LOS
ANGELES, May 16, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The FBI
believed former City Attorney Mike
Feuer lied to government investigators when he denied
knowledge of a hush money payment to conceal a litigation scandal
in his office five years ago, as well as other aspects of the
collusive litigation, according to newly unsealed
documents.
Consumer Watchdog and the Los Angeles
Times sought to unseal the documents, totaling over
1,400 pages, in a legal action filed in February.
The new details, part of a trove of approximately 33 warrants
turned over by the Department of Justice as part of their now
closed criminal investigation into the City Attorney's Office and
the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, contradict what
Feuer, a former Democratic candidate for Los Angeles Mayor and U.S. Congress, has said
publicly about his role in the matter that prosecuted one of his
top officials, sent three others to prison, and has cost the city
hundreds of millions of dollars.
The evidence uncovered by the FBI suggests:
- Feuer not only knew about the collusive nature of the 2015
Jones v. City of Los Angeles billing lawsuit earlier than he
maintained he did, but he also knew about and directed an extortion
payment to conceal it. Pages 750, 769
- Feuer made false or misleading statements to government
investigators about his knowledge of the payment as well as his
knowledge of the collusive lawsuit. Page 1161
- Feuer directed the City Attorney's office to withhold documents
from a California court that would
have revealed the collusive nature of the Jones litigation. Page
799
- Feuer gave false or misleading testimony in a civil deposition
and lied to the FBI about the timeline of when he knew about the
collusive nature of the Jones lawsuit. Page 804
- Feuer was in the room during the December 1, 2017 discussion of the extortion
payment, in which Feuer "impliedly directed" one of his top
officials to ensure the payment demand was "confidentially
settle[d]". Page 769
Feuer previously called such accusations "absurd" and
"malicious."
He told the Los Angeles Times in
2023: "I never attended any meeting in which there was
discussion of an extortion threat to reveal collusive litigation in
the DWP matter."
In 2022, he told KNBC: "That allegation has no merit to it. It
is from a confessed felon. I've never been involved in any such
discussion."
Feuer also said multiple times over the years that he was not
aware of his attorneys bringing a collusive lawsuit against the
city as part of a sue-and-settle scheme to get rid of multiple
lawsuits it was facing due to a botched LADWP billing
malfunction.
"No one in the city attorney's office had any involvement, or
awareness, of any such plan," a spokesman for the office
said when the scandal broke in 2019.
But in an affidavit supporting a search warrant application in
2020, FBI Agent Andy Civetti said,
"there is probable cause to believe that Feuer made false or
misleading statements to the investigation team REDACTED wherein he
denied knowledge of any hush money payment to conceal his office's
litigation practices as well as knowledge of specific other details
about the collusive litigation."
"The government documents show that Feuer lied early and lied
often," said Consumer Watchdog Litigation Director Jerry Flanagan. "The government documents paint
a disturbing picture of Feuer conspiring to obstruct justice and
ordering an extortion payment to cover up illegal and unethical
activity in order to protect his political career. The only
question now is: why hasn't he been disbarred and why isn't he in
jail?"
The California State Bar is investigating Feuer and other
lawyers involved in the scandal. Consumer Watchdog urged the State
Bar to ensure Feuer does not practice law in California again and for state law enforcement
officials to bring criminal charges including perjury, which
carries a penalty of four years in state prison.
The FBI documents answer another long-running question: Feuer
was in the room when the extortion payment was discussed and
approved it.
"Peters proffered that on Friday,
December 1, 2017, Peters participated in a scheduled meeting
with Feuer, [Chief of staff Leela]
Kapur, and [Joseph] Brajevich
(called in) to provide an update on the Salgueiro situation,"
according to the warrant.
Julissa Salgueiro, a former
employee of then-Special Counsel Paul
Kiesel, demanded $800,000 in
exchange for not going public with information that would reveal
the collusive nature of a lawsuit against the city.
"Feuer stated that Kiesel needed to do whatever needed to be
done to take care of the situation," according to the
documents.
"The evidence provides probable cause to believe that
at Feuer's direction, [Chief of Civil Litigation Thomas]
Peters ordered Kiesel to confidentially settle Salgueiro's demands
or face termination of his Special Counsel contract," according to
the warrant materials. "Peters informed the government that he
advised Feuer of Salgueiro's threats and demands, ordered Kiesel to
buy Salgueiro's silence in accordance with Feuer's perceived
direction, and apprised Feuer after the hush-money settlement that
the matter had been taken care of."
The documents also detailed Feuer's reaction to the specter of
the collusion being made public.
"Feuer's reaction was like nothing Peters had seen before,"
according to the warrant materials. "Feuer was highly emotional and
visibly upset, covering his face with his hands for a long period.
Feuer repeated multiple times that this 'can't be so.' Feuer stated
that this would be 'catastrophic,' which Peters understood to
reference the anticipated effect that disclosure of these facts
would have on the Jones settlement and the
reputation of Feuer's office."
After the eventual payment was made, the corruption scandal was
buried for another year.
The documents, based on phone and email records, audio records,
and statements by Paradis and Peters, indicate that Feuer knew more
than he let on publicly regarding the scandal in his office,
managing it behind the scenes while seeking to distance himself
from it to avoid any political fallout.
"Multiple sources of evidence provide probable cause to believe
that Feuer obstructed justice, made materially misleading
statements to the FBI, relating to the timing of Feuer's knowledge
that his Special Counsel (Paul
Paradis and Kiesel) had collaborated with opposing counsel
in a collusive lawsuit that allowed the city to settle multiple
class actions on the city's preferred terms," wrote the agent.
Despite this, Feuer furnished a letter from the Department of
Justice stating he was no longer a target of government
prosecutors. The FBI said Feuer drafted a plan envisioning his way
out of the scandal in 2019, including his hopes of obtaining such a
letter stating no one in his office was the target of the
Department of Justice's investigation.
Obstructing justice carries a penalty of up to five years
in prison. Aiding and abetting extortion carries a penalty of
up to 20 years in prison.
The U.S. Attorney's Office has closed its investigation without
bringing any charges against Feuer or any other senior members it
said directed the collusive litigation and hush payment.
"It's inexplicable that the federal prosecutors did not bring
charges against Feuer," Flanagan said.
The documents were ordered to be made public by U.S.
District Judge Stanley Blumenfeld
following redactions to any grand jury references, and personal or
medical information.
In his final order, Blumenfeld said:
"Public confidence in government—which lies at the core of a
well functioning democracy—is shaken, if not shattered, when public
officials and those operating on their behalf engage in criminal or
unethical conduct. The nature and scope of misconduct in this case,
resulting in convictions of high-level public officials at two
municipal agencies, raise serious questions about a culture of
corruption."
Tim Blood of the law firm Blood,
Hurst, O'Reardon LLP—who, like Consumer Watchdog, has been a key
figure in exposing the scandal since 2014—and open records expert
Kelly Aviles joined lawyers for
Consumer Watchdog in prosecuting the legal action to unseal the FBI
warrants.
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SOURCE Consumer Watchdog