Part 48: Did LAPD Blow the LA Fed Tapes Investigation? Reconsidering the Case Against the Alleged Leakers

December 2, 2023. Updated December 5, 2023.

Dec 02, 2023

Councilmembers Gil Cedillo, left, and Kevin de León at the Los Angeles City Council meeting at City Hall soon after the scandal. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

Original LA Fed Tapes Leak: https://www.reddit.com/user/Honest-Finding-1581/

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By Zachary Ellison, Independent Journalist

For the last year plus Los Angeles has been thrown into a limbo, by perhaps the most daring act of October Surprise, since well let’s not get too excited. At least that’s what they say, in dueling lawsuits launched by former LA City Councilmember Gil Cedillo and still current Councilmember Kevin de León this argument is made explicitly, that the LA Fed Tapes were leaked strategically right before the November 2022 Mayoral Election between Karen Bass and Rick Caruso, around which the leaker of the Tapes centers the brief note posted on Reddit starting on September 19, 2022.

“Honest-Finding-1581” initially ran into a diligent, and some say zealous moderator before being allowed to post his purloined contents, surreptitiously made recordings, some say secret of Cedillo, de León, former LA City Council President Nury Martinez, and the former President of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, the LA Fed, Ron Herrera, one of the most powerful locals in all of the United States with a sizable membership, a legacy of leadership and influence in the politics of Los Angeles. No one has identified this leaker beyond a standard of reasonable doubt.

In fact, this most recent October, the Los Angeles Police Department Major Crimes Division presented investigative findings against two individuals, Santos Leon and Karla Vasquez. Both former employees of the LA Fed, in fact a couple, a seeming modern day Bonnie and Clyde leaking what the public needed to hear to confirm the long held suspicions by so many that institutional racism sometimes isn’t so institutional, it’s personal and it happens in boardrooms. The shocking fallout of so many people all at once hearing this disclosure posted online and then passed through the media has now lead to lawsuits.

Most interestingly, the LAPD issued a statement from it’s Media Relations Division after the publication of my last story on this subject that I’ve been considering. It’s in two parts, and from LAPD Chief Michel Moore. The first was focused on racism and is back dated October 9, 2022 instead of the original date of October 10, and is labeled NR22297ah. The updated second part included on the upper portion of the statement is because the District Attorney of Los Angeles County sent the case back to the LAPD for further investigation and is labeled NR23707ne and is dated to October 10, 2023 with the statement first appearing online on X, formerly known as Twitter, first on October 11, 2023.

Now assuredly the LAPD is very busy. The statement though still has not appeared on LAPD’s website where such statements are normally posted by Media Relations Division. This unit is led by Captain Kelly Muniz who has become well-known to many for her narration of LAPD’s required critical incident videos. Now I’m not one to jump to conclusions, but as my readers know I’m attentive, and normally when something like this would be brought to attention, you would assume they would likely just go, okay, you got us this time Zach, we’ll put it on the web!

Not so, and sure enough even as I thought to write an update to reflect Chief Moore’s statement that “The investigation focuses on two former Los Angeles Federation of Labor employees.” Moore adds, “Additionally, to date, no other individuals have been identified as being involved.” This obvious reference to Santos Leon and Karla Vasquez who were named in initial reporting in July by Los Angeles Magazine journalist Michelle McPhee was not confirmed by the District Attorney’s office, who declined to confirm the “target(s)” of investigation.

The Los Angeles Times team of journalists on the story consisting of Julia Wick (City Hall), Richard Winton (Crimes) and James Queally (Courts) wrote the following day October 12 after Chief Moore’s statement was posted on X by the LAPD PIO account. Citing unnamed sources the trio writes: “Police did not fully examine the hard drives and digital hardware taken from those under suspicion.” Hold up, what! Did the LAPD just blow the biggest “Eavesdropping” case in Los Angeles history and beyond? The Times team goes on to state that “One of the sources described the LAPD investigation as heavily relying on a private investigation previously conducted for the labor federation.”

