Will Curren Price's corruption trial be the one to blow the lid off neo-noir Los Angeles?

Gentle reader,

It’s been about five years since the first Los Angeles councilman was indicted for public corruption, and despite all the court cases, confessions, convictions and kerfuffle, the city is still about as crooked as a dog’s hind leg.

With a system this rotten, you pretty much have to hose it out and start over.

And yet, we’re still romantic about the courts as the place where effective storytelling meets power, and the truth can change the world. In this dark decade and change since Mayor Eric Garcetti took office and big real estate sunk its fangs into the neck of L.A., one of the only things to help has been getting the City Planning Department’s dirty deeds in front of a sane, clean judge.

And while the corruption cases brought by the DOJ have failed to make a real difference to anything but Jose Huizar’s grandiose retirement plans, they have helped to show how elected officials dance to a tune played by anonymous civil servants, powerful lobbyists and deep pocketed donors.

We won’t fix the city by arresting politicians. But by watching them closely, at work and in the dock, we can still learn a lot.

And what we learned yesterday morning in Departments 30 and 119 of the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center is that the Curren Price prosecution might, at last, be the one to watch.

What’s different this time? After Jose Huizar (confessed to racketeering, no trial), Mitch Englander (confessed to racketeering, no trial), Mark Ridley-Thomas (convicted of bribery and fraud) and the high reaching DWP scandal that was ignored by everyone except the dogged and furious investigative reporter Justin Kloczko

the debaser

, why should anyone wake up with the chickens, trek downtown and sit on a hard wooden bench trying to make sense of hours of opaque procedure and legal jargon?

Because this case isn’t being tried by the US Attorney’s office, but by the District Attorney. And we think that local angle is no accident: the Feds are no longer investigating corruption in Los Angeles City Hall.

Oh, you hadn’t heard? Well, it’s not public knowledge, but it’s true. How do we know? Because in September, after staff working for the Los Angeles Ethics Commission launched a groundless investigation of us for being unregistered lobbyists, we reported the attempt at intimidation to the FBI… or rather, we tried to.

As we have several times since 2021, we wrote up the facts about something slimy and sent an email to pctips-losangeles@fbi.gov, the dedicated L.A. public corruption tips email address that has been listed at the bottom of every press release since soon after Jose Huizar’s home and office were raided by the FBI in 2018. The email bounced.

Microsoft Outlook: Delivery has failed to these recipients or groups: pctips-losangeles@fbi.gov Your message couldn't be delivered because you don't have permission to send to this recipient. Ask the recipient's email admin to grant you permission and then try again.

We wrote to Ciaran McEvoy, the Public Information Officer for the U.S. Attorney's Office, Central District of California for clarification, and soon got an answer.

From the FBI: The PCTIPS email address was deactivated in April 2023. We will follow up with HQ to remove it from the website. All complaints, PC-related or otherwise, should be submitted by the public through the normal channels – 1-800-CALL-FBI, tips@fbi.gov.

Just two months later, in June 2023, Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón announced corruption charges against councilman Curren Price—charges that include the obviously purchased Planning & Land Use (PLUM) Committee real estate votes that local activists, including ourselves, have been screaming about for years.

Got $1 and a full city block? Then you can move 83 rent controlled units emptied by Del Richardson, demolition voted on by Curren Price.

Former D.A. Jackie Lacey claimed in 2017 to be “reviewing a complaint” about Price, but she did nothing to stop him from voting to demolish the rent controlled buildings owned by his wife’s clients. Angelenos have been made homeless by these votes, and we are sure that some have died on the streets. Handsome and useful buildings have been or soon will be destroyed, contributing to the manufactured homelessness crisis that is sucking up all civic resources and making public space unusable by those housed or unhoused.

We can tell you the exact day that we lost faith in the Feds cleaning up Los Angeles City Hall, because it’s also when we realized how profoundly necessary it is to have dedicated reporters in the local, state and Federal courts.

One such reporter is

Meghann Cuniff

, working independently and publishing on her own Substack newsletter, YouTube and social media channels. She’s great and we hope you’ll subscribe if you’re able.

On August 28, while we were still flushed with adrenalin from Kim’s impetuous decision to chase Dr. Cornel West off the courthouse steps after he tried to downplay Mark Ridley-Thomas’ corruption conviction, Cuniff published her in-depth analysis of the last day of MRT’s trial, calling out something that no other reporter present had thought worth mentioning: the 25 page sentencing exhibit showing how the then County Supervisor allowed a home share lobbyist, who we suspect is the politically connected John Choi, to write legislation. (We wrote a lot more about this in the Cornel West newsletter linked above.)

