Part 106: Political Corruption in Los Angeles? State Justice and The Power of Media Transformation

Published August 20, 2024. Updated August 22, 2024.

Aug 20, 2024

Photo of Los Angeles Police Department headquarters built in 2009, remains unnamed for any individual, with shadows and reflections on a sunny August afternoon by the author (GoPro Hero 11 Black).

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By Zachary Ellison, Independent Journalist

The story was the type that knocks the winds out of the best professional sails, and the Los Angeles Police Protective League (LAPPL), the union that represents non-command staff officers, wasn’t about to let the moment go uncapitalized. So like all good professional associations, they were out to hold not only one, but two of the Los Angeles Police Department’s (LAPD) leadership accountable for alleged misconduct. At a blue backdrop press conference, the organization’s general counsel, Robert Rico, laid out the lawsuit and the request for criminal investigation by the California State Attorney General against Captain Lillian Carranza, a whistleblower at the center of the LAPD news cycle for many years, Section 502 of the California Penal Code, “also known as the Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act, criminalizes unauthorized access to computers, data, software, or computer networks.” Allegedly, for years, Carranza, who was not a member of the union for many years due to her rank, had wrongfully opened union emails and taken their surveys.

Los Angeles Times journalist Libor Jany headlined the story with the accusation that she had done it to “‘discredit [the] police union’” asking if it was “part of a broader rift?” To many, there has long been a rift not only internally within the LAPD but also between a fearful old blue guard and those such as Carranza, who had first tried to reform the LAPD through a whistleblower lawsuit alleging falsification of crime statistics, only to find herself targeted with first a sexist audio tape, and later a fake Photoshopped sexualized image, a psychological attack so severe that it sent her to a hospital. The evidence was seemingly compelling, laid out more than a week later in a sleek union YouTube video entitled “CARRANZA SHOES” accusing the beleaguered Captain, only recently floated among the names of those interviewing to be the next Chief of the LAPD, not more than a year following the sudden retirement of former Chief Michel Moore, himself a member of the controversial police department for decades. The video hinted at a second alleged violator, soon named in an amended lawsuit filing, Deputy Chief Marc Reina, another LAPD veteran commander.

Carranza declined to comment on the lawsuit to the Los Angeles Times, stating, according to Jany, that “she was still exploring her legal options.” Seemingly, Reina, similarly highly regarded as those less controversial, may have also been caught blindsided by the news cycle. The lawsuit and related video quote extensively from the alleged violations, suggesting that Carranza had persuaded Reina to join her for the purpose of undermining “the union’s credibility with the rank and file.” Los Angeles is most definitely not the only place where the police union is an increasingly powerful and fearsome force in both departmental and electoral politics, but it’s well on its way to becoming the most famous! Carranza and Reina, both graduates of the University of Southern California, certainly represented a more erudite, polished face to the force. Soon after the initial news, according to the Times report, Carranza would go to Interim Chief Dominic Choi to lodge a complaint against longtime LAPPL President Craig Lally “to discuss what she considered Lally’s inaccurate portrayal of the captain’s actions.”

According to Jany’s sources, this led to Lally writing a “follow-up column in the August edition of the Thin Blue Line, the union’s magazine,” stating that he had simply reported misconduct by a fellow officer. Moreover, as noted in the ABC7 Eyewitness News report by journalist Sid Garcia, LAPPL went not to LAPD Internal Affairs but to a third part, a private investigation firm, Sourced Intelligence. The company web page describes its mission as follows: “Sourced Intel offers a bespoke, digital white-glove concierge service to an esteemed clientele comprised of high net worth individuals, Fortune 500 companies, and government organizations.” Founded in 2016 by Alexander Feil and Jacqui Lowy, veterans of the U.S. Marine Corps and Israel Defense Forces, respectively, the firm based in Los Angeles is also licensed in Texas and Virginia. Feil has a degree from Fordham and worked prior to his service as a “Safari Guide—East Africa” for a year prior to military service for a confidential employer in Kenya, while Lowy earned a degree at USC as well as teaching there for a year. They have also partnered in another cybersecurity firm, EasySet, where Lowy serves as Chief Revenue Officer and Feil is a co-founder.

