Part 64: Los Angeles Deluged in Scandals – The Departures of Michel Moore and Kevin Merida
Published January 12, 2024
Photo of the Los Angeles basin at night from Jarvi Memorial on Angeles Crest Highway by author (GoPro Hero 11 Black).
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By Zachary Ellison, Independent Journalist
Last Saturday I had a feeling that the departures were about to come, but the first one I wasn’t quite expecting. On Monday the Los Angeles Times announced that billionaire owner Patrick Soon-Shiong and top Editor Kevin Merida, a veteran journalist, had agreed to part ways. Merida would issue his own statement, and the New York Times would report that the dispute centered not only around business issues, but also editorial decisions. That the information in the newspaper is in dispute.
New York Times journalist Benjamin Mullen reported that this related principally to Merida’s handling of response to journalists signing a letter in support of Palestine, and that owner Patrick Soon-Shiong had sided with his daughter Nika Soon-Shiong against Merida. I was slightly less sure that this issue alone was the sole editorial decision that broke the camel’s back, the departure came only weeks after the bombshell report by journalists Libor Jany and Richard Winton that Los Angeles Police Department Chief Michel Moore had engaged in political meddling.
Moore’s meddling according to two Internal Affairs detectives, one identified as Jason Turner, was described as ordering the detectives to stop investigating former LAPD captain Cory Palka in regards to seeking an internship with CBS for his daughter then a student at the University of Southern California with the corporation. Following the disclosure by the New York Attorney General’s Office on November 3, 2022 that Palka had been caught red-handed with incriminating text messages and emails abusing his authority along with at least one other person to try and obstruct a victims sexual assault complaint. There has been no action against Palka to date for accountability.
Only days earlier, the leaked deposition of former Los Angeles Police Board of Commissioners President Rick Caruso was published in Knock LA by journalist Jonny Peltz on October 27. In it there is a suspicious section in which Caruso is repeatedly asked by attorney John Manly on behalf of victims of former USC gynecologist George Tyndall about whether a law enforcement cover-up had occurred. Caruso denied any interference, but acknowledged receiving a cell phone call from an unnamed LAPD captain about the investigation launched in May 2018 by LAPD Robbery-Homicide Division. Caruso can’t name him and denies that there’s anything to this phone call about the investigation referring him to USC’S General Counsel.
Now Chief Moore himself stands accused of not only ordering the investigation into Palka somehow stalled by Internal Affairs, but instead ordering the two detectives to investigate the political opponent of Rick Caruso, Mayor Karen Bass whom Caruso expended more than $104 million dollars in an attempt to win the Mayorship for himself. The detectives allege that these actions were taken by Moore before his pending re-appointment by the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners in January 2023. The detectives presented no evidence to the Times with their complaint, and it’s unclear if the full story has really come out yet on the issues
While Merida’s last day is today, Friday January 12, Moore will apparently be given until the end of February 2023 to retire. The Los Angeles Times Winton had reported in February 2023 that the Palka investigation had been joined by U.S. Attorney Mack Jenkin’s who has subsequently been promoted to Chief of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Attorney’s office with E. Martin Estrada succeeding him as U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California. During his tenure, Jenkins would closely oversee the prosecution of former Los Angeles City Councilmember Mark Ridley-Thomas for soliciting scholarships and jobs from the University of Southern California, in particular from both the USC Price School of Public Policy and the USC Dworak-Peck School of Social Work. The elder Ridley-Thomas did this for his son Sebastian.
As part of this probe, emails were released that were later sealed disclosing former Dean of the School of Social Work Marilyn Flynn discussing the offer to Ridley-Thomas and that she had done the same for Mayor Karen Bass. The Los Angeles Times headline read “Karen Bass got a USC degree for free. It’s now pulling her into a federal corruption case” and it came following an onslaught of advertising from both Caruso attacking Bass for having ultimately accepted a scholarship for the Masters in Social Work program that she would later secure a Congressional Ethics Waiver for to clear receipt of the gift. It’s pretty shameless, but obviously not a criminal complaint.
Now I do think that Karen Bass was extremely mistaken to believe that her prior status as an employee of USC was sufficient to secure free tuition, while USC does have a program like that it’s not for former employees. The political weaponization of this is even more insane though than anything I’ve ever seen. Flynn’s incriminating email is sent to my former supervisor at USC, the Vice Provost for Academic Operations, Dr. Mark Todd whom I served for nearly 7 years. Chief Moore is accused of investigating some further investigation into this matter, as if a compliance investigation that was later escalated to the FBI by USC was somehow insufficient to prove her guilt.
Caruso would make this attack the cornerstone of his campaign against Bass, perhaps even more than salient issues that people really want to know about, such as housing, homelessness, the budget and police shootings. The intense preoccupation with this throughout the 5 years that would pass between the time Ridley-Thomas was exposed by the Times journalism team of Matt Hamilton and Harriet Ryan bordered on paranoia. Interestingly, in investigating these matters this week, I discovered that IA detective Jason Turner was previously assigned to South Bureau homicide where his investigation would result in charges being brought in the cold case murder of Ridley-Thomas’s brother. Turner seems to be a credible figure.
So while we still can’t say if the IA witnesses are telling the truth fully, or just what else was going on behind the scenes that the idea that their investigation would only center on the scholarship as reported by the Times is somewhat preposterous. If I was an IA detective looking into Cory Palka, who holds a Master’s in Public Administration just like I do from the Price School, which is what Bass originally sought out, it would be a CBS style cover-up of sexual abuse perhaps even more elaborate than what the New York Attorney General Letitia James would uncover.
Moore’s scheduled departure, as well as Merida’s both smell fishy, we’re just not sure where it’s coming from quite yet, or the extent. This writer will again restate the question published by the Los Angeles Times on October 18, 2021 by Tyndall victims Audry Nafziger, Lucy Chi and Allison Rowland in their own act of whistleblowing:
So here is another question: Can it be that both the LAPD and the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office have bungled this case, one which involves perhaps the most prolific sexual predator in the country? Or did someone in power prevent investigation of USC officials? The public deserves to know.
I couldn’t agree more. Mayor Bass has previously called upon Rick Caruso alongside attorney Gloria Allred for USC and Caruso to stop the cover-up. This starts with the Los Angeles Police Board of Commissioners ordering a thorough review to be conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation into these matters, and not conducted by the Los Angeles Office of the FBI. We need some outside help!
FBI Los Angeles Director Donald Always himself is an alumnus of USC, just as former DA Jackie Lacey was who would go as far as boasting on Twitter, now known as X, on January 7, 2019: “Productive meeting with LA District Attorney Jackie Lacey (@LADAOffice), an alumna of @USCGouldLaw. Grateful for the positive working relationship we have with her and with her office! #USC #TrojanFamily.” Now to his credit, Chief Moore did denounce Palka when the news became public, but if there has been any obstruction of justice for the victims of George Tyndall whether in the LAPD or the DA’s office that still needs to be discovered and stopped if it occurred.
Tyndall would die on October 4, 2023 at home while awaiting the scheduling of a trial date in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Audry, Lucy and Allison deserve the full and complete answers that they sought from USC and prosecutors, including the long ago promised “independent investigation” conducted law firm O’Melveny & Myers at the request of Rick Caruso, who served as Chairman of the USC Board of Trustees from May 2018 after the scandal broke until June 2022 after the June 6, 2023 primary.
Caruso would cede the position as Chair to former Goldman Sachs Vice Chairman Suzanne Nora Johnson. While Caruso issued a dozen memorandums on multiple issues from Tyndall and Ridley-Thomas to antisemitism on campus and governance reform of the USC Board during his tenure, Johnson still has yet to issue a single memorandum. USC did not issue any statement on the death of Tyndall, and they refuse to acknowledge that the “safety and transparency” that Caruso promised in the wake of the sex abuse scandal sadly hasn’t been fully delivered yet to date.
USC has ignored a petition drafted by myself, signed by 124 individuals including victims of Tyndall, and publicized by USC Annenberg Media calling on them to release the O’Melveny & Myers report and follow-through on its promises of transparency in regards to the conduct of Title IX investigations and the reduction of sexual violence on campus. They ignore this call even as USC again made headlines on Halloween for sexual assault by a Lyft just as it they did two years ago when drug-facilitated sexual assaults occurred and USC President Carol Folt acknowledged a “troubling delay.”
Last December thanks to a brave whistleblower, herself a victim of sexual assault while a prospective student at USC, brought to my attention her Title IX complaint, which USC had ignored more for than two years, interviewing her multiple times all while her perpetrator would finish his studies and graduate. Enough is enough, if Carol Folt won’t make USC a safer, more responsive place for the women of Troy, then perhaps she should follow Moore in resigning. Merida is a good guy from what I hear, and I liked Carol too, but her failure to lead including refusing to agree to a separate grievance process with the new graduate student workers union USC, backed by the United Auto Workers is deeply concerning. A showing of institutional indifference.