Mark Ridley-Thomas’ trial was a snooze fest, with no compelling characters and involving crimes that had no direct impact on everyday life. The Airbnb allegations are hot stuff that would have grabbed the attention of every Angeleno who is concerned about homelessness, historic preservation, quality of life issues and the refusal to enforce the laws around illegal misuse of rent controlled housing. Yet the Feds essentially buried this bombshell in the back of a drawer, with no public testimony, no flashy press conferences, just a stray document that was catnip to the one real journalist in the room. Thanks, Meghann!

Because Curren Price got an early birthday present and managed to evade arraignment for the fourth time on Friday, with a mid-hearing transfer to a separate courtroom, we ended up riding up and down in the elevator with Deputy District Attorney Casey C. Higgins, who is trying the case. He’s a friendly guy.

We mentioned that our friend Miki Jackson had brought a photograph of anti-corruption activist John Walsh (RIP) to court, and that John’s Hollywood apartment building was one where Del Richardson tried to get all the tenants out with cash for keys offers, so her husband Curren Price could vote for it to be demolished for a new tower.

Oh yes, he was very familiar with the Yucca-Argyle project.

And did he know that the City Planning Department was in the process of attempting to strip Mills Act protections from the huge parcel just south of Yucca-Argyle (map link), where the landmarked Little Country Church of Hollywood burned in a suspicious arson fire on Christmas Eve 2007? Community members had long hoped that the Little County Church property with its pre-cityhood landscaping could become a pocket park, but removing the Mills Act would make it more likely that the land would be cleared for development—likely for Champion Real Estate, the owners of John Walsh’s building.

Deputy D.A. Higgins responded that he is a huge fan of the Mills Act, and believes that historic places should be protected—which shouldn’t be a surprise, since an ancestor built the Higgins Building (recently added to the National Register), and his family has been in Los Angeles since the 1870s!

Before dipping back into the Hall of Justice, he made it clear that if we chose to come back to court in January, for the fifth attempt to arraign councilman Price and on subsequent trial days, we would hear him make a compelling case about how the filaments of corruption are woven into the function of Los Angeles City government.

We want to hear that case made. This is the story all Los Angeles needs to hear, spelled out clearly and backed up with evidence, revealing not just how elected officials like Curren Price can be implicated in wrongdoing by casting a vote, but pulling back the curtain on the big machine that ensures dirty votes are teed up to be cast, and that everyone gets greased before and after they do.

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Update March 1, 2024: D.A. alleges witness tampering by indicted councilman Curren Price's wife.

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Got a hot tip on public corruption in Los Angeles? Don’t email the Feds. Take good notes and stay tuned. If the Price case proves to be the one we’ve all been waiting for, you’ll know what to do with your dirt next.

As for us, we were pretty much the only civilians in the courtroom, and as we toddled off towards Grand Central Market for a well-deserved sub from Ghost Sando Shop, a reporter from Spectrum News asked if we were there to support the councilmember. After nearly choking on giggles, we stuck around and offered a few observations on why Angelenos feel so betrayed by City Hall. You can catch that piece here—and yes, John Walsh got on TV, too!

Tomorrow we’re leading a rare Sunday tour, Miracle Mile Marvels & Madness. We’ll meet prehistoric mentalists, sticky fingered starlets, creepy conmen, dreamy visionaries and a site of atomic-era ballyhoo—join us, do!

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. 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.

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UPCOMING BUS & WALKING TOURS

• Miracle Mile Marvels & Madness Walking Tour (Sun. 12/17) • Human Sacrifice: The Black Dahlia, Elisa Lam, Heidi Planck & Skid Row Slasher Walking Tour (Tues. 12/26) • Evergreen Cemetery, 1877 Walking Tour (Sat. 1/20) • Broadway: Downtown Los Angeles’ Beautiful, Magical Mess Walking Tour (Sat. 1/27) • Bunker Hill, Dead and Alive Walking Tour (Sat. 2/3) • Westlake Park Time Travel Trip Walking Tour (Sat. 2/10) • Angelino Heights & Carroll Avenue Time Travel Trip Walking Tour (Sat. 2/17) • The Real Black Dahlia Crime Bus Tour (Sat. 2/24) • Echo Park Book of the Dead Crime Bus Tour (Sat. 3/9) • Know Your Downtown L.A.: Tunnels To Towers To The Dutch Chocolate Shop Walking Tour (Sat. 3/16) • The Run: Gay Downtown History Walking Tour (Sat. 3/23) • John Fante’s Downtown Los Angeles Birthday Walking Tour (Sat. 4/6)