Sounds like good stuff, right? Evidently, Lillian Carranza did not even attempt to conceal her tracks in completing a union survey using what appears to be a family email address. LAPD declined to comment on the matter, writing: “The Department does not comment on pending litigation.” The LAPPL lawsuit requests The Los Angeles Times story by Libor Jany also quotes from Michael Rimkunas, Deputy Chief of the Professional Standards Bureau, which oversees the Force Investigation Division as well as Internal Affairs (IA). Rimkunas, along with IA Captain III Divyesh “John” Shah and another detective, were all subject of a similarly politically charged corruption allegation late last year, with the story first reported by Libor Jany of the Los Angeles Times along with Richard Winton, a veteran reporter. The allegation made by two detectives, one named Jason Turner and the other unknown, was that former LAPD Chief Michel Moore had knowingly conspired with Rimkunas and Shah to have Mayor Karen Bass investigated over her well-publicized scholarship from USC and, in turn, acted to obstruct an investigation into former, disgraced LAPD commander Cory Palka, the subject of a New York State Attorney General ethics investigation that determined he had obstructed a complaint of sexual assault.

Earlier this year, the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners, to which the Office of Inspector General (OIG) reports, announced in a public meeting that the allegations had been “unfounded.” Asked for comment, OIG declined to provide a “formal report or statement,” with a spokeswoman writing:

"The OIG did conduct an investigation into this allegation against former Chief of Police Michel Moore, as is consistent with our office's authority to conduct investigations into any allegation of misconduct against the Chief of Police. The OIG recommended a finding of 'Unfounded,’ meaning that a preponderance of the evidence showed that the investigation determined the allegation did not occur as described."

In response to a follow-up question on if this extended to Rimkunas and Shah, OIG deferred back to IA, with the spokeswoman noting “for any additional details, you will need to contact the Department directly.” The President of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners is Dr. Erroll Southers, a former FBI agent and Santa Monica Police Officer, Southers serves at USC as the Associate Senior Vice President of Safety and Risk Assurance, where he previously directed the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy’s Safe Communities Institute. Lowy, the co-founder of Sourced Intelligence and Southers are professionally connected, according to LinkedIn. Turner did not respond to a request for comment on if he accepted OIG’s finding, having previously obtained legal representation. All of this makes you wonder, exactly who knew and when that the LAPPL had contracted Sourced Intelligence to look into what the lawsuit characterizes as an “intrusion” in seeking to recover costs and damages under Section 502.

According to the complaint, Carranza used “the serial number of her ex-husband, and not her actual serial number” in writing in the 206 survey, “She needs to stop caring so much about a Department that does not care for her.” Allegedly, Carranza also wrote that “She should teach a class and help other [sic] grow a spine.” LAPD never determined the source of the sexualized computer generated image, and similarly, as was revealed in the course of a lawsuit by Carranza that led to a $4 million settlement, Chief Moore had even declined to issue a statement that the image was not of her, even as the department’s investigation determined it had been distributed on four separate occasions. So in short, there’s a long history of dirty tricks and racism in the LAPD, going back to the infamous Rampart scandal and even beyond. The LAPPL will soon host, on October 7, the 42nd Annual Chief Daryl F. Gates Golf Tournament at the Porter Valley Country Club, with a $200 registration fee for “18 HOLES OF GOLF BENEFITING THE OFFICER NEEDS HELP FUND.” Chief of LAPD for fourteen years from 1978 to 1992, Gates died in 2010 with a great deal of discussion about his legacy, whether the racism and paranoid style of leadership that he had adopted had benefited Los Angeles or worsened it right up to the beating of Rodney King.

If the LAPPL is the keeper of the Gates LAPD, it’s certainly not without controversy. The LAPPL’s general counsel, Robert Rico, for example, was the subject of a complaint, according to a report by former Knock LA journalist Jon Peltz. Retired IA Lieutenant William Kelly, had “asked to be removed from the union’s mailing list.” Moreover, Kelly “mentioned that he continued to receive LAPPL mailers to his home despite having left the union nearly two decades ago, and multiple requests to have his name removed from their databases.” In an interview with Peltz, Kelly spoke of “negative interactions” with “Rico and other members of the union who had filed complaints against him while he was working in the LAPD, and said he hoped they could appreciate his ‘animosity’ toward the union.” Rico responded by attacking Kelly, writing that he was an “angry, aging man,” and a “keyboard warrior.” So even as the LAPPL drags Carranza, and now Reina through the mud, you’ve really got to wonder if they actually did what they said or if this is just more dirty tricks. In the world of private investigations and lawsuits, this one is certainly an interesting mud fight with a little bit of drama all the way up to the Interim Chief’s office.

