Part 78: A New Corruption Investigation in Los Angeles – The Case of Patrick Wizmann Versus Izek Shomof

Published February 16, 2024. Updated February 20, 2024.

Photo of the Los Angeles River and the Sears, Roebuck & Company Mail Order Building from the Olympic Boulevard Bridge by author (GoPro Hero 11 Black).

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By Zachary Ellison, Independent Journalist

The call was furtive, the source had something important to say, the meeting was urgent. So I arranged a first interview for a Starbucks on Santa Monica Boulevard near the 405 on a Thursday afternoon. Patrick Wizmann accompanied by his wife Sophie presented me with the most incredible story about one of the most powerful men in Los Angeles: prominent developer Izek Shomof. The former long-time business partners are now embroiled in a court battle amidst allegations of fraud, conspiracy, and most recently robbery and assault beneath the Art Deco buildings of downtown Los Angeles.

Wizmann is a brother to Izeks’ spouse Aline, played by “Delphine Chanéac, who perfectly captured Aline’s beauty and character” as Shomof writes in his new memoir Dreams Don’t Die published by Simon and Schuster with co-author Don Yaeger about his prior self-directed movie biopic For The Love of Money released in 2012. The marketing of the book by Tennessee based Forefront Books is the subject of a False Advertising Act claim by Wizmann, with the goal of getting the distributor to pull it from the shelves. Wizmann contends that the book co-written with ghostwriter Don Yaeger is a deliberate misrepresentation, most especially in regards to the repeated claim in the book to have led a law-abiding life in the United States, a “liar,” Wizmann loudly exclaimed.

A native of Israel, the family of Izek Shomof is well-known for the criminal past of some family members in both Tel Aviv as well as closer to home in Los Angeles, including from a documentary series. This is recounted through several episodes in the book during which Shomof avoids the allure of a life of crime. Shomof writes that “Every business deal I made was up-front and legal, and every dollar I made was purely clean and kosher.” According to Wizmann though this isn’t true, and as he explained he had brought the “receipts” to our lowkey meeting to discuss his conflict with Shomof presenting Los Angeles Superior County Court documents from 1988-1989 showing that Izek along with siblings, brother Aeton and sister Mazal had all in fact plead guilty to one felony count of receiving stolen property related to the purchase of stolen cars for resale.

All were originally charged with three felony counts, but after negotiating a plea bargain were sentenced to three years of probation, restitution and community service, which was later reduced to a misdemeanor. Case No. A 975496 was presided over by Hon. Marsha N. Revel and was filed on August 8, 1989 following an undercover investigation by the LAPD Commercial Crimes Division. This came after an arrest warrant was ordered on September 20, 1988 with bail being granted on October 14 in the amount of $5,000 to each party. After this Izek Shlomof dropped the “l” in his family name in Wizmann believes to be an attempt to distance himself from these lawfully obtained public records.

Many readers will know Shomof, not just as the “King of Spring Street” as one chapter recounts about his Adaptive Reuse projects converting old office buildings into apartments and lofts, but also for his proposed Life Rebuilding Center in the empty Sears, Roebuck & Company Mail Order Building in Boyle Heights, which has stalled over concerns about the operating cost for the City of Los Angeles. The project is co-sponsored by entrepreneur Bill Taormina. After telling his life story, it becomes clear what Shomof wants from the readership, a renewed push for approval as the political winds of the 2022 elections in Los Angeles turn to 2024 and 2026. Shomof acquired the property in 2013 for $29 million dollars after the prior developer was similarly unable to transform the property into a mixed-use development as Shomof also originally proposed. This plan was met with widespread community opposition against gentrification, punctuated by a glossy viewbook for the development Wizmann produced from his library.

The 1927 Art Deco building closed down its main operations as a mail order center in 1992, and the Sears Store on the lot shut its doors in April 2021 after 94 years of operation. Totaling 1.8 million square feet with 11 acres of floor space, the building continues to have missing windows allowing air to pass through its bare concrete interiors. Shomof had promised to improve the property visually when he purchased it after a potential deal with boxer Oscar De La Hoya had fallen through with prior developer Mark Weinstein. Shomof vowed to have “the makeover completed in about three years.” The initial development was proposed as mixed-use retail and residential complete with a swimming pool on top of the roof, something unusual on the East Side of Los Angeles.

Needless to say that hasn’t happened, and whether its Shomof’s fault or not can be a matter of debate. The book points the finger at current Mayor Karen Bass as the person to bring the proposed Life Rebuilding Center complete with a government contract to life for $23 million a year for twenty years totaling $460 million contingent on $400 million dollars in building improvements being made by the Shomof Group. Shomof writes: “The winner, Karen Bass, also told me that she would resolve the homeless issue, but to me that’s the same empty promise that every other politician has to make in order to be elected.” Shomof says time will tell “whether she is serious and has the political will…to finally do something constructive about the situation.” Shomof had initially backed Kevin de León whose Council District 14 the project is within before shifting his support to Rick Caruso after de León turned against the project.

