deny 'til you die

in DWP that's literally what happened

A short post real quick after a hectic week, but I just want to highlight this video from six years ago when the DWP settlement, which underpinned this week’s federal bribery charges, was first approved. The collusive Jones settlement took forever to get okayed in court. Someone out there correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the judge rejected it like three times. It was a mess. These were just the very first vapors of bullshit surrounding the case that began to emerge, but still a few years before collusion was uncovered

In this LA Times video, Jamie Court of Consumer Watchdog held a press conference criticizing the settlement, when one of the lawyers for the incorrectly billed DWP customers, Tom Merriman, barged in. The guy was resolute that it was “a landmark settlement” that “takes some expertise.” This is coming from a random Ohio personal injury firm that had never dealt with a massive billing case like this before.

“It is tough work…it’s very easy…to call people crooks. That’s a bunch of crap,” Merriman told a scrum of press. “Let’s be clear: this is a very serious, very important settlement.”

It reminds me of one of the funniest things Trump ever said, when addressing his business dealings in Russia, he tweeted it was all “very legal & very cool.” My old Daily Journal co-workers and I thought it was so funny we immediately made t-shirts. Yes, office morale was low.

Anyway, fast forward to today and it turns out the settlement really wasn’t “tough work” because someone else drafted the lawsuit and settlement for that law firm, formerly known as Landskroner, Grieco & Merriman. And former name partner, Jack Landskroner, appears to be the figure who kicked back $2 million to a former city lawyer as part of the manufactured DWP lawsuit. What that all did was deprive incorrectly billed DWP customers of proper legal representation. Sorry that this is all a lot. Just remember that it wasn’t a real lawsuit and settlement. Landskroner refused to say anything about what happened, and took it to the grave. He died this year. In one of the wilder scenes I’ve seen in my time covering court, I watched him plead the 5th when he was asked by a judge about kickbacks.

When I started covering this case and wrote about delays and rising attorneys fees, DWP and Landskroner were selling the settlement with help from crisis public relations firm EKA, which has done work for all sorts of powerful entities, and whose goal was to sell the lie that this was a good settlement.

Landskroner said in 2015 that the settlement was a “homerun.” In later press releases, he said, “The enthusiastic response is amazing. Class members are really motivated to take full advantage of what this settlement offers.”

Even Mayor Eric Garcetti loved it.

“With this settlement, we are making good on our promise to address each and every case of overbilling at DWP, and we are implementing changes to prevent this from happening again in the future,” Garcetti said in The Daily Breeze.

Yiiiikes.

P.S. I’ve started doing some work for Consumer Watchdog, but covering tech and data privacy. It’s exciting. More soon.