XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.los-angeles, law.court.federal
XPost: sac.politics

More than 1,000 pages of confidential documents from a federal criminal investigation into the Los Angeles city attorney’s office and the
Department of Water and Power will be unsealed, a federal judge signaled Friday.

The Times and Consumer Watchdog had requested the documents to better understand the government’s criminal case and whether former City Atty.
Mike Feuer bore any culpability for a scandal involving a sham lawsuit and
an extortion plot. Feuer has long denied wrongdoing.

In a tentative ruling, U.S. District Judge Stanley Blumenfeld Jr. said the documents, which consist mainly of dozens of search warrants filed during
the government’s investigation, will be unsealed, with personal data
redacted.

The names of public officials, along with individuals who are
“wrongdoers,” will not be redacted, Blumenfeld said at a hearing Friday —
a blow to prosecutors who had sought to keep the officials’ names from the public.

The Times and Consumer Watchdog are expected to work with the U.S.
attorney’s office to ready the documents for release in the coming weeks.

Much of Friday’s hearing centered on Feuer and whether an FBI agent’s
alleged assertions that Feuer lied to a grand jury and lied to the FBI
should be redacted.

The FBI agent’s purported comments, made in an affidavit for a search
warrant, were revealed in court by a defendant, Paul Paradis, at his
sentencing in November.

Paradis, a former attorney turned cooperating witness for the federal government, pleaded guilty to accepting a nearly $2.2 million kickback
from another attorney working on the DWP case and was sentenced to 33
months in prison.

Paradis had ingratiated himself at City Hall, befriending top city
officials. An outside lawyer from New York, he was retained by Feuer’s
office to help with litigation related to the DWP, then went on to secure separate contracts at the DWP.

Later, he secretly recorded high-ranking city officials and was present
when armed agents raided the home of DWP general manager David Wright, who
is serving a six-year sentence after conspiring to give Paradis a
lucrative contract.

Jerry Flanagan, an attorney for Consumer Watchdog and The Times, told Blumenfeld that the FBI agent’s comments amounted to an “opinion” that
wasn’t subject to federal rules that require grand jury information to be
kept confidential. Flanagan also argued that the “cat is out of the bag” because Paradis had publicly revealed the alleged comments.

Blumenfeld appeared concerned about protecting the secrecy of the grand
jury process and said he would rule later on the issue.

Feuer has said he had no knowledge of any crimes. In a 2022 letter, the
U.S. attorney’s office told Feuer that he wasn’t a target in their
criminal investigation.

When asked by The Times last November about the FBI agent‘s alleged
statements, Feuer pointed to the 2022 letter.

Feuer also told The Times last year that he gave the U.S. attorney’s
office his phone in 2020, but investigators did not search his home or
office.

A former state assemblymember and L.A. City Council member, Feuer ran for
L.A. mayor in 2022 but dropped out shortly before the primary. Last month,
he finished fourth in the primary for the congressional seat being vacated
by Rep. Adam B. Schiff.

The 1,400 pages of search warrants and other documents requested by The
Times and Consumer Watchdog were issued between 2019 and 2021.

Court filings by prosecutors in the criminal case make clear that some individuals, including city officials who remain anonymous in the filings,
took part in or were aware of various schemes.

Only four people were ultimately charged, and prosecutors said that their
case concluded last year.

The criminal prosecution centered on a 2015 class-action lawsuit brought
by DWP customers over massive errors caused by a new billing system at the utility.

The lawsuit was covertly written by Paradis, then working for Feuer’s
office, who handed the suit to an outside attorney to file against the
city.

The goal, according to prosecutors, was to settle all the claims by
various DWP customers on terms advantageous to the city.

Prosecutors also uncovered other unethical and illegal schemes, including
an illicit payment involving the city attorney’s office.

Blumenfeld said at Friday’s hearing that he expected the name of one
person, Julissa Salgueiro, to remain unredacted in the search warrants and other documents.

“Ms. Salgueiro is a quintessential wrongdoer,” Blumenfeld said, describing
why her name should be unredacted.

Prosecutors have never named or charged Salgueiro, but their court filings refer to a former employee of a Beverly Hills law firm who threatened to
reveal the city’s collusive lawsuit over the DWP billing errors.

The employee had “stolen or improperly retained” documents showing the collusive lawsuit and demanded money for their return, prosecutors said in court documents.

Thomas Peters, a top aide to Feuer, was charged with aiding and abetting extortion after being ordered by unnamed city staff to take care of the employee’s threats, according to prosecutors. Prosecutors never charged
any other senior staff members from the city attorney’s office.

After pleading guilty, Peters was sentenced to nine months home detention
and ordered to pay a $50,000 fine.

Salgueiro’s attorney, William Pitman, told The Times on Friday that he “respectfully disagrees with Judge Blumenfeld’s opinion.” His client has
never been charged, indicted and has no criminal history, he said.

“With regard to the unsealing motion, Ms. Salguiero was never notified [of
the case],” said Pitman.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-04-12/documents-unsealed- city-attorney-dwp-corruption

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)