Strangely, this isn’t even the only case in Los Angeles right now where private investigations, police investigations, and the Attorney General’s Office have come into play. In the case of Diana Teran, for example, a high-ranking official in the District Attorney’s Office of George Gascón, similarly charged under Section 502 for allegedly having misused files from her time with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, as Los Angeles Times journalist Keri Blakinger reported, “state prosecutors this week dropped three of the 11 counts but still pushed forward toward a trial.” Villanueva, who waged a literal witch hunt against his own Inspector General Max Huntsman throughout his four years in office, continues to seek vengeance against Teran, writing on X, formerly known as Twitter, and accusing the Los Angeles Times of burying two stories, the first that “1. Diana Teran, indicted felony suspect, [is] still being paid by DA Gascon, in violation of LA CO CSC rule 18.01.” The second is that the “2. The Times has detailed polling data on DA race between Gascon and Hochman, and they’re sitting on it.”

The latter story has been published by LA Times journalist Connor Sheets, a frequent writing partner of Blakinger, and challenger Nathan Hochman indeed has, according to the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, in conjunction with the Times, a commanding lead of 45% over Gascón’s 20%. Hochman, formerly a Republican candidate for State Attorney General in 2022, is now running as an Independent, against the perceived liberal Gascón, himself a former LAPD officer and former Chief of the San Francisco Police Department. Today, the Teran case was ordered to trial on six felony charges for having “flagged several sheriff’s deputies’ names for possible inclusion on a list of problem cops.” The investigation into Teran is believed to be ongoing. All of which takes us right back to where we started with political corruption in Los Angeles. If there was a point to LAPD investigating Karen Bass over her long-approved USC scholarship, it was to rekindle Rick Caruso’s 2022 mayoral campaign, for which the LAPPL had launched attack ads against Bass prior to the June primary.

Sitting in a union conference room at the Los Angeles Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, on October 18, 2021, were Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez, Councilmember Kevin De León, Councilmember Gil Cedillo, and the President of the LA Fed, Ron Herrera. Only someone, unbeknownst to them, was recording the conversation, and they did so again at least one more time between Herrera, Democratic consultant Hannah Cho, and Justin Wesson, the Chief of Staff of the LA Fed, and son of former LA City Council President Herb Wesson, on September 30, 2020. Between September 19, 2022, and October 6, 2022. These two recordings, one long and one short, were posted to Reddit, upturning the political world of Los Angeles. Soon, the LAPD Major Crime Division would investigate on the order of Chief Michael Moore, only to seemingly come up empty, with unknown private investigators for the LA Fed eventually allegedly finding recording software on the laptop of Santos Leon, the Director of Finance for the union, who allegedly, along with his spouse Karla Vasquez, Herrera’s assistant, were responsible for making the bombshell recordings.

That investigation, according to Los Angeles Magazine journalist Michele McPhee, per the City Attorney’s office, after the DA’s office declined to file felony charges, remains “under review” as of August 6. According to the DA’s charge sheet, LAPD was able to trace the recordings back to the couple’s internet protocol address, their IP. Both De León and Cedillo would file lawsuits over the matter, and now De León’s civil suit has been ordered on August 15 for a jury trial, scheduled for June 23, 2025, at 8:30 am in Department 68 at the LA County Superior Court Stanley Mosk Courthouse.

For their part, Leon and Vasquez say they didn’t do it, with Leon alleging in an anti-SLAPP, that’s Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, that he didn’t do it, and even if he had, it would be protected free speech, and not eavesdropping and/or invasion of privacy. According to Leon’s declaration, he was an employee of the LA Fed in good standing, and active in their employee union, and he only had a copy of the much-discussed recording, and not software on his work computer. Moreover, he would have been unable to add applications without the approval of the organization’s information technology department.

