The In(dictment) Crowd

By Daniel Guss

https://danielguss.substack.com/

@TheGussReport - Ah, the great joys in life that we never forget.

The first time you ride a bike on your own.

How about your first kiss?

For some LA political observers, perhaps it was when the FBI slapped the cuffs on Mitch Englander, not just because the disgraced former City Councilmember wound up in federal prison, but also because he relished punching down and censoring people with legitimate concerns and pleas for help.

But I'll tell you something good: Who -- who, my friends -- may be next to join The In(dictment) Crowd?

I explain over at my free Substack.  While you're there, sign-up and check out my most recent columns.  And don't forget to follow me on The Twitters @TheGussReport.

Gotta go!  TTYL!

As I Had Mentioned...Nury Martinez Dances With Corruption

By Daniel Guss

@TheGussReport - There is no particularly polite way to say "I told you so," so after Googling for a variety of alternatives, "as I had mentioned" seemed like the best option.

In a piece that I wrote for Mayor Sam back on October 26, 2021, this column correctly predicted L.A. City Council president Nury Martinez would appoint her controversial predecessor Herb Wesson to oversee Council District 10 after forcing out recently elected Mark Ridley-Thomas from the job upon his federal corruption indictment.

(Justin Wesson (rear), Herb Wesson, Nury Martinez - Photo Credit: LA Daily News)

Well, let's fast forward to the column's conclusion:

(Federally indicted former Councilmember) Jose Huizar may be dumb, but he ain't stupid.  As someone who went to Berkeley, Princeton and UCLA Law, he is probably very good at keeping notes.

To read all the rest, jump on over to my Substack.

Follow me on The Twitters @TheGussReport.

(Daniel Guss, MBA, was runner-up for the 2020 Los Angeles Press Club journalism award for Best Online Political Commentary and runner-up in 2021 in the Activist Journalism category.  He has contributed to Mayor Sam, CityWatchLA, KFI AM-640, iHeartMedia, 790-KABC, Cumulus Media, KCRW, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Daily News, Los Angeles Magazine, Movieline Magazine, Emmy Magazine, Los Angeles Business Journal, Pasadena Star News, Los Angeles Downtown News and The Los Angeles Times in its Sports, Opinion and Entertainment sections and Sunday Magazine among other publishers.)

Why Eric Garcetti and Mike Feuer Should Cancel Themselves

 By Daniel Guss

@TheGussReport - LA's Buffoon Bros of Miscarriage and Corruption, Mayor Eric Garcetti and City Attorney Mike Feuer, should spend the coming holiday season reshuffling their future plans.

Eric Garcetti and Mike Feuer

Photo Credit: LA Times

In Garcetti's case, he should pick up the house phone and ring President Joe Biden to withdraw his nomination to become the next U.S. Ambassador to India.  Feuer should withdraw from the Mayor's race and see whether any of the other candidates would welcome his endorsement.  If those candidates are smart, they'll politely decline and change their phone number.

Garcetti and Feuer are more likely than not on the verge of being booted from those pursuits and instead creating mortifying footnotes for their forever Wikipedia pages.  

Better for them to quit rather than being publicly shown the door.

Beyond Garcetti's comprehensive failure as al calde of the second largest American city, everyone from his right-hand man Rick Jacobs to his disgraced former chief of staff Ana Guerrero (and those who covered up for them at the LAPD and City Attorney's office) have been exposed for the bullies and harassers many have long-known them to be, as shown by a series of mortifying exposés and depositions.  It is not possible that these issues have escaped the notice of the FBI and Biden advisors. 

The point is that Garcetti is responsible for all that literally took place right in front of him, and more. The buck is supposed to stop with a chief executive, but Garcetti hasn't taken ownership for any of it, including his welcoming Guerrero back into his office after a lengthy suspension for indiscriminately abusing everyone from little-known locals to historic and accomplished women of color like Dolores Huerta.

As for things that took place right in front of Garcetti.....

Rick Jacobs, Eric Garcetti and others

Photo Credit: LA Times

In fact, logic suggests that someone in the White House, perhaps chief of staff Ron Klain, may soon dial up Garcetti and "politely suggest" that Garcetti do exactly as I recommend.

