B'nai B'rith Preservation Update from Superior Court and Day 1 of Ray Chan's Public Corruption Trial
B'nai B'rith Preservation Update from Superior Court and Day 1 of Ray Chan's Public Corruption Trial
Gentle reader,
Apologies to all of you who experienced the annoyance of not being able to send an email to Mayor Karen Bass. We’d apologize for giving you janky directions in Monday’s newsletter—twice!—but it’s the city that should be contrite for nuking contact methods that used to be valid and giving citizens the runaround.
So here’s the skinny—and we’ve confirmed that this works. If you want to contact the Mayor and tell her that you care about the historic B’nai B’rith Lodge and want her to veto City Council’s settlement with Catholic Charities, you need to pick up the phone and call (213) 978-0600. A human will pick up and write down your message or a machine will make a recording.
Below is a sample phone message (which you can customize with your own words):
Mayor Bass, I care about the historic B’nai B’rith Lodge at 846 South Union Avenue, a landmark for the Jewish and Labor communities where the Teamsters Union was integrated. Please veto the City Council motion (CF 23-1407), stop the demolition, and work with property owner Catholic Charities to find a preservation solution that truly serves the community and their mission. Thank you. (name, neighborhood or city)
You can also submit this as an email for the public record by clicking NEW and posting it to the Council File page here, and you can tag the Mayor on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, but the most important thing to do is to get your spoken message to the Mayor’s office.
And you really should do that, because things went really well for B’nai B’rith yesterday in court. Our preservation pals met at the Mosk Courthouse just after 1pm, eager to hear what Deputy City Attorney Lucy Atwood would tell Judge James C. Chalfant about the status of the settlement agreement.
Even though City Council had done their best to keep the public in the dark until after they voted to let Catholic Charities tear this beautiful, historic building down, the ink wouldn’t be dry on that death warrant until the Mayor had her chance to veto it.
The clerk unlocked the door to Department 85 and we eagerly rushed in. She was sweeping up and gave our motley crew the fish eye. What did we want? To attend the Catholic Charities settlement hearing, of course
Oh yeah? Well you missed it—that happened at 9:30 this morning!
Gulp! It did? Can you tell us what was decided?
Nah, I wasn’t paying attention, wait for the minute order.
We raced downstairs to check the docket, which still said the Order to Show Cause Re: Dismissal (Settlement) hearing was scheduled for 1:30pm—as the judge had said last time. But buried in a filing from a couple weeks ago, indeed, the time had been rolled back. We missed it, and had to wait until today to learn what happened. More on that below.
But since we were downtown anyway, we did a little courthouse hopping. Just down the hill at the Federal Courthouse, we knew that jury selection was underway in the retrial of former GM of LADBS and Deputy Mayor Ray Chan, Jose Huizar’s co-conspirator in the pay-for-play racketeering enterprise that has arguably wrecked the city.
We’d read the jury questions, and thought it would be interesting to hear how prospective jurors responded when asked:
• Do you believe that political donations constitute legalized corruption?
• Do you have any positive or negative feelings about foreign investment in the United States?
• Have you had any business or personal dealings with the City of Los Angeles, its elected or appointed representatives, or its Departments? If yes, was your experience positive or negative?
But when we stepped into Judge John F. Walter’s courtroom for the first time since watching Jose Huizar sentenced to 13 years in the big house, the jury and alternates had already been seated, and opening arguments were beginning! After last year’s mistrial due to Chan’s attorney’s ill health, the court was losing no time.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian R. Faerstein introduced the case as a three act play in which developers danced with powerful elected and appointed figures to obtain entitlements—the real estate upzoning perks that with a few well-placed hearings and votes could transform a parcel of land from Baltic Avenue to Park Place.
Faerstein walked the jury through the flow chart of permit approvals: City Planning Department —-> Planning Commission —-> PLUM Committee —-> City Council and described this as the playing field for Chan’s pay-to-play scheme. And integral to its success was his partnership with councilmember Jose Huizar, who had confessed his part, and the services of each man’s “George”—low level assistants put to work securing bribes, tracking hearing deadlines and managing developers.
We saw photographs of Huizar’s George Esparza and Chan’s George Chiang, and a particularly unflattering L.A. Daily News photo of a beady-eyed Huizar pretending to represent his constituents on the City Council horseshoe.
The jurors, young to middle aged, multi-racial, mainly men, took notes, nodded, yawned and stretched. It would take more seasoned court watchers than us to try to read their thoughts on the first of what’s estimated to be 12 days of testimony.
Faerstein explained that Ray Chan had three ambitions: Get Money, Keep Power, Avoid The Feds.
