In Court as Former General Manager of LADBS and Deputy Mayor Ray Chan is Sentenced to 12 years in Prison for Public Corruption

Oct 05, 2024

Gentle reader,

We slept fitfully, knowing we had to be back in Judge John Walter’s courtroom 7A very early to see Ray Chan, the highest ranking public official other than his co-conspirator, disgraced councilmember Jose Huizar, sentenced for his role in the years long CD-14 racketeering enterprise that transformed Downtown Los Angeles.

It always takes longer than we think it will to get through the airport style security lines at the Federal Courthouse, as folks struggle out of their belts, watches and shoes. When we finally entered the courtroom, the proceedings had been going on for half an hour and the small room was packed with about 50 people.

There were a few U.S. attorneys, a smattering of media, Strefan Fauble from the City Attorney’s office and as on the day he was convicted, dozens of friends of the defendant there to show their support, both to Ray Chan and to the judge.

We ended up seated between Fauble and one of the notorious City Hall gadflies, which seemed like a fitting set of civic book ends as this case finally reached its end.

If the name Ray Chan is new to you, blame the AWOL media, which has failed to treat his shocking crimes with the seriousness they deserve, or to draw the clear line between the bribes Chan solicited from Chinese developers and the policies advanced by Mayor Eric Garcetti who elevated him first to GM of Building and Safety, then brought him into his office as Deputy Mayor for Economic Development, ignoring serious ethical questions and allegations of money laundering and influence peddling.

Ambassador Garcetti wasn’t in the dock with Chan, but he should have been.

We’ve been reporting on Chan’s criminal trials since last March, picking up where our coverage of Jose Huizar’s crimes and career left off. This is the seventh Ray Chan dispatch, and all the links can be found here.

In court this morning, Judge Walter went carefully through the charges for which Chan had been found guilty, and ruled that a long sentence was appropriate, not so much to prevent the elderly, infirm and retired Chan from reoffending, but to send a message to public officials considering following his corrupt path, and to citizens who have lost faith in their local government.

Chan’s lawyer Michael G. Freedman did most of the talking today, while John Hanusz stayed close to the defendant, occasionally whispering in his ear and physically supporting him as he stood to be sentenced.

While seeking to downgrade Chan’s Level 4 sentencing enhancement, Freedman tried to argue that as General Manager of LADBS, Chan had no power to issue building permits, since much Los Angeles development is ministerial (automatic) in nature. The judge wasn’t having it, ruling that both Chan and Jose Huizar were public officials with significant influence over what got built.

John Hanusz argued that when Chan lied to the FBI about a bribe he facilitated for Jose Huizar, he wasn’t under oath, so it shouldn’t increase his sentence. The judge countered that this lie delayed the investigation. Enhancement applied.

The government pushed against Chan’s defense that he was simply born to help people, and had erred by aiding Jose Huizar to commit acts that proved to be illegal. To the contrary: Chan had purposely exploited his public office to increase his own standing and power, overseeing multiple bribery schemes over at least five years, concealing his involvement and “play acting” that he was just trying to be helpful, when in fact he was helping himself and his cronies to a fortune in criminal gains.

Now Ray Chan stood and addressed the court, a little gray man with a buzz cut and a dark blue suit a little too big for him, a lifetime of smiles etched onto his face.

In a soft, lightly accented voice, Chan said, “I worked for the City for 33 years. I brought business and projects and enhanced the economy of Los Angeles, I’m proud of that. I consider helping people one of my life’s missions. It comes from my [Catholic] faith—in my work and my personal life. I am grateful and humbled by the support of the people who are here and wrote letters—”

And here he turned over his shoulder to the left and to the right and barked “Thank you very much for being here!” in a loud, forceful voice that was as if a completely different person was standing in the dock.

After a long trial, this was our first and only glimpse of Sifu Chan the Kung Fu master, of Mr. LADBS the deal maker, of the Deputy Mayor charged with keeping Chinese billionaires happy and shoveling money into Jose Huizar’s CD-14. Just as suddenly, that aggressive leader was gone and the little gray man returned.