It is believed that the two leaked recordings were produced using spyware on the conference room computer and Ron Herrera’s laptop. The LA Fed has not yet identified the private investigator who conducted the investigation, but according to my own sources, the LA Fed very much did employ a professional who did eventually find evidence of spyware being deleted from Santos Leon’s work computer. Leon is the organizations former long-term Director of Finance, and Vasquez was Herrera’s similarly long-term Executive Assistant. I have also been able to further confirm prior reports that in addition to being found culpable for the eavesdropping that Leon was in fact also negligent in keeping the books.

Returning to the initial reporting from Michelle McPhee in Los Angeles Magazine in July 2023, the separate sources at the LA Fed who initially disclosed that the findings had been made by the LA Fed and then reported to LAPD. During this interim period between July 2023 and October 2023 when the DA sent back LAPD’s pass along of the LA Feds investigation, it seemed for sure that the last thing LAPD would want was to present a case to the DA that would be rejected. Such a scenario would present a poor look for the embattled department.

Most importantly, it remains unclear if the FBI Los Angeles office has exercised even the slightest interest in assuring that such a significant public corruption case would be on their radar. The FBI has significant capabilities to do exactly what the LAPD seems to have failed to do appropriately in October 2022 in securing all electronic devices on location and in the possession of employees for review. It seems that LAPD sources in January even indicated to Richard Winton and Matt Hamilton in writing that the LAPD was widening the investigation and that according to sources “LAPD detectives believe that a conference-call device in the room may have been compromised to capture the conversation and produce the recordings.”

So what’s going on here? Why wasn’t the FBI called in to assure the investigation? California Attorney General Rob Bonta launched an investigation into the conversation heard between the parties, which is protected under California law as a private conversation, and whether the discussion about gerrymandering districts in favor of Latino’s to better reflect demographics was somehow illegal. Bonta’s investigation still has not returned a result. Chief Moore initially delayed even announcing an LAPD investigation after the leak over apparent confusion on whether a report of a crime had been received. Now it does seem that Kevin de León and Gil Cedillo, who is suing the LA Fed in addition to Leon and Vasquez do want their day in court.

Their lawsuits almost claim in conspiratorial tones that LAPD has not made arrests for some reason. I’m not one to jump to conclusions, but it sure would seem to any reasonable observer based on the Los Angeles Times report and the outcome that this could have been better handled. So just what exactly is going on? If it’s Santos Leon, and, or Karla Vasquez, what’s the motive exactly? Did they just really hate the LA Fed, want to lose their jobs, it’s unclear if Vasquez resigned or was terminated, the former seeming more apparent. Leon has been described as “macho” and very difficult to deal with, while Vasquez has been characterized as endearing.

Reportedly Leon was seeking to spy on Herrera talking about him with his wife so that he could confront her, and the relationship has been characterized as less than harmonious. This crime though appears to be political, an October Surprise, and Leon and Vasquez both lack extensive public profile. We know very little about what their motives would be other than maliciousness toward the LA Fed and Ron Herrera to inspire the audio leak and the Reddit note, did they simply choose to launch an October Surprise to create chaos through electronic race-baiting?

The often ignored Reddit note perhaps offers the best clues on motive in naming individuals, and it’s important to note it doesn’t condemn the racist comments heard. It’s unclear if the LA Fed attempted to analyze writing samples from Leon or Vasquez in order to ascertain authorship. Similarly, neither has made confession or made any remarks, and both declined to comment through attorney’s to the Los Angeles Times. Important to note that Santos possesses a B.S. in Computer Science from Cal State Northridge earned in 2008 so it seems possible that he had the capacity to use the spyware.

According to my source, the principle evidence against Leon is the record of the deleted spyware. Beyond that, it doesn’t seem that any additional written communication was recovered, nor is there any direct evidence linking him to the Reddit note. From the sounds of it and based on characterization, it seems that Leon did not cooperate in the least with the LA Fed investigation and that it moved at a very slow pace, and with the full knowledge, and it seems even evidentiary reliance of the LAPD. Just short of a smoking gun perhaps, interesting, but not enough to stick criminal charges on for a foolproof trial of both Leon and Vasquez.

The DA’s office shot down their case though at least for now, one source even seemed frustrated. I offered that perhaps it may be for the better, and that the DA even might decide not to charge Leon and Vasquez as whistleblowers, that George Gascón has some degree of discretion in applying the law. Presuming that Cedillo and de León will seek to subpoena this private investigation report that then became the basis of the criminal case and that they will seek to depose Leon and Vasquez, you have to wonder what the LAPD will do. If the LAPD can’t identify the source of the leak beyond a reasonable doubt, can these lawsuits do it?

Even more interestingly, will the LAPD come back with a case again to the DA? If the case was somehow flawed from the start is it even fixable. Some have taken to talking about the LA Fed in conspiratorial terms, I remain convinced that while it is a labor union that exercises political activity, and indeed a special interest, the new management under President Yvonne Wheeler is truly trying to move the organization past the shadow left by Herrera, Martinez, Cedillo and de León who continues to seek reelection despite a strong field opposing him over his remarks.

There’s other legitimate beef too with de León for sure over some of his policies particularly in regards to the unhoused. Many have speculated that he simply is seeking a paycheck in addition to trying to save face. In a disappointingly good stroke of luck for de León perhaps, rival Assemblymember Wendy Carrillo was involved in a DUI-related car crash and arrested on November 3. Carrillo has similarly declined to leave the race for Council District 14 in 2024 and now continues to run against de León among others. As Los Angeles Times journalist Gustavo Arellano said about the incident in comparison: “It’s one thing to be caught talking bigoted trash in a secretly recorded conversation. It’s another to get behind the wheel after too many drinks and crash into the night.”

Some may recall that I actually pictured Carrillo in my Part 33 on this topic alongside USC Senior Vice President of University Relations Sam Garrison, who is discussed by the group in the recording along with USC Vice President Martha Escutia, a legendary figure in California politics having served in Sacramento. As Mike Bonin noted though in his recent podcast on the LA Fed Tapes, Escutia is actually among those donating to de León as well as Carrillo, who she has given $500 compared to de León’s $250. For that matter, Garrison’s father James, who is a major Democratic party donor and insurance industry figure in Los Angeles having totaled $43,225 in the LA City Ethics portal.

Interestingly, the elder Garrison (also discussed on the Tapes), has given to two candidates this cycle so far in June, $900 to Adrin Nazarian (also discussed on the Tapes) in CD2 to replace termed out LA City Council President Paul Krekorian and $900 to wait for it Assemblymember Miguel Santiago who is competing against both de León and Carrillo. Ron Herrera has similarly given to de León. Other de León donors include Mark Geragos who now owns Los Angeles Magazine, on which some have speculated erroneously has influenced McPhee’s coverage.

Kevin de León has received donations also from the likes of controversial poker player Robbi Lew ($900), and in one small correction for Bonin, Richard Nassar, who while employed by USC is in fact not the Chief Strategy Officer for DEI for all of USC, but in fact only for the USC Race and Equity Center lead by Prof. Shaun Harper (a prolific writer) housed under the USC Rossier School of Information, and he is in fact African-American. The actual head of DEI for USC in fact Dr. Christopher Manning, who is quite wonderful and has no history of political donations. Kevin de León previously held a non-tenured faculty position at USC, and for that reason also received a similar donation from Conyers Davis, the Global Director for the USC Schwarzenegger Institute.