Patrick Wizmann for his part after having a falling out with Izek Shomof over business disagreements, as well as the black-covered book with Izeks’ picture on the front couldn’t stand it. So he went down to the book signing on November 7, 2023 at The Last Bookstore on Spring Street with pamphlets trollingly titled “Lies Don’t Die” with the evidence, having previously mailed them to public officials to no response. Wizmann was quickly directed away from the entrance and then confronted by Avram Shlomof, “Abe” as he’s called in the book, who grabbed him roughly by the collar telling him in Hebrew: “If you don’t get out of here right now, I’m going to kill you, get out of here right now.” Mazal grabbed the right arm of Wizmann, and Shomof’s daughter Jessica allegedly took the pamphlets from his briefcase from the left.

A native of Morocco, Wizmann believes that Izek ordered the assault on his brother-in-law for crossing him in an attempt to tell the truth about the prominent developer, known as an advocate for the unhoused. Both Wizmann and Shomof are developers, and in fact have an equal stake in the 20 acres that Wizmann lives on in Shadow Hills, which he has been unable to develop due to Izek reneging on the controversial deal for 28 proposed homes. Shomof for his part lives in Beverly Hills along with having properties in Agoura Hills as well as elsewhere across the region. According to the lawsuit, Shomof allegedly defamed Wizmann by claiming he owes him “$300,000” and called him a “freeloader,” a claim that Wizmann has denied to me in person while being interviewed for this story. The $300,000 relates to the taxes, insurance and upkeep of the mostly undeveloped parcels of land.

Wizmann insists that his objective in coming forward with this information is to expose Shomof as a dangerous individual for the City of Los Angeles to do business with on such a large-scale project. “I’ve spoken at City Hall many times, on medical marijuana business, on development, on building, because I care about the City of Los Angeles” he told me repeatedly, and I couldn’t help but agree that Dreams Don’t Die is clearly development-friendly literature. He is after all a major developer. It’s no secret that a man who literally made a Hollywood movie about himself featuring the likes of James Caan, Paul Sorvino and Edward Furlong, and then wrote a book about making a movie must hold himself in pretty high regard. After all though, in LA who doesn’t want to be famous?

Shomof tells us this himself in Dreams Don’t Die writing “I had been telling my friends and family for years about my decisions to follow the right path at every stage of my life, and they’re the ones who encouraged me to get that message out to a wider audience.” While no other further instances of criminality have been uncovered yet, it’s clear that Shomof felt it necessary to omit this episode from his life, which involved luxury car theft. A known associate of José Huizar, the former Los Angeles City Councilman recently sentenced to 13 years in federal prison for accepting kickbacks from developers you have to wonder if Shomof wasn’t a little bit sad the other week when the hammer finally came down on Huizar, who isn’t mentioned in the book. Leipzig had “no reaction” to my notation that Huizar was not mentioned at all in the book, stating that he is “not aware of any wrongdoing in all my years representing Mr. Shomof” in a written statement after initial publication.

Then Shomof recounts how he had a falling out with Kevin de León who succeeded Huizar, writing about an episode in which KDL tells him about the Life Rebuilding Center: “I’ve got a better idea…Put all the homeless on 747s and fly them to Israel and put them to work on the kibbutzes.” This angers Shomof and he later writes that “Only a few weeks after this conversation, there was a huge scandal when recordings of Kevin and some other city council members were leaked, revealing them making horribly racists, homophobic and derogatory remarks.” If Wizmann is to believed, and I do, in private Shomof is often little better including, in regards to the unhoused, so no surprise that like Nury Martinez whose name he also intentionally omits here, Shomof is an interesting character. Doesn’t everyone speak in hyperbole in private?

An attorney Scott Leipzig from Allen Matkins, the national law firm representing Izek Shomof responded after speaking with Mr. Shomof himself regarding the allegations made by Wizmann. Leipzig indicated a “cross-complaint” would be coming in a few days broadly denying the veracity of Wizmann’s allegations particularly regarding the 20-acre Wheatland property, which Shomof intends to develop into housing. According to Leipzig, Mr. Shomof has been “nothing but generous” and has been a “champion of people in need his whole life.” Leipzig denied the allegation that Shomof had directed an assault on Wizmann for going to his book signing insisting that it was a “private event.” I had to dispute that Wizmann didn’t have a right to be present on the sidewalk and free from assault, Leipzig then demurred, and also declined to provide any further written statement at this time pending his upcoming legal counterclaim.