That way, Garcetti can take his rightful place alongside his inglorious predecessors, like "The 11% Percent Mayor" Antonio Villaraigosa and traffic court judge James Hahn.  He can join some corporate boards, teach a college class and be shown on the 11pm sports report cheering on the Dodgers and Lakers.

I left the Rams out of that thought, because, despite Garcetti's untruthful claims that he "brought the NFL back to LA," they in fact play in the world's greatest stadium in a city he never represented; Inglewood, California.  Sure, Inglewood is in "LA," but that's LA County, where Garcetti has never been an elected official. 

Garcetti failed to get that stadium built in downtown LA as Farmer's Field, though he squandered much time posturing about it, as I pointed out in the Huffington Post a few years back.

And that's the rosier of the two futures outlined in this column.

Our crystal ball says things are much bleaker for Mike Feuer.

It is delusional that someone who is being investigated by the State Bar of California and whose office was raided by the FBI and whose legal hire, Paul Paradis, agreed this week to plead guilty to a $2.2 million kickback scheme while running that scam under the auspices of Feuer's office, thinks he will be elected to succeed Garcetti as Mayor!

Maybe delusional isn't the right word.  Nuts.  Feuer would have to be nuts to believe that.

Mike Feuer

Photo Credit: KTLA

But it's so much worse than that for The Frazzled 'stache of LA City Hall.   

Despite his assertions to the contrary, the U.S. Department of Justice says that Feuer's office knew that Paradis astonishingly represented both the plaintiff and defendant in the scandalous LADWP / PricewaterhouseCoopers lawsuit.

That alone should result in a suspension of Feuer's law license, if not out and out disbarment, even if he didn't personally profit from the bribery, which could include campaign donations to his nascent mayoral campaign.

And yes, I do speculate that Feuer has already spoken with white collar criminal defense law firms to potentially represent him.  One would have to be a nuts (there's that word again) to be raided by the FBI and not immediately pick up the phone to find one.

But to think he still has even a remote chance of becoming mayor?  

Come on.

Then again, maybe Feuer's counting on LA making the same dumb choices for mayor as it has for the past 20 years with Hahn, Villaraigosa and Garcetti.

Hmmmph.  Perhaps he's on to something.

Nevermind, then. We'll simply say this.  If Feuer runs, he will finish with fewer votes than any other major candidate and perhaps even fewer than the spectacular 9,115 votes hauled-in (without spending a dime) by Venice street performer David "Zuma Dogg" Saltsburg in 2009, when he finished in 4th place in a field of ten.   

That's the over/under for Feuer should he stay in the race. Nine thousand one hundred and fifteen votes.  We will see whether Feuer gets fewer than Zuma Dogg.

Of course, there's more to this story than just that.   

What about the names that keep Mike Feuer up at night and whether and when they might resurface?  That's precisely why Feuer's deputy at City Council meetings, one Strefan Fauble, has established a pattern and practice of illegally censoring this column from participating in the meetings of late and his peers continually failing to cure and correct such abuses, as outlined in upcoming complaints, plural, to the State Bar of California.

(Daniel Guss, MBA, was runner-up for the 2020 Los Angeles Press Club journalism award for Best Online Political Commentary and was a runner-up in 2021 too. He has contributed to CityWatch, KFI AM-640, iHeartMedia, 790-KABC, Cumulus Media, KCRW, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Daily News, Los Angeles Magazine, Movieline Magazine, Emmy Magazine, Los Angeles Business Journal, Pasadena Star News, Los Angeles Downtown News, and The Los Angeles Times in its Sports, Opinion and Entertainment Sections and Sunday Magazine among other publishers. Tell your friends to follow him on The Twitters @TheGussReport, and DM him there to join his distribution list for early story notifications, tips and more.)

Nury Martinez' Rumored Plan Is Riddled With Conflict, Corruption and Nepotism

By Daniel Guss

@TheGussReport - Last week, this column explained how LA City Council president Nury Martinez, City Attorney Mike Feuer, City Controller Ron Galperin and all but three other Councilmembers railroaded their peer Mark Ridley-Thomas into a suspension from his elected office that was accompanied by the suspension of his salary and health insurance even before he entered a plea to his recent 20-count federal corruption indictment.

In that piece, I provided examples of other high-ranking City officials who courted controversy with some even admitting to their misdeeds but were neither suspended nor had their salary and health insurance withheld.  

Add former Councilmember Richard Alarcon to that list.

A Councilmember in the 90s, Alarcon returned to the city's legislative body in 2007 to finish the term of Alex Padilla (who earlier succeeded him) and was re-elected to serve his final term in 2009 and stayed in that role until he termed-out in 2013.

As is now well-known, in 2010, Alarcon and his wife, Flora Montes De Oca Alarcon, were indicted on a slew of felony counts related to his not residing in his District as is required by law.  Her charges were for related fraud and perjury. The Alarcons were convicted on some of those charges, though the verdicts were eventually thrown out. The LA City Clerk's office confirmed for this column today that Alarcon was neither suspended from office during that multi-year escapade nor were his salary and benefits withheld.

In case you're keeping score:

Alarcon was neither suspended nor lost any income or health insurance despite 18 felony counts related to his work in the LA City Council office he held at the time.   

Ridley-Thomas, recently indicted on 20-federal felony counts related to his prior job, was suspended and his salary and health insurance are now withheld.

Hmmmph!

That leads us to this question: What's up with Martinez, Feuer, Galperin and the entire City Council (save for Mike Bonin, Curren Price and Marqueece Harris-Dawson) and their rush to judgment on Ridley-Thomas?

The answer is plenty and it reeks of corruption, conflict and nepotism.

Multiple sources within City Hall tell this column that Martinez is planning to appoint Ridley-Thomas's predecessor, Herb Wesson, as a "District Caretaker" while the Ridley-Thomas legal problems work their way through the system, which could take years or until a special election is held.

Herb Wesson

Photo Credit: Unknown

While Mr. Wesson may seem like a logical choice for the appointment, there are glaring conflicts of interest and too-close-for-comfort corruption ties.

1. Herb Wesson is now a lobbyist hawking his legislative chops to local governments as an advisor on, among other things, marijuana policy. Last December, he incorporated and registered Herb Wesson and Associates with the California Secretary of State, which may disqualify him from serving as CD10 Caretaker even if he hands-off control of his newly formed business.
2. While there is a battle over which Council District will oversee USC in the coming years, Herb Wesson's brother, Steve Wesson, is reportedly still employed at the school as USC Village Ombudsman presenting another potential conflict of interest.

But there appears to be more than just that going on here.  

Herb Wesson has spent much of 2021 licking his post-campaign-loss wounds by pleading for policy business from local governments and playing the poor card despite having raked-in millions of dollars in his prior government jobs, claiming "I'm just a small businessman trying to feed my family," though his children range in age from 39 years on-up. 

Deron Williams, Herb Wesson's former chief of staff, was in very close proximity to the activity in the federal indictment of former Councilmember Jose Huizar, who Wesson referred to as "my best friend."  While neither Wesson nor Williams stand indicted in that matter, their proximity to the corruption is a curious thing for Martinez to ignore, especially since she breathlessly ran to suspend Ridley-Thomas before he could even enter a plea.

So what's going on here?

Look to Martinez' Deputy Chief of Staff Alexis Marin-Wesson for clues.

Nury Martinez and Alexis Marin-Wesson

Photo Credit: LA Times

Her husband, Justin Wesson, is Herb Wesson's youngest son.  He served as City Council's "Floor Director" during his dad's time as its president. It was a job his father created for him though he mostly functioned as his father's chauffeur and valet. That is a curious choice for a driver given the son's 2012 DUI bust. According to Transparent California, Justin's 2019 salary and compensation, the last reported year available, totaled $141,350.48.   (Note: Justin also voted in scores of elections while registered at his parents' home address despite having a pregnant wife registered to vote in South Pasadena.  This was likely done to establish a fake "residency" to run to replace his dad.  The LA Times stopped pimping that idea after I first wrote about it.)

Funny how the Times' David Zahniser, Dakota Smith and Emily Alpert-Reyes never told you about that.

Hey, but a dad has got to do what a dad has got to do to get their lay-about kids salaries they could never dream of earning in the private sector, right Mr. Wesson and Mr. Ridley-Thomas?

They are birds of a feather.

If you recall, Justin and Alexis were forced to reimburse the LAPD thousands of dollars for misusing the agency for private security at their 2018 wedding. (This was a story that Wesson's office allegedly fed to Zahniser immediately after I inquired about it in order to get a "softer" report. Zahniser allegedly misled his readers by not disclosing that.)

Now, with rumors that Papa Wesson's consulting business is flailing, he and his son are reportedly eyeing their old government salaries that would land them roughly $400,000 combined each year that Ridley-Thomas remains suspended or until a special election is held.  

That's Martinez' likely motivation: enriching her third-in-command, and pseudo younger sister, Alexis by re-employing Justin vis-a-vis appointing his dad Herb Wesson, who implies that his adult children rely on him for income even in their middle ages.

That and the fact that Martinez continuously struggles as Council president, unable (or unwilling) to explain how she is fixing the city's considerable ills while continually censoring the public from complaining and keeping them out of meetings despite vax mandates.  She would readily welcome Papa Wesson's counsel.  It's a win-win for the politicians, but not one that is in the public's best interest assuming Wesson is even eligible for the appointment.  

There is also Ms. Marin-Wesson's mother-in-law, Fabian Wesson, who remains mired in controversy, having falsified her academic qualifications to land a $250,000 job replacing a Ph.D. at the South Coast Air Quality Management District, or AQMD.  Her predecessor, who is also a professor at UCLA, was succeeded by Mrs. Wesson because, as an AQMD spokesperson told me, she "thought she graduated" with a bachelor's degree, except she did not.

In any other job outside of nepotistic LA politics, you get fired for lying about your qualifications.  But not in the dumping ground of political patronage, the AQMD.

By the way, LA City Councilmember Joe Buscaino, a member of the AQMD Governing Board, has dodged this column's questions about Fabian's false quals, so his claims of being a crime-fighter "eager to slap the cuffs" on guys like Englander and Huizar ring completely hollow.  More on that in an upcoming column.

So Nury Martinez' largesse toward Herb Wesson, who endorsed her to succeed him as Council president, is loaded with the same toxic sludge that led to Englander's conviction, Huizar's and others' indictments and whatever comes next.

What a surprise.

So why did Martinez, Feuer and Galperin allegedly conspire to oust Ridley-Thomas before he could even enter a plea?

Simple. Martinez wanted Ridley-Thomas out.  Feuer, who is likely to get creamed in his campaign for Mayor by leading candidate Karen Bass, reportedly okayed the railroading of Ridley-Thomas to curry favor with the Councilmembers whose endorsements he will need to even be competitive.

The same goes for Galperin in his hotly contested campaign to become an LA County Supervisor as key endorsements needed in that race quickly dry up. 

So at LA City Hall, the corruption, conflicts and nepotism are business as usual, at least until the next shoes, plural, drop.

Nury Martinez, her Chief of Staff Ackley Padilla and Alexis Marin-Wesson did not respond to a request to field unscreened questions.  Mark Ridley-Thomas is believed to be shopping for attorneys to fight the suspension.

Get the popcorn.

(Daniel Guss, MBA, was runner-up for the 2020 Los Angeles Press Club journalism award for Best Online Political Commentary and has contributed to CityWatch, KFI AM-640, iHeartMedia, 790-KABC, Cumulus Media, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Daily News, Los Angeles Magazine, Movieline Magazine, Emmy Magazine, Los Angeles Business Journal, Pasadena Star-News, Los Angeles Downtown News, and the Los Angeles Times in its Sports, Opinion and Entertainment sections and Sunday Magazine, and other publishers. Tell your friends to follow him on The Twitters @TheGussReport)

Mike Feuer's Flunky Gets Warning Letter from State Bar of California

By Daniel Guss

@TheGussReport - Lest anyone think that Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer isn't a corrupt and retaliatory jerkoff (who also wants to be your next Mayor) this column proffers that his nefarious actions trickle down to a wide swath of his taxpayer-funded staff, which also happens to be the largest "law firm," so to speak, in California.

In the coming weeks, this column will lay out a series of ways that Feuer's Flunkies harass, interfere and retaliate against government critics, including the one who writes this column.  But for today, let's reintroduce you to one of his henchmen, Deputy City Attorney Jonathan Peralta Bislig of La Palma.

Mr. Bislig's self-published old photo is used here for journalistic fair use purposes, which should be no problem given his history of malicious misuse of others' non-public data, which the California Attorney General's office is now exploring as a possible crime.  More on that in the coming weeks.

In 2020, this columnist successfully sued the LAPD for its threats, harassment and interference with his reporting on City Hall corruption and the abusive nepotism of then-LA City Council president Herb Wesson; his wife's falsification of her educational qualifications to land a $250,000 gig replacing a PhD at the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) and; dozens of instances of his son's alleged voter fraud in order to falsely establish residency for a possible run for office and; LA City Councilmember Curren Price and; their pal Mitch Englander, who now cools his jets in federal prison in Arizona; not to mention Mayor Eric Garcetti's alleged cover-up of fire inspection corruption at the LAFD and; the LAPD's refusal to turn over Computer Assisted Dispatch Records pertaining to an alleged domestic violence incident at Garcetti's home and; the LAPD's insistence that patrol car computer screenshots of information pertaining to the assassination attempt on two LASD deputies wasn't from their patrol car despite painfully obvious proof that it was.

And so on, and so forth.

Mr. Price, if you recall, was the subject of this column's exploration into his bigamy and alleged fraud and perjury.  While the L.A. Times' Dakota Smith gave him a platform to vociferously deny that he was a bigamist in order to secure his re-election against an upstart candidate, Price simultaneously hired an Orange County divorce attorney named Sven Buncher, who helped the genteel Mr. Price finally divorce his first wife years after marrying his second wife, the well-established City Hall real estate insider Del Richardson Price.

Neither Smith nor the Times' other City Hall water carriers, Emily Alpert Reyes and David Zahniser, told you the rest of that story, did they?

Anyhoo, while the court ordered the City of LA pay this columnist about $2,000 for the LAPD's abuses, the check that LA City Controller Ron Galperin sent to me was for $10,836, with the lion's share paid to specifically compensate this column for Bislig's malicious misconduct, which required a judge to order his malicious handiwork undone which Bislig repeatedly promised to do, but never actually did.

Now, after a lengthy investigation, the State Bar of California issued a warning letter to Bislig, which will disappear from his file in three years if he wises up and behaves himself.

That warning letter isn't public, but this column has a letter from the State Bar confirming its existence.

Fast-forward to a few weeks ago when Mr. Bislig got bent out of shape when this columnist raised his reprimand as a logical reason to distrust his rulings at the uber-mundane LA Police Permit Review Panel, where he had been assigned to call balls and strikes on behalf of the City government.

Panel Chair, attorney Ryan Duckett of the law firm Nixon Peabody, illegally tried to prevent that fact from being raised and Bislig later went on an email rant in response to a media inquiry asking when the duo will undo the illegal votes they allowed due to the fact that another Panelist's appointment expired months earlier, which Bislig failed to stop at that earlier time.

Correcting mistakes, rather than covering them up, is important for all governments to do, but especially during the FBI's ongoing investigation into LA City Hall's corruption cancer.

Bislig childishly took exception with my referring to his State Bar warning letter as "punishment."  Word-parsing to hide misconduct may fly in a legal brief, but not in the real world, let alone in this column.

Now remember, Bislig's boss, Mr. Feuer, had his office raided by the FBI about a year ago and is allegedly being investigated by the State Bar of California himself, so the fish really does rot from the head.  

Like boss, like flunky, as it were.

Sit with that for a spell.   Feuer was raided by the FBI, is allegedly being investigated by the State Bar of California.....and still has the cajones to run for Mayor.

Unfortunately for Bislig, his attempt to silence criticism and media inquiries by using City resources (e.g. his City-owned email account) to censor and suppress relevant, on-topic discussion of his State Bar reprimand also appears to be a violation of LA City Ethics codes, for which an Ethics complaint - and a new State Bar complaint - are underway.