Not to correct Mike Bonin too much, who has publicly had to endure the ordeal of hearing his colleagues speak in racist, diminutive terms about his adopted son, but it’s good to get the facts out there and understand the money on the table. Similarly, Sam Garrison, USC’s SVP for its lobbying and community outreach operations, speaks with Kevin de León before the most infamous recorded leaked meeting on October 18, 2021, and while that would seem to be along similar lines, Garrison was also Rick Caruso’s Chief of Staff and a longtime VP at Caruso Affiliated.

Recently, I used the California Public Records Act on the LAPD to secure records relating to Caruso’s and the young Garrison’s communications with LAPD Chief Michel Moore. No surprise, both Caruso and the Sam Garrison had extensive interaction with LAPD including Chief Moore as part of both Caruso’s service as President of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners and through Operation Progress, which he co-founded and partners youth from Watts with LAPD mentors. Garrison would leave Caruso in 2017 for a short period to go to work for JPL, and he would write to Chief Moore to share the news to which Moore would respond.

As I’ve previously written, I grew suspicious in August 2022 that exactly the type of leak as the LA Fed Tapes was about to occur and that I believed the younger Garrison would be involved, and in fact that he would even appear in the middle of the whole shebang, and that we would all have a big guessing game about where the tapes came from. After confronting my supervisor about the suspicion at USC, it was reported to a senior security official at USC who also was witness to the discussion on August 26, 2022 about whether an audio leak was imminent.

Had this not occurred, I would have gone on minding my own business and never started writing this series, but it did, and now here we are wondering if LAPD can pick up the pieces of its case against Santos Leon and Karla Vasquez. Did they do it? I’m not sure, I tend to think that Santos did the recordings exactly as reported, but I also think based on the note that Santos was no fool, that he knew whose house he was about to mess around with, and the note is a most curious document.

For starters, both Caruso and Garrison are devout Catholics, and well “Honest-Finding-1581” would seemingly refer to one of the most significant events in the Protestant Reformation, the passage of new anti-Catholic laws in England in 1581 by Queen Elizabeth after a long escalation. According to historian Heather Shanette writing on Elizabethi.org: “In 1581 an Act was passed that made it treason to withdraw English subjects from allegiance to the Queen or her Church, and fines for recusancy (refusing to go to church) were increased to twenty pounds - a phenomenal amount to the Elizabethans, considering that the annual income of a knight would only be about fifty pounds.”

It is unknown whether this explains the username of the LA Fed Tapes leaker, surely “Honest-Finding-1581” was a conscious human being, but it seems likely. It is unclear what faith Santos Leon is, or how it might have played into his dismissal, or what other referential may be possible using that combination of words and numerals. It seems unlikely that someone like Santos Leon while he might have issues with people mentioned in the note like Rosie Cruz, who still works at the LA Fed, and Andres Sandoval who has now left the LA Fed and returned to employment with the City of Los Angeles. The general allegation of the note that there is an unfair pathway to employment from LA City Hall to the LA Fed that Cruz, Sandoval and Justin Wesson, who also no longer works at the LA Fed having previously served as Herrera’s Chief of Staff seems possible.

What would Santos Leon, and even Vasquez care so much about the Mayor’s race to be willing to cross the line into leaking audio recordings with such a note? Was it money? Without some statement from Leon as to his motive, it’s hard to know, and the more it starts to look like LAPD may have mismanaged the case somehow the shadier these relationships start to look and of course Sam Garrison also served as Martin Ludlow’s Communications Director at City Council after both he and his father donated to him, before Ludlow also took that path to the LA Fed before being busted by U.S. Attorney’s office for misusing union workers and funds to get himself elected in the first place.

“- Martin Ludlow gets multiple contracts with the LA fed. Remember him? He and Miguel Contreras were investigated for fraud and Contreras would have gone to jail if he didn't die first.” Now say what you will about the LA Fed’s history of scandals, but this starts to seem personal, but it also starts to seem to be about money, and about the direction of the Mayor’s race, one that Caruso seemed destined to lose despite his $104,000,000 million dollar campaign spending spree heavy on the advertising and the Latino outreach. Caruso needed something to happen, and boy did something sure happen last October, and a year later he was laughing about the “privacy of private conversations” in talk radio interviews.

