from www.latimes.com – A Los Angeles traffic officer who was fired for appearing in a porn video that was posted on the Internet is trying to get his job back.

The Department of Transportation dismissed John K. Dancler [pictured], a 23-year veteran traffic officer, for engaging in misconduct on the job and participating in “indecent acts” that reflected unfavorably on the city workforce, said Bruce Whidden, the executive director of the Los Angeles Civil Service Commission.

Dancler appeared Wednesday before a commission hearing officer, asking for his job back.

Traffic officers issue parking tickets and direct motorists at heavily congested intersections, among other duties. Dancler earned about $56,000 a year in his post.

His attorney, Bobby Samini, has called the termination unwarranted and said city officials made his client a “convenient scapegoat.”

The acts that Dancler was fired for included “groping the bare breasts, spanking the bare buttocks and being straddled by an adult video actress in public” in 2008, Whidden said.

An investigation of Dancler began last year after KNBC-TV Channel 4 reported on the porn video, which appeared on an adult website. A second officer who was investigated in the matter received “appropriate discipline,” said Transportation Department spokesman Bruce Gillman.

*See the clip: