Part 66: Fear and Loathing in Los Angeles – Whistleblowers, Leakers and Business Decisions
Published on January 18, 2024
Photo of the waxing crescent Moon over Lunada Bay in Palos Verdes Estates, California by author (GoPro Hero 11 Black).
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By Zachary Ellison, Independent Journalist
The conversation was innocuous, but the quote was suggestive and was sent to me on November 13, 2022 soon after the LA Fed Tapes scandal broke in October 2022. It was from Nika Soon-Shiong, the controversial daughter of the billionaire pharmaceutical magnate Patrick Soon-Shiong who owns the Los Angeles Times. It was a quotation of former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld: “There are known knowns. There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know that we know.”
The date was 2002, the run-up to the U.S. lead invasion of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and while Rumsfeld was speaking about the abortive search for so-called “weapons of mass destruction,” an elusive nuclear program, even biological and chemical weapons, the context was hard to ignore. I’d only had one prior contact online with the younger Soon-Shiong, after she was ferociously criticized in the press for criticizing spending on the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. I still worked for the University of Southern California Office of the Provost, and I had become a whistleblower inside the USC leadership.
I had my eye on Nika not just for her activism, or because I’m a nice person, but because she’s the closest conduit to understanding what exactly is going on inside the Los Angeles Times leadership. In the last two weeks, that relationship between Father and Daughter has become the place of newspaper publication in both the Times itself, as well as the New York Times, so I’m going to disclose that yes, I’ve been investigating what goes on inside the Los Angeles Times and how it relates to USC, as well as our esteemed former Chairman of the Board of Trustees, who remains on that body, and launched an ersatz run for Mayor in 2022.
The leak of the LA Fed Tapes, consisting of two meeting recordings, one made on October 18, 2021 and the other sometime after include the following participants. (1) Former Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez, current LA City Councilman Kevin de León, former LA City Councilman Gil Cedillo and the former President of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, the LA chapter of the AFL-CIO, Mr. Ron Herrera (2) Herrera meeting with local Democratic political operative Hannah Cho. I expected a leak of this nature, in fact, I had reported that I feared exactly that would happen at USC and that one person would be the ultimate source of the expected leak.
Our belief was that this would be controversial, and lead to a big guessing game about the source targeting the election. Now I’m not prone to conspiracy otherwise, but I happened to know the person I was watching, and I was suspicious of him for two reasons, I know that he’s capable of great deception and that he when I seemed to last observe him, be on exactly that trajectory course. The confrontation that took place on August 26, 2022 at the University of Southern California included two parties that I’ve named to date, USC Vice Provost for Academic Operations, Dr. Mark Todd, and a new USC Human Resources Associate Vice President named Melissa Gerdes-Leonard, and for the first time I’ll name the third.
To date, I’ve had some fear as we proceeded that by naming him he would be at the receiving end of retaliation for having assisted me in any way on that date and on further occasion. After consideration of the matter, including consultation with him in the past about how to exactly handle this situation, I’m going to name him for one reason, to protect the two whistleblowers from the Los Angeles Police Department Internal Affairs Division, one of whom has allowed himself to be named in the Los Angeles Times, Detective Jason Turner, the other concealed by Libor Jany and Richard Winton of the Los Angeles Times who broke the December 19 story on alleged political corruption by Chief Michel Moore and others in IA.
Now Patrick Prince, who serves as USC’s Associate Vice Provost and Chief Threat Assessment Officer isn’t just in that role by happenstance. He has more than three decades in this line of work including service as an instructor in LAPD’s Narcotics school. Mr. Prince isn’t someone that I take lightly, and I had known him only briefly since USC created his office following the murder of a professor on campus by a mentally unwell student. I had learned that he would be in any termination proceeding most likely months prior from another employee who had been similarly fired, but in her story, he wasn’t such a great guy.
I knew better, and most importantly I knew that he was unlikely to go along with any scheme that USC hatched to retaliate against me for my whistleblowing career inside the USC Office of the Provost in an attempt to fully uphold the George Tyndall Resolution Agreement. The former campus gynecologist is discussed on the LA Fed Tapes along with the more well-covered sections of racism by paper such as the Los Angeles Times, which won Pulitzer Prizes for covering the leak aftermath in the Breaking News category. The person that Tyndall and the prior Pulitzer Prizes for the Times that are discussed is the prior award for having exposed Tyndall’s sexual abuse in 2018.