For his part, Caruso has denied knowledge and responsibility, instead repeatedly seeking to first deflect blame to Karen Bass before making a direct accusation in Vanity Fair to journalist Joe Hagan suggesting that someone in her camp was responsible and claiming that her victory was due to identity politics alone. USC has previously declined to comment on the documented conversation between Kevin de León and Sam Garrison at 13:44 in the main LA Fed transcript published in November:

Kevin de León: They really went after it. I was with Gene Block yesterday from UCLA and we’re at this event for the Chinese massacre, at UCLA. They’re really combative. … When the L.A. Times gets a bug up their ass, you know, they just like… So I talked to Sam Garrison the other day, who is the GR [government representative], he reports directly to Carol Folt.
Nury Martinez: The son of Jim Garrison?
Kevin de León: Yeah, the son of Jim Garrison. He told me that a couple of reporters got Pulitzer Prizes.
Nury Martinez: For the investigation?
Kevin de León: For the investigation. That what they’re doing has legs, just keep it going, just keep it going, just keep it going.

The Los Angeles Times did not identify Jim Garrison, or even Sam Garrison in its reporting aside from the transcription copied here in its notes created by staff. The discussion here pivots from referencing the sexual abuse scandal at USC related to deceased gynecologist George Tyndall, who recently died on October 4 awaiting trial and Mark Ridley-Thomas, perhaps who having been convicted of multiple felonies related to a bribery conspiracy with the USC School of Social Work and my former supervisor. While Kevin de León may have previously gotten a faculty position at both UCLA and USC, it’s evident on the recording in his voice and in the transcription that this is not the main discussion. Rather it’s about USC’s response and perhaps some politics.

The lawsuits from Kevin de León and Gil Cedillo while ostensibly seeking the source of the recordings as part of their civil case are so self-servingly egotistical that no one should take them completely seriously, it’s about them, not the facts. While there is a different standard for civil cases versus criminal, the idea that their attorneys are going to subpoena the LA Fed’s investigation report and depose Leon and Vasquez to establish the truth seems optimistic, after all if this is indeed just a case of Bonnie and Clyde, and not something more, which neither lawsuit rules out, what’s the point? Saving face, and nothing more, for them this has nothing to do with the idea of election interference as supposed in the “October Surprise” references, it’s about themselves, they got caught saying things they shouldn’t even in private.

Who caught them though and what happened next? That remains a mystery, and if it somehow wasn’t Santos Leon, who was it? What was their motive? My source seemed unsure, the idea this might not be case closed just yet, and that the LAPD had stumbled in its investigation at the LA Fed and that the Cavalry, the FBI, wasn’t on their way seemed disconcerting. In this country that so few seem to value, and it’s elections even less if you look at voter turnout data, does it really matter if someone tried to use illegal means to influence the outcome of an election so long as the many believed they were exposing a greater good? George Gascón has discretion, but the D.A.’s office just didn’t seem ready to take that risk fully on this case yet, better to play it safe and punt the football back to LAPD Major Crimes Division for a second go around.

Sometimes hesitation is the smart move in a leak investigation, slow it down and play it safe, don’t jump to conclusions, watch all the players, and follow the money, and ask tough questions, you’ll start to pick up on the pattern. My leak investigation remains active and my suspicions remain, that this might not be so simple, whether it tracks back to just Santos Leon, to Rick Caruso, to LA City Councilmembers Hugo Soto-Martinez, Eunisses Hernandez, and Nithya Raman plus the outspoken activist daughter of Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, philanthropist Nika Soon-Shiong known for her sharp criticisms of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department as Gil Cedillo told La Opinión this October in interview.