In his filing, Leon claims that “On or about April 3, 2023, Leon received a memo and was advised that the Federation’s legal team had received a subpoena from the California Attorney General’s Office, who was investigating the Los Angeles City Council’s redistricting process that was prompted by the leak of the recording of the October 2021 Meeting.” Leon was required to turn over his laptop and cellphone, and subsequently, per his attorney's statement, “he became concerned someone inside the Federation or working on behalf of the accused Council members was trying to set Mr. Leon up, and set up others on this list for blame for the October 2021 Meeting being recorded and disseminated.” Vasquez claims that “she only set out the refreshments and did nothing to set up a recording of the October 2021 Meeting, or otherwise caused a recording of the meeting.”

Their home was searched by LAPD in July 2023. Vasquez says that LAPD seized as evidence “cell phones, laptop computers, and one router…a tower and several thumb drives.” Vasquez says that she had text messages about the matter “and members of the public about the meeting.” For his part, Kevin De Leon’s attorney, Kimberly Casper from the firm Geragos & Geragos, of which Mark Geragos owns Los Angeles Magazine, says about the filings made by attorney’s William Bloch and Jeffrey Zinder: “The rest of Bloch’s and Zinder’s declarations, (like the rest of both Defendants’ separate but essentially identical motions) is comprised of nothing but tawdry attacks directed at Plaintiff that carry no legal or evidentiary weight.”

According to the plaintiff's filing, “criminal activity [is] not protected under the anti-SLAPP statute.” Previously unreported, Geragos himself has now become involved in the case after Caspar’s initial filing of the case on behalf of the firm, although he did not attend the August 15 hearing. In their filing, Geragos writes, “under penalty of perjury under the laws of the State of California that the foregoing is true and correct," and: “Based on my extensive experience, there are many reasons why the District Attorney’s office, City Attorney’s office, or any prosecuting body for that matter, may decide not to pursue prosecuting charges that are unrelated to whether there is a sufficient amount of evidence available to prove the charges.” Signed on August 2, 2024, in Los Angeles, California, Geragos concludes: “Simply because a prosecutorial body decides not to pursue charges against a suspect does not mean the suspect did not commit a crime.” For her part, Los Angeles City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto, who openly received backing from and supported Rick Caruso over Mayor Karen Bass, has recently been reported to be searching subordinates electronic devices with an LAPD officer as an escort, presumably to keep her safe from staff.

The target of 4 retaliation complaints this year alone, a fraction of those directed at Gascón over his term, Feldstein Soto recently sought $500,000 from the Los Angeles City Council for outside counsel to represent the city in defense of such claims. This includes a suit brought by Michele McGinnis, Chief of the Criminal Division, who alleged politically motivated machinations, including against one particular activist. Feldstein Soto was unlucky, only coming away with $50,000 after an 8-3 vote.

The California Attorney General’s Office of Rob Bonta reconfirmed that their investigation into the alleged racist gerrymandering of Los Angeles City Council districts heard on the LA Fed Tapes remains “ongoing.” Last March, in a response to a request for comment, they stated: “To protect its integrity, we’re unable to comment on an ongoing investigation.” I guess we will all just wait and see the narrative transformation. The potential deception of our society, much less hacking, should be troubling. So who can say what justice is and isn’t anymore around these parts?

Updated CA AG Response:

Thank you for your inquiry. The investigation remains ongoing, beyond that we are unable to comment on an ongoing investigation.
Thank You,
The Press Office

Link: Lawsuit claims LAPD commander tried to ‘discredit’ police union. Is it part of a broader rift?

Link: CARRANZA SHOES YouTube Video

Link: LAPD chief candidate field narrows to about 10, a mix of outsiders and insiders

Link: LAPD union sues police commander over allegations of fraud and unlawful computer data access

Link: Sourced Intelligence Webpage

Link: Detectives claim LAPD chief sought investigation of Mayor Bass over USC scholarship

Link: $4-million verdict for LAPD captain over fake nude photo shared by cops

Link: LAPD Detective Frank Lyga on paid leave following alleged racial comments

Link: Let's remember this other side of Daryl Gates

Link: I'm Not Shedding Any Tears for Daryl Gates

Link: LAPD Union Lead Attorney Mocks Internal Affairs in Email to Former Officer

Link: State prosecutors drop three felony counts against Los Angeles County D.A. advisor