That person is USC Senior Vice President Samuel Garrison, Sam as Rick Caruso calls him. Garrison served Caruso as his Chief of Staff while Caruso was Chairman of the Board of Trustees, and was the VP at Caruso Affiliated for Strategic Initiatives. He is an expert political consultant. Caruso’s closest partner, his man on campus engineering USC’s scandal response in 2018-2020 would go on to become first interim, and later the leader of USC’s lobbying and community outreach programs. I rather liked him, but I also go to get a sense of how he operated within USC to orchestrate what’s described on the Tapes.
The meeting is just wrapping up its opening discussion of the Mark Ridley-Thomas scandal for which Garrison was almost certainly involved in advising Rick Caruso on his written memorandum on the topic announcing that Ridley-Thomas had been reported to the FBI by USC. They even discuss USC’s other scandals in light of Ridley-Thomas, this happens well before they turn to the discussion of allegedly trying to gerrymander Council lines:
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, 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.
In this statement, KDL as he’s known discloses his conversation with Garrison, which makes Nury Martinez uncomfortable, she goes off on a sustained rant against LA Times journalist David Zahniser, calling him a “fucking little piece of shit” after claiming that “the Feds are leaking shit.” Now Nury Martinez talks with USC President Carol Folt before the meeting as well, but that’s of less significance, nor does it mean anything specific about Garrison learning of the meeting before it occurred. Instead, what this constitutes is a so-called relational dot.
The reason why investigators like Patrick Prince and others such as those at the RAND Corporation is because in a leak investigation, which includes both recordings and a written note as this one does, connecting the same person between both of the materials acoustic and written establishes possible motive for the leak. This is a classic technique, and the Reddit leaker himself “Honest Finding-1581” uses exactly this phrasing in his note entitled “LA County Federation of Labor Scam” writing in opening: “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.”
So it’s a self-conscious leaker, in fact, we’re almost being challenged to do exactly that, and so we have Garrison not just on the recording being referenced by KDL, but also with a personal relationship to the note: “- 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.” Garrison used to work for Ludlow before he was in fact charged with State and Federal Crimes in 2005 and convicted in 2006. For a period, while Ludlow was still on City Council, the younger Garrison was his Director of Communications.
This takes us back to the two Internal Affairs whistleblowers, because their allegation is that Chief Michel Moore who announced his pending retirement this last Friday is accused of ordering a seemingly legitimate investigation into Cory Palka stopped and Caruso’s political opponent Mayor Karen Bass investigated on the most specious of grounds. Now the Times article by Jany and Winton claims that the complaint from Detective Turner has him investigating Palka over his daughters internship with CSB, not a law enforcement cover-up of sexual abuse as victims of Tyndall have alleged including in writing including in the Times.
There is evidence to suggest that there was in fact an LAPD captain exactly like Palka seeking to influence the Tyndall investigation via Caruso, who is a former President of the Los Angeles Police Commission. It’s in Caruso’s Tyndall civil case deposition, so the idea that Palka himself a Trojan might have in fact called Caruso to kickstart his response is entirely plausible, the New York Attorney General’s office has him doing proof positive for CBS’s Les Moonves. LAPD Chief Michel Moore, a friend of Caruso’s as established in California Public Records Act requests has denied the whistleblower claims made by Turner and the other detective.
According to some who have speculated including former LA City Councilmember Mike Bonin on his podcast who is notoriously targeted by Martinez on the recording in racist language stated after declaring that even he was starting to feel “conspiratorial” that he believes the two Internal Affairs detectives may have been sent by the Los Angeles Police Protective League to force out a Chief who was unpopular in the ranks. I don’t believe this is the case, and Bonin didn’t respond to a request for comment, but I did go ahead and contact the LAPPL about this claim to see if they might have something to say about this matter. Are Turner and his partner union plants?
LAPPL Spokesman Tom Saggau whom I’ve spoken to previously about his investigation in regards to a media appearance by the LAPPL’s Director Jamie McBride denied the suggestion. "That's comical...consider the source. Mike Bonin is a disgruntled quitter, who still holds disdain for police yet he recently invited the LAPPL's VP and President to speak at one of his classes." Saggau reiterated that the spending noted in the Los Angeles Times article on behalf of Caruso into Mayor Bass’s scholarship stopped after the June 6, 2022 primary, and that: "The LAPPL worked very closely with Mayor Bass on our recent contract and on other initiatives such as unarmed response and has had several positive interactions with her."
