Part 169: Unpacking “a litany of horribles” – The LADWP Scandal and Litigation Mysteries

Published April 30, 2025.

and

Apr 30, 2025

A Zoom screenshot from the State Bar Court of California proceedings against former Chief Deputy City Attorney James Clark testifying in his defense (State Bar Court).

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By Zachary Ellison and Ruth Roofless, Independent Journalists

Discipline proceedings against former Los Angeles Chief Deputy City Attorney James Patrick Clark, arguably the most powerful non-elected person in City Attorney Mike Feuer’s office, began April 8th at the State Bar Court of California and have become increasingly intriguing as the month of Earth Day comes to an end. Testimony from convicted felon and disgraced New York attorney Paul Paradis alleged that Clark continued to use an email account from global powerhouse law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher (GDC) while conducting city business related to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LAWDP) billing scandal. Clark was a partner at the firm where he worked for three decades and continued to receive six figures in benefits as a partner while working for the City, according to Form 700s filed with the City Ethics Department.

Now GDC may be the center of possibly the most complicated legal matter to ever come under widespread public scrutiny. SBC-24-O-30722 promises to reveal even more secrets at 845 South Figueroa Street in Downtown Los Angeles, resuming on May 12th under hearing judge Yvette Roland. It’s unclear if the account was subject to a search warrant, nor have emails from the potentially incriminating account been disclosed. The affidavits from 2019 alone total 1,425 pages—made public by Consumer Watchdog—from a scandal that centered around a “faulty” water billing system adopted by LADWP under the guidance of major global accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

What happened next is the stuff of municipal legend, with multiple city officials within the City Attorney’s office pleading guilty to crimes ranging from bribery to lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) up to aiding and abetting extortion. Clark has seemingly been cleared of criminal charges along with Feuer but is still facing the loss of his law license through a public legal process known as disbarment. Media representatives for GDC didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the use of their email servers, nor did the City Attorney’s office on whether the practice violates city policy.

The affidavits contain a copy of a search warrant dated June 4, 2019, for a GDC email account, but the target is redacted. Congressman (1983-93) Mel Levine, then-President of the LADWP, is also alleged by Paradis to have done the same and remains employed by GDC. Paradis alleged that Clark feared potential compromise of his city email account. Previously, Paradis made this same allegation in a 2022 ethics complaint, but the fact that prosecutors have allowed him to again express the claims in court under threat of perjury suggests additional evidence against Clark is coming. As noted in the Los Angeles Times by journalists Dakota Smith and Richard Winton back in 2022, the potential for the ethics case to stick hinged around the relationship between PwC and GDC, its client, a key relationship for an attorney held in trust.

Even as PwC’s highly problematic billing system threatened the City with major litigation from customers who were overcharged for water and others who were not billed at all, things began to go sideways in sometimes unclear ways. Feuer recently testified, denying that there was any “political” motive and insistently stating, “Let me be very clear on this point.” The respected legal publication Daily Journal pictured Feuer leaving the proceedings with sunglasses, a nod, and a smile. Despite this, Feuer testified against Clark, suggesting that his loyalty has grown thin. The details of Mike Feuer’s full testimony on April 11 weren’t immediately available, but in the past, questions have swirled around his knowledge of collusion and extortion. Feuer has been cleared of potential prosecution in a letter from the FBI that was publicly released.

The loss of Clark’s law license after many decades in practice would be an ignominious end for one of the City’s formerly most powerful legal officials. The status of a potential Los Angeles City Ethics Commission investigation into Feuer or Clark remains unknown. Clark is being defended by attorneys Erin Joyce and John Morelli, and the Office of the Chief Trial Counsel under George Cardona has arrayed Abrahim Beghari, Charles Calix, and David Morgenstern to prosecute Clark. Joyce has previously said about the filing against Clark in denial, “Mr. Clark is a highly respected attorney who has enjoyed a distinguished legal career over the past 49 years, unblemished until now by a single complaint to the State Bar or by any allegation of ethical impropriety.” Whether Clark starts to implicate others is now the million-dollar question.

Under cross-examination from Erin Joyce, the witness, Paul Paradis, declined to answer questions about a planned meeting and emails marked “CONFIDENTIAL” that discussed the “Root Cause Analysis” of the billing errors. According to Paradis, Clark arrived at the end of the meeting to decide upon the plan for the City of Los Angeles to sue PwC over the faulty billing system. Discussing a meeting with Paradis, “a lawyer from New York,” and Paul Kiesel, an attorney still practicing in Beverly Hills, with Chief Assistant City Attorney Thom Peters, Clark appears in command, writing in approval of a meeting to release materials, “Sure,” and instructing Peters to “save any bruised feelings” and suggesting that his deputy inform the DWP that “you cleared this with me” on December 11, 2024. Peters has already been disbarred and received 9 months of home detention and three years of probation at sentencing on an extortion charge. Peters is the most senior official punished as part of the scandal yet.

