We must have missed the announcement, but apparently the Los Angeles City Council has been sold to Court TV.
It’s as good an explanation as any for the wall-to-wall stories of court dates, guilty pleas, search warrants and indictments. Every day it’s something else, and if you try to change the channel, it’s like all the buttons on the remote are broken. There’s no escape.
Well, there’s always the U-Haul escape, which more and more Los Angeles residents are finding attractive.
If you’re sticking around, here’s a round-up of the courtroom coverage to come.
Former City Council member Jose Huizar is set to go on trial in February. He is charged with racketeering and bribery, accused of working a pay-to-play scheme in which he agreed to take $1.5 million in bribes from real estate developers in exchange for a little help to get projects approved. He has pleaded not guilty.
Life became more complicated for Huizar last week when his older brother Salvador Huizar pleaded guilty to a charge of lying to the FBI about receiving envelopes of cash from his brother. Apparently, the then-councilman gave his brother the cash and asked him to write a check for the same amount from his own checking account.
Salvador Huizar has agreed to testify at his brother’s corruption trial.
In earlier court filings in the Huizar case, Salvador Huizar was referred to as “Relative A-3,” but now that he has pleaded guilty, there’s no hiding his identity. Other court filings have referred to female relatives who have been identified in news reports as Jose Huizar’s mother, Isidra Huizar, and his wife, Richelle Huizar.
If you think your family should probably hide the sharp knives on Thanksgiving, just imagine dinner with the Huizars.
Salvador Huizar is also scheduled to testify in a trial that’s beginning now of Shen Zhen New World I, a company owned by fugitive real estate developer Wei Huang, who is accused of paying bribes to Jose Huizar in exchange for helpful votes on his project.
Federal prosecutors have already obtained a conviction in the case of real estate developer Dae Yong Lee and his company. Lee was convicted in June of bribery and related charges involving a $500,000 payment to Jose Huizar.
Set your DVR for February because along with the trial of the former councilman, former Los Angeles Deputy Mayor Raymond Chan is also going on trial. He has been charged with racketeering. There aren’t enough hours in the day to watch it all.
This probe into Jose Huizar has been going on for six years and a number of guilty pleas have already been obtained. We don’t know how many people are cooperating with the investigation, but after that leaked recording of a conversation between three City Council members and a labor leader, we can guess that everybody has something on everybody else, and nobody’s going to prison without first releasing all of it.
In a separate case that may need its own Court TV show, L.A. City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas is scheduled to go on trial on November 15. He is charged in a federal corruption case stemming from his time as a Los Angeles County Supervisor. After he was indicted, his colleagues on the City Council voted to suspend him, which he contends is illegal because he has been indicted for alleged actions as a supervisor, not a councilman.
A debate over ethics in Los Angeles is like an argument over how many crooks can dance on the head of a pin.
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Ridley-Thomas is accused of scheming with a former dean of the USC School of Social Work to get a scholarship, graduate school admission and a faculty position for his son in exchange for a lucrative county contract for USC. Ridley-Thomas has pleaded not guilty to charges that include conspiracy and bribery.
In what may be a problem for him, the former USC dean, Marilyn Louise Flynn, has pleaded guilty to bribery in the case.
Can a lapsed public official escape a bribery conviction even as the party accused of bribing him pleads guilty to the charge?
And what about Thanksgiving at the Huizars?
Tune in to the L.A. government. It’s a thrill a minute.
Write Susan@SusanShelley.com and follow her on Twitter @Susan_Shelley