He succeeded beyond his wildest dreams, for years, as Mayor Eric Garcetti gave him increasingly greater powers and the Los Angeles City Attorney, Ethics Commission (which let Chan skip multiple “required” financial filing dates) and press all looked the other way. It seemed as if Chan and Huizar were untouchable, as they brought billionaire Chinese and Canadian developers into harbor, pocketed bribes and handed out real estate entitlements like Hallowe’en candy—until the FBI raided City Hall in November 2018.
On the big screen, too quick to sketch: a remarkable surveillance photograph captured Jose Huizar with a cigar in his fist, rearing back from a Las Vegas gaming table surrounded by the Georges, a fat little king selling out the city for cheap, stupid thrills.
We heard how Chan and Huizar used personal phones and email addresses to coordinate in person meetings with “The Chairman,” billionaire Wei Huang (pronounced Way Wong), a convicted fugitive from justice who owns the L.A. Grand Hotel that the city bafflingly continues to use as its largest Inside Safe facility.
Chan and Huang communicated in Chinese, but Huizar understood folding green, poker chips and paid companions.
We heard how early in Eric Garcetti’s mayorship, a plan was hatched to consolidate the offices of City Planning and Building and Safety. Here’s Michael LoGrande, the scariest person we ever toured a gutted building with, explaining that plan.
Had this happened, Chan would have been rendered powerless as LoGrande ascended. Chan needed Huizar and Huizar needed Chan to keep the graft flowing. Somehow, the proposed consolidation was spiked, it was implied with Huizar’s help. And what happened next is why we were all in court.
Ray Chan’s three act play went like so:
Act I: Help Jose Huizar get bribes.
Act II: Get himself bribes (paid to his illegal development consultancy, ostensibly owned and operated by George Chiang)
Act III: Pay other public officials bribes. (Interesting! Are any of these co-conspirators still in power?)
As for Wei Huang, he had big dreams for his stumpy, dumpy 13-story L.A. Grand Hotel perched on an on-ramp to the 110 North: he saw it flanked by a 77-story tower, the tallest building west of the Mississippi, and all it took to get there was twenty Las Vegas junkets for sleazy Huizy and his minders, the two Georges. Cheap!
Through all of this introductory narrative, Ray Chan sat in the middle of the defense table, still, alert, emotionless, compact. He wore professorial round glasses and close cropped salt-and-pepper hair. His mouth was ringed by deep nasolabial folds, carved over a lifetime by his placid, constant smile.
It was astonishing to think that this tiny, jolly man had caused so much damage to the city we love.
The jury heard about the $600,000 secret settlement deal where “The Chairman” bailed Huizar out of one of a series of embarrassing sexual scandals involving junior staff, making it go away in time for him to win re-election and keep the bribes flowing.
And there were other Chinese developers who played the Chan-Huizar game, allegedly handing over sequential bribes at each stage of the planning process—Hazens, Greenland, Oceanwide. Yeah, Oceanwide, owners of that notorious graffiti corruption tower that the city is spending millions to fence and police.
So what did it cost to buy a spot on the agenda, and yes votes? Hazens is alleged to have bribed Chan with $100,000 for the entitlements officer hearing, $150,000 for the City Planning Commission, $150,000 for PLUM (overseen by Huizar) and $100,000 for City Council. That’s a lot of cabbage.
We heard how multiple foreign billionaires developed a mysterious affinity for a tiny private Catholic boys high school in Boyle Heights and contributed generously to the Salesian gala fund. Racking up those big checks was a non-practicing attorney named Richelle Rios, who would soon take her husband’s surname, Huizar. Because his rich buddies were building up a secret PAC war chest, the cynically named Families for a Better Los Angeles, to help her run for Jose’s termed-out seat—”not as a leader or change agent,” Faerstein griped, but to get money and keep power.
Richelle, now Rios again, will be testifying for the prosecution.
Slides of evidentiary texts and emails flicked by, too quick to read. We spotted former councilmember Paul Koretz’ name on one, and references to recently indicted Curren Price, still unindicted Herb Wesson, cooperating city commissioner Joel Jacinto and MEG—the city family nickname for Mayor Eric Garcetti.
And there was a snippet of profane, heavily accented wiretapped telephone communication, with Ray Chan ranting at his George about “where the fuck is the check, okay!”
We heard about how Shawn Kuk, a high ranking Huizar planning staffer with an attitude, was desperate to leave the unpleasant CD14 office and how Chan offered to set him up with a job selling kitchen cabinets for cooperating witness Andy Wang’s NextData Automation. In this moment, we caught a glimpse of the cruel sadism hiding behind Ray Chan’s beatific grin, and wondered if it would come out further in court.