The sometimes poetic Paul Paradis has said about the case, “That what we did was legal,” before noting it was illegal and describing it as a “litany of horribles.” The line was in reference to an email sent from James Clark to Mel Levine discussing the potential class-action settlement. Clark stated, “I have been calling the shots for the entire legal team on this,” before denying responsibility for the “day-to-day” efforts to reach a resolution affecting potentially 1.4 million residential and 200,000 commercial water customers. According to Paradis, at one point Clark said about the plan to engage in collusive, fraudulent litigation, “Fuck em! Don’t worry about it; they’ll get over it.” The strategy allegedly employed by Clark in planning to defuse the brewing scandal was described as being “fight, fight, fight.”

Three class-action lawsuits were brewing, and Clark was allegedly playing on two teams. Paradis has pleaded with Clark openly, “Come clean, tell the court what happened.” Even in planning to steer the cases to mediation, the plan was to undermine the process with retired Judge Dickran Tevrizian “as a cover.” Tevrizian was employed at the legal business known as Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Services, Inc. (JAMS), which is widely engaged. The billing scandal had an estimated case value of at least $66-67 million based on fraud and contractual damages.

With so much money on the table potentially, the clear impetus became to pocket the money. Through a sham proceeding, the large and rotating cast of lawyers, both part of the government and contracted to the government plus representing private clients, crossed the line into collusive litigation. As alleged by Paul Paradis after a sham proceeding on December 4, 2017, Paul Kiesel gave Paradis a ride back to City Hall, telling him, “That was fun, huh? I think you should pay half; you have significant exposure in this case too.” They then agreed to make an $800,000 payment to a legal assistant who had threatened to go public about the collusion to keep the case moving and Thomas Peters covered, and allegedly James Clark too, from exposure. Clark continues to receive a $3,587-a-month pension from the city for 7 years of service under Feuer from 2013 to 2020. Even if disbarred, he would keep this plum pension.

JAMS bills itself online as “a distinguished global panel of retired judges and attorneys with uncompromising objectivity who are capable of resolving the most complex disputes where the parties appear to be unyielding.” Founded in 1979 by retired judge Warren Knight, questions have swirled about just how objective the organization actually is in deciding cases. Many people already don’t trust lawyers, but the judge? If there’s one overriding lesson from the scandal, it’s that sometimes even those lawyers who are supposed to have the best intentions aren’t to be trusted.

The settlement in Antwon Jones vs. City of Los Angeles ultimately received the blessing of Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Elihu M. Berle despite objections from attorney Timothy G. Blood of Blood, Hurst, & O’Rearden LLP, who had previously sued the DWP. Blood told the Daily Journal in 2019 about the feelings of duplicity that he had: “Things weren’t adding up.” Blood would warn Berle that “only a fool would take that kind of deal.” As Blood stated, the conveniently rigged settlement was ultimately not in Jones’s best interest as his client.

Blood wasn’t crazy, even as others worked to conceal their intentions from him; another attorney conspiring with Paradis and Kiesel, hailing from Ohio, Jack Landskroner was set to receive $10 million in legal fees that he didn’t deserve. After pleading the 5th Amendment against self-incrimination, Landskroner passed away from cancer in 2021. As described by journalist Justin Kloczko, Landskroner was all but inserted to represent Jones, an African-American who lived in a Van Nuys apartment, leaving him feeling like he wasn’t “two-timed” over his water bill. Kloczko, describing the matter in 2021, writes, “He came in last minute, introduced over email to the plaintiff who was suing LADWP.” Paradis and Kiesel, in representing the DWP on behalf of the City of Los Angeles, were all but acting as cleaners. The “credibility” of Paradis, given his baggage, was questioned today by Clark’s attorney under cross-examination.

Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher hasn’t come into the main field, but the legendary firm founded in 1890 with revenue in 2023 of more than $3 billion may have ultimately been the axle that turned the wheel that led to James Clark’s demise. Perhaps the most peripatetic figure in the whole mess, attorney Michael Libman has alleged that a partner at the law firm threatened him with a Federal Bureau of Investigation probe that later came true. FBI agent Andrew Civetti, who is also at the center of the Mark Ridley-Thomas investigation involving the University of Southern California, joined the bureau in September 2015 as part of the public corruption unit and has been a major figure.

Civetti was the agent who appears to have been Paradis’s handler, instructing him to record multiple conversations with DWP leadership and advisors to Mayor Eric Garcetti, according to a May 2022 report from Klozcko and Jon Peltz in Knock LA. The $800,000 payment to Kiesel’s legal assistant, Julissa Salgueiro, who worked previously for Thomas Peters, was negotiated in part according to the unsealed affidavits on page 391 in the presence of a redacted GDC partner at the December 4, 2017, hearing. The FBI, which reports to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, has been generally viewed as unassailable. Paradis as a confidential informant may have been a mistake, and his testimony in the end in the State Bar Court could be potentially perjurious.

