federal prosecutors are blocking ladwp documents from being public. what are they hiding?

the government didn't prosecute senior city attorney officials who directed an extortion payment. now it's trying to stop the publication of more than 1,500 documents related to its investigation.

mike feuer is now a candidate for u.s. congress

As I’ve written before, the story of the corruption coming out of the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office and the Department of Water and Power has changed. It’s no longer about federal prosecutors going after the city officials responsible for this mess. It’s about protecting them. Somebody high up committed a crime, and that person or persons haven’t been brought to justice. The government certainly knows more. So let’s look at what’s been happening lately…

First, prosecutors ended their investigation over a year ago. I reported how the lead prosecutor in LADWP left the U.S. Attorney's Office, and how the Public Corruption Unit left it unfinished. The Los Angeles Times ran a good overview of what’s happened today.

The shift has focused to the State Bar of California, which 4.5 years later hasn’t brought charges, but also to a civil case on behalf of ratepayers against the city of Los Angles. That federal case, Bradshaw v. City of Los Angeles, argues that the city violated plaintiff’s due process rights relating to the collusive Jones lawsuit over utility bills. As you probably know by now, the evil dorks inside the city attorney’s office cooked up a scheme in 2015 to sue themselves in order to control a public relations disaster over LADWP’s messed up billing system. Bradshaw attorneys are now seeking to get over 1,500 documents pertaining to the government’s investigation from Paul Paradis, the former city lawyer who has pleaded guilty in-connection with the debacle. Paradis received the discovery earlier this year from federal prosecutors ahead of his sentencing.

But prosecutors are fighting to keep secret the documents, which are locked down under what are called special “use parameters.” Under the agreement with the government, Paradis can’t share the documents with anyone besides his attorneys or the judge in his criminal case. When Paradis asked prosecutors this summer if he could share them in order to respond to a subpoena in the Bradshaw case, they said no, calling them “highly sensitive.” The government said allowing Paradis to share the discovery with the attorney would reveal “many” people, including “city officials,” who were under investigation but were ultimately not charged. The trove of documents contain 33 search warrants that the government obtained, 13 interviews with Paradis, and a list of 184 covert recordings made by Paradis of various city officials, some of which helped prosecute them.

But the attorney seeking those documents, Filippo Marchino of the X-Law Group, said in court filings that he believes the documents contain information that are super relevant to his case, which seeks to show how City Attorney Mike Feuer’s office deprived utility customers of their rights when it installed ratepayers with puppet attorneys in the Jones case. Marchino asked Paradis if he had any personal knowledge of any illegal or unethical acts committed by then City Attorney Feuer, his former deputy Jim Clark, or others involved in the litigation. Paradis said that he did.

“The documents in Paradis’ possession are likely to have information pertaining to the other defendants named in this action, as well as additional  participants in the Jones scheme whose identities plaintiff is not yet aware of,” wrote Marchino in a motion to compel production of the government documents. “Such information would be crucial to establishing many of the facts in this case.”

Prosecutors, who are now trying to intervene, said Paradis and Marchino are engaging in “collusive/gamesmanship.” The government also asked for a protective order from the criminal judge to prevent Paradis from distributing the docs.

Although he can’t share those docs, Paradis said, “I believe that the only entity engaged in “gamesmanship” here is the government, itself,” said Paradis in a court declaration. “The government’s refusal to permit plaintiff Bradshaw to discover this critically significant evidence is extremely troubling and should not be countenanced under any circumstances,” said Paradis.

Those who were charged included LADWP General Manager David Wright, LADWP cyber security executive David Alexander, and Thomas Peters, a senior member of the city attorney’s office. Peters pleaded guilty to ordering an attorney for the city to pay nearly $1 million to conceal collusion in the Jones case, a directive prosecutors themselves said was carried out by Peters’ bosses. Prosecutors also said that it wasn’t Peters who was the “architect” of the underlying collusive ratepayer lawsuit. He was just following orders.

But prosecutors have not charged the “senior member” who authorized the collusive lawsuit, and the “senior members” who ordered the subsequent extortion payment to conceal it. Public records show Feuer was calendared for the 12/1/17 meeting in which prosecutors say the extortion payment was ordered. A text message from Peters to Paradis following the meeting says, “Mike is not firing anyone at this point. But he is far from happy about the prospect of a sideshow.” But prosecutors, acting more like defense attorneys, also quote from that text message, but leave “Mike” out.

government docs referencing extortion meeting text. they leave out “mike.”

but here’s the full text.

So why haven’t any senior officials been charged? Prosecutors usually love public corruption cases. From what I understand the thing that usually stops them from doing their jobs is if somebody intervenes. Mike Feuer’s a longtime, connected Democrat. His wife’s a judge. They run in elite legal and political circles. Did prosecutors have sufficient evidence that Feuer committed a crime, but didn’t prosecute him because of a directive from high up? The government has collected a lot more information about this case than is publicly known. There are 33 search warrants under seal. What did they find out? Did any of those warrants involve Feuer? We now know that a grand jury did convene following the criminal judge’s order this week. Did Feuer, his chief of staff Leela Kapur, former DWP general counsel Joseph Brajevich, or Clark appear before a grand jury? We don’t know and can only speculate because the government isn’t saying anything. Also, if the government is calling a city lawyer who helped cover up the collusive lawsuit a “victim,” then what else is it hiding? What is the government really worried about revealing?

This isn’t about protecting the government’s “strategy,” or the innocent in this matter. Government prosecutors went after Mark Ridley-Thomas, who was a powerful Black LA politician. You would think Feuer, a suspicious White guy in 2023 dripping with privilege, would be picked off in a heartbeat by the serious professionals inside the U.S. Attorney’s Office. But nah. He must really know some people. Instead, prosecutors have achieved the appearance of justice, while the shotcallers run free.

Over the summer, the Public Corruption Unit took a vow of transparency before the judge. Assistant United States Attorney Jamari Buxton told Judge Stanley Blumenfeld, who has been sentencing LADWP defendants, “It’s in the government’s prerogative to be as transparent as possible. These are public proceedings, and the public certainly deserves to know.”

But just not when it comes to this matter. I know this is a complicated and unsexy story about scheming lawyers, but it’s a serious one. Keep this in mind: Mike Feuer as city attorney was the top law enforcement official in Los Angeles. He ran for mayor, and he’s now running for federal office. Over and over again, we were deceived, lied to, and then hit with the bill.

The government should at the very least tell us why those senior officials weren’t charged. They have done that before. That’s transparency.

Update: The judge in Paradis’ criminal case has ordered that the government turn over “specified grand jury materials” to the State Bar of California. That means Bar investigators will get access to information they don’t have as they conduct their own probe into LADWP attorney misconduct. 👀