Of course, that's not the entire story.  

There appears to be a larger "pattern and practice" of retaliation by Feuer's office against this column, and this time, it won't likely be litigated in the shallow pond of small claims.

Stay tuned.

Tell your friends to follow me on The Twitters @TheGussReport.

(Daniel Guss, MBA, was runner-up for the 2020 Los Angeles Press Club journalism award for Best Online Political Commentary and has contributed to CityWatch, KFI AM-640, iHeartMedia, 790-KABC, Cumulus Media, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Daily News, Los Angeles Magazine, Movieline Magazine, Emmy Magazine, Los Angeles Business Journal, Pasadena Star-News, Los Angeles Downtown News and The Los Angeles Times in its Sports, Opinion and Entertainment sections and Sunday Magazine, among other publishers.)

Presently using mi amigo Scott's sign-in until tech problems are ironed-out.

HOT Blockbuster Brief on the Los Angeles Clinton Political Machine for Monday

 With no apologies to "The Old Clintonista Hag on Spring Street (aka LA Times)", the Wall Street Journal is reporting a "Los Angeles Political Corruption Connection" in its FBI Clinton Foundation Criminal Investigation Missive which details alleged obstruction via the President Obama Administration's Justice Department.

 ......., with branch office at 200 Spring Street.

The now, "Antonio Villargovea" pondering ............, how many starving Haitians could we have fed for the price of Hillary's Tacos?

** Oh the love of bloggin speculation!!

With a FORMERLY, Fishwrap of Record ......., located on Spring Street, continuing its agenda journalism devolution (with a couple of exceptions in today's edition), we had plenty of cyber time to read numerous reactions to Friday's Political October Surprise, via the FBI's announcement regarding the REOPENING of Democratic Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton Email Investigation.

By far, the most-telling missive regarding the background behind Friday's FBI Announcement, was today's Wall Street Journal's Exclusive which disclosed not only the inner-workings involving the Clinton Email Investigation, but also noted that the top law enforcement agency was/is continuing to investigate the Clinton Foundation ............., and an alleged Los Angeles link.

Early this year, four FBI field offices—New York, Los Angeles, Washington and Little Rock, Ark. were collecting information about the Clinton Foundation to see if there was evidence of financial crimes or influence-peddling, according to people familiar with the matter.Los Angeles agents had picked up information about the Clinton Foundation from an unrelated public corruption case and had issued some subpoenas for bank records related to the foundation, these people said. 

BOY ...., OH BOY!!  Our bloggin intuition upon reading this, notched into overdrive, prompting Google Searches and phone calls to various political observers. We know that the FBI has been involve in numerous local corruption investigations in recent years ..........., with most of the specifics going unreported.

But we do know for fact that a couple of local controversial Public Officials have found "soft landings" via the Clinton Foundation, after leaving behind their nefarious political dealings, remember former DWP General Manager H David Nahai?

After nearly two years of fending off criticism from ratepayers and his own employees, H. David Nahai stepped down Friday as head of the nation's largest municipally owned utility, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. Nahai, 56, said in a letter to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa that he would leave immediately to take a position as an advisor to former President Clinton's climate initiative to battle global warming. But well before he announced his new job, the Iranian-born environmentalist and attorney found himself under fire on several fronts. Support within Villaraigosa's office had eroded dramatically, and Brian D'Arcy, the head of the DWP's powerful employees union, had stopped speaking to him, sources familiar with the situation said.

..........., and who else would find the Clinton Foundation accommodating after two Failed Mayoral Terms in Office? Hint, this "City Terrace Native" and Nahai shared numerous "wine-filled, profane dining outings (allegedly)". Thus, no one should be surprise that a former Failure Mayor would say the following about the Clintons.

"I know her. I do trust her frankly, and I do because they haven't enriched themselves from politics frankly," Villaraigosa told MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "What they have done, whether through the foundation or through their work in public service is help a whole lot of people. This is a woman who has spent her entire life investing in children. The Clinton foundation has done a lot of really good work. 

 ......, and who is living a newlywed life in the Hollywood Hills, thanks in part to the Clinton Foundation?

Your thoughts ..............
Scott Johnson in CD 14