“Unfortunately, at times my desire to help people altered my judgement and I helped the wrong people. I regret that. I hope my lifetime record of good deeds show I am not the person who committed wrongdoings. I plead for your mercy due to my age, my goodness, my health, my responsibilities. Thank you for listening to me.” He sat back down.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office got the last word, with prosecutor Susan S. Har observing that Chan and Huizar were on the same level, and Chan was not just trying to help, but embraced the criminal enterprise. Further, in deflecting blame by suggesting he had helped the wrong person, he was not accepting responsibility for his actions.

Now to the sentence. The Government had recommended a range of 210-262 months in custody. The Probation Department suggested 120 months. Ray Chan was asking for 33 months, and many of the character letters from friends and family begged for this to be served as home confinement, so he could continue looking after his wife, mother and grandchildren.

But Judge Walter wanted to send a message to others in public office who might be tempted to engage in similar crimes, and he wasn’t swayed by age, illness, familial need, loss of professional qualifications or decades of achievement by this immigrant made good, this civil servant who rose through the ranks to run the massive LADBS and ended his career as Deputy Mayor, and who was partly convicted by the evidence of his own custom “radar screen” analog calendar time management system, in which he tracked his bribery of Jose Huizar’s unhappy planning director Shawn Kuk.

If Chan was worried about his family, he should have thought about them before engaging in racketeering crimes that could put him away for many years. The judge observed that Chan would never see his mother again.

The judge said that Chan was entrusted with a powerful office and exploited it, sending a simple message to developers: join the pay to play scheme or your project will never be approved.

(This is not exactly true. During the trial, we learned that the developers of the Perla condominium tower at 4th and Broadway wouldn’t pay to play, which is why their building has a setback that respects the 12 story uniformity of the early 20th century National Register district, rising to 35 stories that can’t be seen from the sidewalk and creating an expansive pool and garden deck. Had they bribed Chan and Huizar, they might have gotten around the historic rules, and Broadway and the building would be the worse for it.)

Chan was key to the CD-14 Enterprise, steering the Chinese developers into harbor for Jose Huizar to bribe them. And here the judge named not just the cases that the government chose to prosecute, but projects and developers that very likely were also given the shakedown treatment, including the discounted Greenland tower and the tagged and abandoned Oceanwide Plaza that’s cost the city $1 Million + to secure.

Chan deliberately concealed his crimes, deleting thousands of incriminating text messages found on his co-conspirators’ phones and deceptively writing “attorney client privilege” on paper documents he didn’t want the Feds to see.

Judge Walter rejected the defense attempt to compare his proposed sentence with others on the Judiciary Sentencing INformation (JSIN) platform. There were simply not enough California public corruption cases, and certainly none comparable in seriousness to serve as a meaningful aid in sentence determination. He would work it out on his own.

And man, did he.

For abusing the public trust for personal gain, Ray Chan was sentenced to 144 months—a very long sentence for a 68 year old man with chronic health problems and no priors.

But his attorneys did succeed in their efforts to see Chan serve less time than his partner in wrecking the city: the sentence is one year shorter than the one Jose Huizar is supposed to finally begin serving no later than Monday.

Chan was instructed to pay $752,457 in restitution to the City of Los Angeles, $185,000 immediately and $425,000 no later than six months from today, with the remainder to be paid in small increments during his incarceration and after. On release, he would be supervised for three years. Chan’s attorney objected to drug testing, and the judge agreed it seemed unnecessary. His personal devices and cloud storage would be subject to search, his tax returns turned over.

While he is expected to appeal his sentence and must do so within the next two weeks (with a court appointed attorney if he can no longer afford representation), he must turn himself in to the California Department of Corrections or the U.S. Marshall in the Federal Courthouse by noon on Monday, January 6, 2025. He gets a few extra days of freedom beyond the standard 90 due to the new year’s holiday.

So has Los Angeles public corruption been dealt a crushing blow from the force of the Federal investigation into Jose Huizar’s CD-14 Enterprise and the associated trials and convictions?

Hell no.

Convicted co-conspirator Wei Huang still owns his LA Grand Hotel, planned redevelopment of which was one peg on which the prosecution hung its tent. Wei Huang bribed Jose Huizar with $600,000 to pay off one of the staffers he had been sexually harassing, thus shutting her up before the pivotal 2015 council election against Gloria Molina.