In media statements accompanying the lawsuits filed against alleged LA Fed leaker Santos Leon, the organizations former Director of Finance, who is married to Herrera’s former Executive Assistant Karla Vasquez, by Gil Cedillo and Kevin de León the attorney’s claims are inconclusive that Leon and Vasquez did this by themselves. LAPD Chief Michel Moore in October denied that anyone else had ever been investigated in relation to the leaks after the LAPD’s case was returned by the office of Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón for further investigation. According to the Los Angeles Times, the LAPD investigation was heavily reliant on the LA Fed’s private investigation.
Now I have gained a source with knowledge of that investigation, and they confirmed that the private investigator had found deleted spyware on Leon’s work laptop, they believe was planted to capture Herrera discussing his relationship with Vasquez on both his laptop and the conference room computer. The Times had previously reported according to LAPD that this was an incident of wiretapping, where the phone lines were compromised. The LA Fed’s apparent evidence discovery came more than 9 months after the incident, and it does not appear that LAPD conducted such computer forensics.
Nor does it seem that the FBI had become involved in the investigation, there was no press conference from FBI Los Angeles Assistant Director in Charge Don Alway. Meanwhile Gil Cedillo has alleged in La Opinion that he filed the lawsuit because of law enforcement inaction, and more broadly that “It is important that people know that the daughter of the owner of the LA Times , Nika Soon-Shiong is part of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) to which councilors Eunisses Hernández, Nithya Raman and Hugo Soto-Martínez belong.”
Cedillo continued, “the DSA has about 200 activists in Los Angeles, whom he describes as children, children of rich heirs with their future assured in trusts like Soon-Shiong herself, and they only have about five people of color, Hernández, Raman, Soto and others like Isaac Bryant.” I don’t believe this claim to be true, in fact, from what I can tell based on the relationships, the note seems to be genuinely intended in support of the Caruso campaign, and not a false flag attempt at disinformation launched by Nika Soon-Shiong and the DSA.
Little is known about Leon’s political beliefs, according to my LA Fed source no confession was secured as to the execution of the leak, only the production of the Tapes , and Leon who was first identified by Los Angeles Magazine journalist has previously declined to comment to the Los Angeles Times and retained counsel. So things are very strange, and there’s a lot of loathing. Even as the New York Times highlights the younger Soon-Shiong’s activism on behalf of Palestine and for Los Angeles controller Kenneth Mejia, it’s important to remember that there are some things we know and somethings we don’t about what happens around here.
It's unclear if the LA Fed conducted any handwriting analysis to connect Leon to the Reddt note. The LAPD insists that its investigation is active and ongoing. The Los Angeles Times elder Soon-Shiong after forcing respected Editor Kevin Merida to resign last week is now seeking to cut 20% of the LA Times workforce, or about 50 positions, and is the target of the first walkout tomorrow in the paper’s history. Merida says that “I came to my decision based on a number of factors, including differences of opinion about the role of an executive editor, how journalism should be practiced and strategy going forward. Soon-Shiong claims business reasons.
The Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners will meet Friday to begin discussing the process of selecting an interim Chief of Police. LAPD Media Relations still has not responded to me to confirm if Chief Moore is a member of the Church of Scientology, whom Palka had grown cozy with while at the Hollywood Station. Moore said about Palka in November 2022: “What is most appalling is the alleged breach of trust of a victim of sexual assault, who is among the most vulnerable, by a member of the LAPD.” According to a Times report in February 2023 on the Palka scandal by Richard Winton, the Palka “probe” had become a Federal investigation. How intriguing!
Link: Detectives claim LAPD chief sought investigation of Mayor Bass over USC scholarship
Link: Inside the room: The entire L.A. City Council racist audio leak, annotated by our experts
Link: LA County Federation of Labor Scam - Honest-Finding-1581
Link: .A. Times Guild calls for one-day strike to protest looming staff cuts
Link: LA's Chief No Moore
Link: Federal prosecutor joins LAPD probe into handling of Les Moonves sex assault allegations
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.
