Prosecutors want former DWP security official in jail for 51 months
David Alexander says he was entrapped by former city lawyer and FBI mole Paul Paradis
In the summer of 2019, as the government’s criminal probe into the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) was ramping up, the FBI got in touch with LADWP security officer David Alexander.
FBI Agent: Where did you leave it off with Paul about the potential job opportunity with Ardent?
Alexander: Oh, not interested.
Ardent was in reference to Ardent Cyber Solutions, a new information technology company that was scoring millions in contracts with DWP despite seemingly being created 5 minutes ago. It had been recently rebranded from Aventador Utility Solutions after I reported that it received multi-million-dollar no-bid contracts, and the company’s president, Paul Paradis, “resigned” from his other job as the city’s private lawyer for puppeteering a lawsuit for the city. Not publicly known at the time, Paradis took millions in kickbacks for the lawsuit, and bribed the head of DWP for steering DWP contracts toward his company.
The government was now eyeing Alexander, who had risen up the ranks of DWP over the past 10 years. His salary was $371,000.
FBI Agent: What about yourself? Any guarantees to Ardent?
Alexander: Absolutely not.
FBI Agent: or Paul?
Alexander: To nobody. I had no control over it.
Not long after, Alexander communicated with Paradis, who by then had been converted into an FBI mole.
“I think I can wiggle my way out of the FBI thing because there was no compensation, there was no consideration so it’s not really fraud,” said Alexander, according to court documents. “No personal gain whatsoever. And I can write that off as, ‘Hey, I’m doing what I think was good for Cyber.’”
The exchanges are from newly filed sentencing papers regarding Alexander, who is facing five years in prison after pleading guilty to lying to government investigators. Federal prosecutors, citing a betrayal of DWP and ratepayers in the wide-ranging corruption scandal, are asking a judge to sentence Alexander to 51 months in jail.
Prosecutors said Alexander manipulated two bidding processes and secured additional funds for Ardent in exchange for a job at the company. And when they asked him about it, he lied. The plan was for Alexander to be a public servant while being a shadow employee of Ardent. He asked for a secret laptop and email, prosecutors said.
“Defendant repeatedly exploited his position as a senior leader of LADWP, betraying the trust of the utility and the public and violating the requirements of fair competition for his own personal advancement and wealth,” wrote federal prosecutors.
The contracts included $10 million okay’d by the DWP board in April 2019, then part of an $82.5 million contract from the Southern California Public Power Authority in July 2019. Alexander helped skirt a competitive bidding process by reviewing Ardent proposals, allowing Paradis to edit them, said prosecutors.
“Then, defendant stacked the deck by influencing the other scorers in direct contravention of the nondisclosure agreement, with the goal of securing Ardent the cybersecurity contracts and, simultaneously, his financial future,” said prosecutors.
But it didn’t end there. Prosecutors said Alexander wanted to sweeten the deal. If Alexander retired from DWP early, he would have to eat a seven-figure early retirement penalty. So he procured $10 million in task orders, or additional smaller contracts, for Ardent, prosecutors said.
“Had it not been for the government’s disruption, the evidence demonstrates that defendant would have continued to capitalize on his LADWP position for the benefit of his future employer, Ardent,” said prosecutors.
Alexander, who is seeking probation instead of jail time, said he was “entrapped” by Paradis, an FBI informant who smothered him with a combination of friendliness, legal scare tactics, and a shared knowledge of DWP vulnerabilities.
A frequent issue that came up between the two was DWP’s apparent history of covering up violations from regulators. From Alexander’s sentencing papers:
Paradis intersperses this dialogue with references to the criminality of such conduct, that “you and I know what the fuckin’ state of affairs is with respect to the CIP [sic] violations. You and I know that your ass is going under the fuckin’ lawn mower as the guys who’s now signing off on that shit or not signing off on that shit or worse, knowing about it and not reporting it to the Feds[,]”
And Paradis insinuated that if Alexander didn’t leave DWP, he would go to jail, said Alexander.
right before Paradis induces Mr. Alexander’s discussion of steering task orders to Ardent, he asks “[d]oesn’t this present a fucking huge risk for you as the cyber risk person?...how do you intend on dealing with this? If you – if you don’t leave, what are you going to do?...[I]t’s a federal fucking law....
Alexander said he never actually agreed to any specific job terms or salary with Paradis. He said he was working in the interest of DWP, that everyone at DWP and the mayor’s office helped Ardent get the contracts.
Prosecutors said Alexander’s actions weren’t the result of a few narrow exchanges, but the result of a months-long scheme.
“Defendant committed to his corrupt plans, down to the smallest details, which included engaging in extensive communications with Paradis about the contracts that for the better part of four months.”
We’ll see what happens when the judge sentences Alexander tomorrow. I’ll be away but I’m sure someone else will be covering it.