According to Scott Leipzig, the Shomof did not know that they were receiving stolen cars in 1988, that they were “unknowingly bought” and then sold them to Mr. Wizmann, according to Wizmann without his knowledge “who feels terrible” about his believed involvement. According to Leipzig, the case is that Shomof simply didn’t remember the episode in creating his autobiography claiming a fully law-abiding life in the United States that it wasn’t on his “radar.” Leipzig says about Shomof that if “he had access to the resources he has today, he likely would have challenged the action, as he wasn’t aware that the items he purchased were obtained wrongfully by the seller and that he did nothing wrong.” To that point, I suggested to Leipzig that the book would actually be more compelling were he to publish an updated version including the episode, and that it would relate well to the question of the criminalization of the unhoused to whom Mr. Shomof has given extensively to and hopes to support with the Life Rebuilding Center. Surely, I have no intention with this journalism to simply criminalize developers absent some proof that in fact criminality or grave wrongdoing had occurred.

Story drafts were provided to both Mr. Shomof’s attorney’s as well as those for Mr. Wizmann for review, who is being represented by the firm Grant Shenon in Sherman Oaks with David Almaraz as lead attorney, as part of this investigation into corruption in the City of Los Angeles. Leipzig wasn’t aware if Shomof was ever interviewed as part of Operation Casino Loyale, the FBI’s investigation of José Huizar who recently was sentenced to 13 years in Federal prison for racketeering. To Wizmann this is a question of “fairness and justice,” just as Shomof writes in his book is tattooed over his heart: “tzedek, tzedek, tirdof” goes the ancient Yiddish saying.

The period in which he admitted to engaging in illegal conduct was after Shomofs’ rise from underage burger joint owner and high school dropout, to car repair shop owner and businessman. Izek Shomof would soon became a major residential and commercial developer and a fixture in Los Angeles. Shomof came to the United States when he was only 14, never finishing high school and only later attending a few college classes. His wife Aline Wizmann whose broken hood he repairs is Patrick’s older sister, and Wizmann has come forward despite tremendous family blowback for filing his two lawsuits. According to Leipzig, Mr. Shomof’s attorney this latest dispute is the result of long-running discord between the two men, and another brother of Mr. Shomof previously had to sue Mr. Wizmann for “squatting in his house” before Wizmann was allowed to live on the Wheatland property in Shadow Hills without paying any rent.

The separate Wizmann lawsuit against Simon and Schuster and Forefront Books for marketing the book is interesting as a test of the First Amendment. More explosive though is the fraud lawsuit which involves not only the Shomof family and the Shomof Family Trust, but Roberto Saldana, now a Senior Deputy County Counsel with Los Angeles County for executing the agreement over the Shadow Hills property upon which Wizmann currently resides with his spouse. Saldana did not respond to written request for comment sent to his County email address in time for publication.

Open fields with a slight rolling hills minus two homes, it’s described as the alleged “Wheatland Fraud Conspiracy” designed to bring Wizmann in on an investment they knew would be unprofitable with Shomof luring Wizmann into a split on false premises:

“Congratulations Patric (sic). I really didn’t believe you would have act (sic) and agree to separate from 50% of your land. Patric (sic) I really care for you. Believe me you have made a wise decision. You’re opening a new path. Within the next 18 months [a]t the worst case Sanrio (sic) you’ll get [an] additional $2.5 minimum. Once entitled $7m and if we both agree to build $10 to $15m. All within 3 years. Again good decision. Mazel tov.”  

Wizmann maintains that unlike the self-described honest person in Dreams Don’t Die that Shomof is in fact akin to the “Donald Trump of Los Angeles.” I had to dispute him there with Rick Caruso’s quest to become Mayor of Los Angeles, but to his point even Caruso with his familial references in his opulent developments did need to make a movie and write a book about himself. No doubt it would be a bestseller if ever published! Instead, as I noted to Leipzig in fact Caruso has taken to X, formerly known as Twitter to express his opinions including a recent attack on journalist Gustavo Arellano of the Los Angeles Times whose interview with Mr. Shomof at the Life Rebuilding Center is selectively quoted by the book in a fully approving way. Patrick and Sophie Wizmann denied the account of these events presented by Shomofs’ attorney Scott Leipzig calling it “a total lie.”

In Los Angeles, and sadly in the world of publishing these days, it seems that perhaps fame comes cheap and just about anything is for sale. Still, what about the Sears building? Is Shomof really sincere in his desire to continue to push to transform the place to serve the unhoused? Isn’t that a noble goal? Local journalist C.C. Devere of Empty Los Angeles covered the topic in a June 5, 2023 blog entry entitled: “What Will Become of the Boyle Heights Sears?” writing  about the community opposition to his proposal. “Many consider it unfair to add thousands of people in need to a community that has been shortchanged for so long. One rallying cry was ‘Take that to Beverly Hills!,’” she describes. We can only hope that this dispute between Wizmann and Shomof will be settled before a jury verdict is reached, and that honesty as well as congeniality will prevail. I pressed Leipzig to make Mr. Shomof available for an interview, which he declined, and I could only respond by suggesting that journalism has its benefits as an alternative to an ugly, drawn-out public family feud.