The troubles in Los Angeles, whether in the LAPD, the LA Times, or the FBI, where Director Always has been forced to recuse himself from the U.S. Attorney’s corruption case against attorney Tom Girardi because of his mother’s home, and of course last, but not least, my beloved USC, aren’t aberrations. Rather they represent a slow decay in our civil society that has been underway in Los Angeles for longer than we can even imagine. “Business as usual” is what activists groups on the left spectrum here call it, and I don’t disagree. The core problem is essentially that one-hand washes the other, and accountability is rarely final and complete. The wheels of justice move very slowly.
People do things like this because they think they can get away with them. I’m not sure what Soon-Shiong said to Merida, or even what it is about, or what the discussion just was between Karen Bass and Michel Moore, but things had to change. The culture of impunity that people perceive exists is what we make of it, and if anyone can get away with anything, like Donald Trump suggests our reality has become truly altered. Cory Palka, the corrupted LAPD captain is well known from the Shelly Miscavige case, the spouse of Scientology leader David Miscavige, who inspired the more well-known cry of “WHERE IS SHELLY” from actress Leah Remini who like the Palka/Moonves/CBS victim Phyllis Golden-Gottlieb has named Palka as being corrupted by the controversial organization. Moore condemned Palka, but not escalate the matter immediately to Federal authorities for further investigation.
On Wednesday, I asked LAPD Media Relations to answer 3 questions. If Moore himself was a member of the Church of Scientology, if he viewed them as a partner and if he felt that his formal response claiming the 2 IA detectives, Jason Turner and the unidentified individual, had made claims that we were “patently false” and “fictitious” undercut the ability of the LAPD OIG to investigate the complaints? They did not respond, and after I followed-up, I was told “Thank you for your follow-up. We are still waiting for response.” I hope that they will answer those questions, but the pending retirement of Moore amidst so many scandals is certainly interesting progression.
It's not that the deluge of scandals is unmanageable, but rather that the idea that they are unsolvable becomes increasingly preposterous. After the leak of the infamous LA Fed Tapes, and the stalling of the subsequent investigation by LAPD, that ultimately it was the LA Fed’s private investigator that discovered deleted spyware on former LA Fed Director of Finance Santos Leon’s work computer rather than the LAPD, or even better the FBI, raises significant red flags about the integrity of that investigation, with the LA Times later reporting that there were “shortcomings” without elaboration.
How do you blow a case that big? Los Angeles deserves to know who ordered the leak of the LA Fed Tapes! As I’ve consistently reported, I had grown suspicious at USC before the October 2022 publication of the recordings, that such an event was about to occur because of one the actions of one man, USC Senior Vice President Sam Garrison, a close associate of Caruso, and a friend of Moore’s. Did Santos Leon leak those tapes? Or is something crazy going on, stay tuned dear readers, and hold on to your seat, because it’s Los Angeles and 2024 is just getting started. Will be wild!
Link: LAPD Chief Michel Moore to step down at end of February
Link: Detectives claim LAPD chief sought investigation of Mayor Bass over USC scholarship
Link: Federal prosecutor joins LAPD probe into handling of Les Moonves sex assault allegations
Link: Karen Bass got a USC degree for free. It’s now pulling her into a federal corruption case
Link: Here is Rick Caruso’s Entire Deposition About the USC George Tyndall Scandal
Link: Op-Ed: USC and prosecutors owe the public a full account of sex abuse inquiries
Please support my work with your subscription or for direct aid use Venmo
Zachary Ellison is an Independent Journalist and Whistleblower in the Los Angeles area. Zach was most recently employed by the University of Southern California, Office of the Provost from October 2015 to August 2022 as an Executive Secretary and Administrative Assistant supporting the Vice Provost for Academic Operations and the Vice Provost and Senior Advisor to the Provost among others. Zach holds a Master’s in Public Administration and a Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Policy and Planning from the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy. While a student at USC, he worked for the USC Good Neighbors Campaign including on their newsletter distributed university-wide. Zach completed his B.A. in History at Reed College, in Portland, Oregon and was a writer, editor, and photographer for the Pasadena High School Chronicle. He was Barack Obama’s one-millionth online campaign contributor in 2008. Zach is a former AmeriCorps intern for Hawaii State Parks and worked for the City of Manhattan Beach Parks and Recreation. He is a trained civil process server, and enjoys weekends in the great outdoors.