Jose Huizar won that election, largely by touting his pro-development Downtown track record—a record that his and related trials shows to have been the product of systemic corruption, bought votes and shakedowns that in some cases drove ethical developers and legacy businesses out of the neighborhood.

Huizar’s win ushered in three more years of crooked politicking and theft of honest services from constituents, and undermined community strength and small businesses in the boom years leading up to the pandemic shut down.

There is no way to adequately account for the harm done, nor to hold the bad actors accountable. Every businessperson whose bottom line took a hit because special favors were doled out to Chinese billionaires who were paying off Huizar and Chan received less in Covid-19 grants and loans. You might not even realize you were a victim!

Billionaire Wei Huang is now a fugitive from justice who has never appeared in court to face the judge and answer to the public. His Downtown hotel could have been seized for the public good under California State Section 1090; it still could be.

But instead of seeking to apply that statute, Mayor Karen Bass funneled millions of dollars to this criminal, using his hotel as the city’s biggest Project Roomkey site, squandering public funds to house people experiencing homelessness in a building the City could have taken for that purpose.

And just yesterday, new City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, Jose Huizar’s successor on the Planning and Land Use Management Committee announced his hand-picked choice for Chair, arguably L.A.’s most powerful committee position.

Harris-Dawson had 14 other councilmembers to choose from, and he picked John Lee—the unindicted co-conspirator known as Staffer B in the DOJ’s Las Vegas bribery case against convicted racketeer Mitch Englander—a crime that is a part of the same overarching PLUM voting conspiracy for which Jose Huizar and Ray Chan have now been convicted!

It is shocking, inappropriate, contemptuous and wrong. This appointment should not stand, and if we had a real newspaper or a functioning democracy in City Hall, it would not stand.

It’s up to the people to take their city back, hard as it is to claw back power from a system that exists to perpetuate itself and disenfranchise you. We believe it’s possible, and that Los Angeles is worth fighting for.

The judge dismissed everyone. Ray Chan walked into a courtroom that was suddenly swarming and buzzing with love energy. His friends, the people who had enjoyed and benefited from the goodness and helpfulness that was his defense, and that was no defense at all, rushed to embrace him. Chan gave each one his full attention. He held the door for everyone. He very nearly moved to hug Kim, but she darted away in time.

Chan’s charisma and warmth is undeniable. The love and concern of his friends and family is real.

And we call bullshit.

When you have remarkable personal gifts, especially when you claim to be a person of faith, you have a responsibility to use those gifts for good and not evil. When you are granted a position of enormous political influence, you have a choice to help everyone equally and ethically, or to advance the desires of your cronies, countrymen and financial benefactors instead.

Ray Chan is a crooked man, hooked on praise, willing to sell out the City that gave him everything to help a dirty councilman and greedy Chinese investors screw everything up. The suffering on our streets is on his hands, and twelve years sounds like a good start to get a bad man away from the vulnerable and impressionable people he sought to influence and deceive.

We left Ray Chan to his adoring fans. There were no news cameras and no US Attorney press conference outside, just a gaggle of giggly gadflies in the shadow of a shamed and untrustworthy City Hall and a vacant, fenced off Los Angeles Times building, its sidewalk clotted with tents.

The Feds seem to be done, and they haven’t cleaned up the town.

Too bad. We’re grateful that District Attorney George Gascón’s Public Corruption lead Casey Higgins is on councilmember Curren Price’s case, and eagerly await the next indictment.

Buckle up!

Saturday’s tour is a very special one, Know Your Downtown L.A. Sign up for a rare chance to explore the shuttered landmark Dutch Chocolate Shop, decorated floor to ceiling with custom Arts & Crafts tile and murals by Ernest Batchelder, to visit the Prohibition speakeasy relics beneath the King Edward Hotel (sneak peak!) and to explore modern Bunker Hill with native son Gordon Pattison, whose family owned the last two mansions that survived redevelopment and might be the last person alive who remembers what life was like in the lost Victorian neighborhood served by Angels Flight Railway. Join us, do!

Yours for Los Angeles,

Kim & Richard

Esotouric

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