Perhaps though, the most important voice we should be listening to is “Honest-Finding-1581” because the tone, the look and feel of the note really makes you wonder, was it Santos Leon who wrote that, or is it somebody else as even the leaker suggests: “Wow, you know it happens, but when you actually hear it, it's unbelievable. The labor movement is in bed with City Hall. All you have to do is look close and listen to the recording I just received of LA Fed President Ron Herrera and Nury Martinez (no relation, lol). Someone helped me connect the dots earlier this month.” Hmmm….Case still open! Let’s see what these lawsuits come up with in discovery, but I don’t think there’s much more there than some deleted software, unpaid bills for the LA Fed to their vendors, and a whole lot of questions the psychology of leakers.

By their very nature, whistleblowers were people who disclose sensitive or illegal acts for the purpose of creating change. Santos Leon hasn’t made that assertion yet, not with the LA Fed, and seemingly not even with the LAPD, which would be his best legal defense perhaps were he in fact nobly innocent, or principally guilty. Perhaps most damning though in the Reddit note is the way in which Herb Wesson, a former LA City Council President, and his son Justin Wesson, both are African-American, are portrayed as being corrupted even without any actual evidence being presented.

The elder Wesson is caricatured without evidence in comparison to Mark Ridley-Thomas and the younger Justin Wesson gets mentioned twice both for his controversial wedding ceremony to former Nury Martinez aide Alexis Arias, and in relation to his employment: “- If Rick Caruso wins the Mayor's race, he will clean house at City Hall, including making sure Nury Martinez is out. That would put Wesson out of a job. So, the LA Fed is putting all it's [sic] money in Karen Bass's campaign.” The younger Wesson was famously forced to repay the city for $2,768 after LAPD assigned 4 officers in addition to Mayor Eric Garcetti’s 2 person security detail.

Former LAPD Chief Charlie Beck, a close friend of Rick Caruso as quoted in the Los Angeles Daily News report as having said “Last week, former Police Chief Charlie Beck defended the decision to send officers to the Wesson-Marin wedding, saying the department provides security for events with “high-profile people who are at elevated risk.” Finally, in other LA Fed Legal News, People’s City Council organizer Jason Reedy has filed a lawsuit against Kevin de León for his videotaped altercation in the wake of the LA Fed Tapes leak last December 9. At the time, I recall wondering just where exactly the LAPD was for Kevin de León that night.

The story of the LA Fed Tapes source is in itself the story of the leak, its aftermath and what happens next as Los Angeles grapples with the toxic fallout of the racism heard around the world from Nury, Kevin, Gil and Ron too, even as the LA Fed itself moves on. The coming elections, what they represent as an evolutionary step out of this political morass that has enveloped Los Angeles of late raises critical questions about public accountability and justice. If this matter is so important that even Joseph Biden had to tell Kevin de León to resign, how strange is it that Caruso, a one-time Republican is now according to Los Angeles Times journalist Seema Mehta co-hosting a fundraiser for the President of the United States on December 8 at a secret location.

I think we can all agree that Nury Martinez didn’t sound that sorry in her interview on LAist with Antonia Cereijido of LAist even as she did show some limited understanding. Kevin and Gil sounded even less sorry, and clearly Ron Herrera is still down for his compadre Kevin, perhaps the donation is the reason KDL didn’t sue the LA Fed too, or Gil’s lawyers are just extra foolish. The odds that they will be able to prove negligence on the part of the LA Fed, versus simple misconduct is exceedingly low. The LA Fed wasn’t at fault, even if their computer security was lax, it was an act most seemingly of malfeasance, that’s simply grasping at legal straws. Kevin de León is being represented by Kimberly Casper of Geragos & Geragos, and Gil Cedillo is being represented by Brian Kabateck and Matt Sahak of the firm Kabateck LLP.

Part 48: Did LAPD Blow the LA Fed Tapes Investigation? Reconsidering the Case Against the Alleged Leakers

December 2, 2023. Updated December 5, 2023.

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