the problems throughout the Valley, and throughout the city."