Then came the defense and it was truly something else. New attorney John Hanusz came right to his crazy point: the government was painting a dark picture of a criminal syndicate with Chan as the kingpin, but this was all fiction, worthy of Hollywood. Ray Chan was simply a true believer, motivated not by personal gain but by his gratitude for rising in the civic ranks as an immigrant to this country and an adopted Angeleno. He loved Los Angeles! (Where have we heard that line of crap before?) His vision was of a diverse metropolis where somebody could raise a family and start a business. Ray Chan simply made Los Angeles better.
At LADBS, he changed the course of that mighty ship, to encourage development instead of standing in its way. Chan “turned off the red lights, cut the red tape and rolled out the red carpet—and this city benefited.”
Then when he was ready to retire after 29 years of service, MEG wouldn’t let him go, and tapped him to bring his can-do attitude into the Deputy Mayor’s suite, in charge of Economic Development, overseeing both Planning and Building and Safety.
Chan never went to Las Vegas. He didn’t gamble or drink or party. He just revitalized Downtown and mentored underlings—like Steve Ongele, who has been filing desperate documents in his own pending whistleblower retaliation trial. (Also, Chan allegedly pocketed a fortune in exchange for official acts, but whatever.) John Hanusz sat down, and the FBI’s Andrew Civetti stood up and set the stage for the trial to come.
Starting slow, Civetti described his training, and the means by which the FBI investigates public corruption. In this case, that began with a tip from someone alleging entitlements were being sold to fast track the development of some L.A. projects—and that others were kept off the agendas that Jose Huizar controlled.
And there was one bombshell. Chairman Wei Huang got cocky, and submitted two huge projects to the Los Angeles City Planning Department on the same day, June 7, 2018. One was to redevelop the Sheraton Universal City, the other was the L.A. Grand Hotel. Exactly five months later, Federal agents would burst in on Jose Huizar’s home and City Hall office and blow Operation Casino Loyale wide open.
If you’d like to pay a visit to Judge Walter’s courtroom over the next couple of weeks, you too can bear witness to the trial of Ray Chan, and what we hope marks the beginning of the end of a particularly ugly era in Los Angeles. There are some colorful characters slated to take the stand, and so much civic tea to spill. Security in the Federal Courthouse is comparable to an international flight, so leave your pocket knife and pepper spray at home and go soak up some real L.A. Noir, as told by some of the greedy people who got caught up in what his defense attorney spins as Ray Chan’s beautiful dream, and what we see as a city-wide nightmare. Somebody, please, wake us up!
But back to B’nai B’rith and the Mayor’s veto… according to the minute order which came out this evening, Judge Chalfant wouldn’t sign off on the settlement until Karen Bass has had her chance to reverse it! Under the city’s rules, she has until March 18—so call early and often and urge her to veto the settlement that allows Catholic Charities to get a demolition permit. The parties won’t be back in court again for two months, which means this beautiful, richly historic landmark will enjoy at least some of her 101st year in the sun. And if we all keep calling (213) 978-0600, maybe she won’t get demolished at all!
Now there’s even more to tell you about our afternoon in and around the courts, some exciting and hopeful news about our favorite endangered Queen Palm, Sunshine, but that’s a story that deserves its own newsletter. Soon!
Yours for Los Angeles,
Kim & Richard
Esotouric
Psst… If you’d like to support our efforts to be the voice of places worth preserving, we have a tip jar and a subscriber edition of this newsletter, vintage Los Angeles webinars available to stream, in-person tours and a souvenir shop you can browse in. We’ve also got recommended reading bookshelves on Amazon and the Bookshop indie bookstore site. You can share this post to win subscriber perks. And did you know we offer private versions of our walking and bus tours for groups big or small? Or just share this link with other people who care.
UPCOMING BUS & WALKING TOURS
• SOLD OUT Know Your Downtown L.A.: Tunnels To Towers To The Dutch Chocolate Shop (Sat. 3/16) • The Run: Gay Downtown History (Sat. 3/23) • Franklin Village Old Hollywood (Sat. 3/30) • John Fante’s Downtown Los Angeles Birthday (Sat. 4/6) • Raymond Chandler’s Noir Downtown (Sat. 4/13) • Human Sacrifice: The Black Dahlia, Elisa Lam, Heidi Planck & Skid Row Slasher Cases (Sat. 4/20) • Downtown Los Angeles is for Book Lovers (Sat. 4/27) • Alvarado Terrace & South Bonnie Brae Tract (Sat. 5/4) • Charles Bukowski’s Westlake (Sat. 5/11) • Hotel Horrors & Main Street Vice (Sat. 5/18) • Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 (Sat. 5/25) • POP – Preserving Our Past (Sat. 6/1) • Westlake Park (Sat. 6/8) • Highland Park Arroyo (Sat. 6/15) • Film Noir / Real Noir (Sat. 6/29) • Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue (Sat. 7/13) • Know Your Downtown L.A.: Tunnels To Towers To The Dutch Chocolate Shop (7/27)