Shomof might have a point about “economy of scale” in providing services in such a large space, but how we get there definitely matters, and especially if the City of Los Angeles is lured into a pricy, ultimately unmanageable lease with Shomof in a renewed push for the Life Rebuilding Center. For his part, Shomof has now aligned against Kevin de León after retracting his support making donations to both Miguel Santiago and Wendy Carrillo who lead a crowded field against the tarnished, embattled incumbent. Rick Caruso has guaranteed Shomof the project according to Dreams Don’t Die with Shomof describing how after discussing the situation Caruso told him “Help me get elected, and I’ll fix the damn problem.” If only it were that easy Rick, and if only the other developers in Los Angeles who want the unhoused off the street would put up money for the project instead of seeking taxpayer funding for the Life Rebuilding Center.

Before that Shomof writes in Italics, “This is a near-perfect deal – a win for me, a win for the city, and most importantly a win for the homeless people of Los Angeles. What could go wrong?” so far at least from recent developments it seems quite a lot. Today the Sears property is used as a truck yard and apparently there’s a florists operation inside as well, lots are still for rent for certain uses including film screenings, but not much is different from when the building first began to empty three decades ago even as Los Angeles has changed in so many different ways. Has Izek Shomof truly changed from the man who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of receiving stolen property? It’s hard to say, but one thing is for sure, Dreams Don’t Die and if Wizmann is to be believed it goes deeper than even this with Shomof. According to Leipzig, since the 1988 arrest, Shomof has otherwise lived an honest life and has had no further encounters with law enforcement.

One thing is for sure, that while most of the establishment in Los Angeles was running to Rick Caruso’s wings in 2022, curiously perhaps because of a lack of understanding of both KDL and American electoral politics, Shomof and his wife Aline, and children maxed out to KDL for his Mayoral campaign and his run for City Council in 2020, and even before that as well to Nury Martinez and Richelle Huizar. The latter had sought to replace her husband before his 2018 indictments, and of course don’t forget Gil Cedillo too. Business as usual at City Hall, pay-to-play, the project developer makes contributions to get the development approved by the City Council.  

Wizmann has promised more secrets of Los Angeles politics, and I can’t wait to see what comes next because sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction. The brother Abe who was supposed to be at the 1972 Olympics, who allegedly choked Wizmann, the matter remains under investigation by LAPD. Wizmann believes that this story is also falsified, but if you ask me, Mr. Shomof is entitled to his childhood memories, and to even publish an autobiography. Asked for comment about the alleged assault, LAPD confirmed that a report had been taken before directing me to make a California Public Records Act request. It’s unclear at this time if videotape evidence of the incident at the book signing exists. The matter remains under investigation by LAPD.

Not just anyone in Los Angeles gets any contract, any building permit, the greasing of the skids has been going on for as long as anyone with even fairly recent memory in the city can imagine. As Wizmann told me directly over a light lunch, so much of the past political influence of Shomof was indirect, on the side, as they say, and so it raises a certain question. Were any laws broken? What else don’t we know about Izek Shomof and his brother-in-law Patrick Wizmann as well. After leaving The Last Bookstore just off Spring Street to ask for information, and finding no copies of Dreams Don’t Die on the shelves, I started up a livestream outside the location.

I asked my TikTok feed and one of some of my followers knew the name and expressed concern about the state of affairs in Los Angeles. The replies came flying through my feed. Public belief that corruption in L.A. City Hall remains is widespread, that often you’ll hear say people can’t wait for José Huizar to give up information particularly in regard Nury Martinez being involved with securing final approval for redevelopment projects in Downtown. I can only hope we all agree that political corruption in Los Angeles is a bad look, whether it’s coming from the developers, the politicians, or the LAPD, or from anywhere else in the Southland’s institutions.

Link: Dreams Don't Die: The Story of a Man on a Mission to Inspire a Generation of Dreamers

Link: Sears building in Boyle Heights sells to developer for $29 million

Link: Proposal to house homeless in Boyle Heights Sears building is scaled back from 10,000 to 2,500 beds

Link: What Will Become of the Boyle Heights Sears?

Link: Column: Can a giant, empty Sears building help solve homelessness in Los Angeles?

Link: LA City Ethics Portal

Link: Life Rebuilding Center

Link: Izek Shomof 1988-1989 Criminal Record

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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.