Salguerio hasn’t faced any charges for accepting the payment, and an attorney has insisted there was no wrongdoing on her part. James Clark would later recuse himself from the case against PricewaterhouseCoopers “because he received retirement income from Gibson Dunn, PwC’s counsel.” The City would issue a press release stating, after the scandal made the news and they were forced to on April 26, 2019, seeking to distance the City Attorney’s office from the scandal, “The emails we’ve just discovered reveal a reprehensible breach of ethics by outside lawyers in whom our office placed trust.” It further added from Spokesman Rob Wilcox, “The conduct of outside counsel now coming to light was outrageous and inexcusable.”

As recounted in court again today, Paradis testified during Libman’s disbarment that Clark had instructed him to “flip the plaintiff.” For the FBI, which, as a matter of policy, doesn’t comment on investigations, the multi-day testimony from Paradis, a former informant, just might be its biggest catch in recent Los Angeles political scandal history. Not only was James Clark the ostensible #2 in the City Attorney’s office, but he was a GDC partner for 30-plus years. Paradis and Libman are relatively unsympathetic characters, but as he sits in the courtroom at the State Bar, the patrician Clark just might become a face of corruption. Libman has already been disbarred for having aided Paradis.

A side character at best, Libman went as far as seeking to enlist Israeli espionage firm Black Cube after being set up by Paradis in filing the illegal, collusive litigation. Libman also suggested getting automatic “Uzis” to make sure he got his cut of the action. Libman has alleged a broader conspiracy involving GDC and has vowed to appeal his disbursement, which took effect on January 31, 2025. Libman insisted in the Southern California Record to journalist Michael Caroll as recently as February 11 that he was “railroaded and scapegoated.”

Paradis testified today that the FBI had seized his computer from him as part of their investigation. According to Chief Trial Counsel George Cardona though, Libman, in conjunction with Paradis, “knowingly acting as a figurehead attorney in collusive litigation, submitting false declarations to obtain $1.65 million in attorneys’ fees and compromising the court and private communications of an attorney and a sitting judge.”

Libman has alleged that attorney Brian Kabateck, hired by the court to review the settlements in question, was himself corrupted, a claim that Kabateck has denied. Whether the attorneys for James Clark can ultimately discredit the testimony from Paradis against Clark remains to be seen. Joyce has filed a motion attacking the credibility of Paradis and a separate one demanding that the unrevealed evidence against Clark be sealed. Dated April 28, Joyce argues, “Mr. Clark respectfully requests that this court allow the full extent of the falsehoods of Paul Paradis to be explored in cross-examination.”

The following day, the State Bar Court, in its April 29 hearing, James Clark took the stand in his own defense, taking questions from prosecutor David Morgenstern. Clark stated at the beginning of his testimony that he was subordinate in the Office of the City Attorney only to Feuer and Feuer’s direct assistant, Leela Kapur. Clark stated that he had been “walled off” due to his GDC relationships from the litigation and only ran things “at the 10,000-foot level.” Clark may be sometimes boisterous in his emails, but did he engage in unethical or unlawful conduct? Just where exactly is the conclusive evidence in hand of the prosecution against James Clark? If there’s nothing else, it seems likely that Clark will be exonerated by the State Bar Court.

With the chance to get their man, the Office of the Chief Trial Counsel could only seemingly produce circumstantial evidence. After 8 days of trial, the outcome has never appeared to be more in doubt. In the end, this action, based largely on interpretation of emails against Clark, may prove to be a disbarment too far. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment regarding Gibson, Dunn, & Crutcher email accounts, whether they considered the investigation closed, and if the testimony delivered by Paul Paradis after acting as an FBI confidential informant was considered to be credible.

This is a developing story and will be updated as information becomes available.

Link: USAO Search Warrants Unsealed

Link: Former Head of LADWP Sentenced to Six Years in Federal Prison

Link: Attorney’s ethics complaint seeks investigation of Feuer, others in DWP case

Link: Former LA city attorney denies political motive in DWP litigation scandal

Link: feds: at this very specific moment in the history of time only, mike feuer is not getting arrested

Link: Secret FBI files allege former L.A. city attorney lied to feds, likely obstructed justice. He denies it

Link: Former Los Angeles City Attorney’s Official in Charge of Civil Litigation Agrees to Plead Guilty to Extortion Charge

Link: Questions, anger after feds signal an end to DWP billing probe

Link: What does JAMS stand for?

Link: one of the main figures in the ladwp saga has died

Link: gibson dunn is everywhere