Except for the Court System, LA is Not a Racist City

Except for its Court System, Los Angeles Is Not a Racist City.

The fact that any person of any hue, sexual orientation, gender etc. is elected to the city council is evidence that Los Angeles is no longer a racist city. But, here is a fact which Black Lives Matters understands. A non-racist city can suffer from terrible systemic racism. This fact merits repeating.

A Non-racist City Can Suffer from Terrible Systemic Racism.

Los Angeles’ vast corruption hits the Blacks and other minorities the hardest and only a systemic overhaul of how we think about people and corruption can end the nightmare.

In our polarized way of life, the other side has to be all evil and our side has to be all good. The smallest blemish on the other side merits total condemnation, but the most egregious sins on our own side meet total denial. The Ten Commandments forbid bearing false witness against thy neighbor, but deception is habitual. No, LumpyTrumpy is not the only liar.

Did US Attorney Nicola T. Hanna, for the Central District of California, lie his head off on Conan Nolan’s News conference this Morning, Sunday, June 28, 2020? Asked whether anyone at city hall had told him about the culture of corruption, Attorney Hanna said that no one had “picked up the phone” and called him. Maybe no one picked up the phone, but that statement is a prevarication when Attorney Hanna knows that people will interpret that to mean he did not know about city hall corruption.

Remember when Bill Clinton said, “It depends on what the meaning of is is”? People went berserk. By that statement, Clinton, however, had the honesty to announce, “I shall now engage in very fine line parsing and under one meaning of the verb to be, the one is Yes but under another meaning of the verb to be, it means No.”

I did not hear the US Attorney announce that his answer to Conan Nolan’s question would parse the question into a falsehood. First, it is not what is told to each individual US attorney that matters. Second, it is not whether someone uses the telephone as opposed to email or letter that matters. Listeners wanted to know the answer to that standard question: “What did you know about LA corruption and when did you know it?”

Let’s Look at Reality – Since 2010 the US Attorneys Knew about Los Angeles Corruptionism.

On Thursday, March 16, 2011, I wrote to US Attorney for Central California, Andre Birotte, Jr., Esq. about three multi-million-dollar frauds at LA City Council.

Fraud in the Save the Peak Campaign, The Trust for Public Lands (TPL) Councilmember Tom LaBonge, et alia,

The prior year on April 28, 2010, I had written US Attorney Birotte about the massive worldwide Bait and Switch fraud which the LA City Council, especially the two councilmembers representing Hollywood (LaBonge and Garcetti). I received no reply.

CRA - 1601 N Vine, aka "VineGate" 'Cesspool on Vine" Councilmember Eric Garcetti

On Tuesday, March 22, 2011, I had written US Attorney an extensive letter detailing the evidence for the fraud which Garcetti had perpetrated with respect to Garcetti’s appraisal fraud. The US attorney did not even have to look for the two appraisals as I had provided them. I received no reply.

CRA Hollywood-Western- CIM Group Councilmember Tom LaBonge, et alia Later, additional evidence was made available. Eventually, however, CIM Group made a prudent decision and constructed the low rise PetCo and Marshalls.

Hollywood Community Plan was Intentionally Based on Fatally Flawed Data

On March 2, 2012, CityWatch published the first of three Fraudywood articles, Hollywood Becomes Fraudywood. Judge Goodman’s January 2014 opinion rejecting Garcetti’s Update to the Hollywood Community Plan was in line with CityWatch. The Hollywood Plan was intentionally based on fatally flawed data and wishful thinking to the extent it subverted the law. Disclosure: I was the attorney for petitioners SaveHywd and HELP and I had done the data compilation from the 2010 US census on which Judge Goodman relied.

One would think that after Judge Goodman found that the city used flawed data (Lies) and wishful thinking (Myths), the US attorney might look at some of the huge projects in Hollywood. To hear US Attorney Hanna speak, one would never know about the massive Fraudywood projects, all of which were based on two things: (1) Lies and Myths, (2) The criminal vote trading system at city council.

Judge Fruin Rules That LA City Council May Violate Penal Code § 86

In 2016, SaveValleyVillage sued the city of LA and the councilmembers for engaging in a vote trading agreement. While private citizens cannot bring criminal charges, under a Citizens Lawsuit, they may civilly sue the city for violating the Penal Code, The Brown Act, and the council’s own rules. As to Penal Code, § 86, the complaint stated:

“Respondent City Councilmembers have the public duty to follow the laws especially laws enacted which describe whether they may engage in bribery. Since 2006, when the State of California amended Penal Code § 86 to expressly outlaw City Councilmembers from using their votes as part of a vote trading agreement, all city Councilmembers have had the public duty not to engage in vote trading by exchanging their vote/s for the vote/s of another Councilmember/s. Penal Code § 86 states:” BS 157989, 3^rd And Pet: 4:18-24

In December 2016, Judge Fruin ruled that all the city’s and councilmembers’ violations of Penal Code, § 86, The Brown Act, and its own city council rules were “nonjusticiable.” In brief, the city council is above the law.

Can we trust a US Attorney who is deaf, dumb, and blind to billions of dollars of systemic frauds while concentrating on one of Mayor Garcetti’s political foes? (Rumor has it, rather than let Garcetti decide who would follow Huizar in office, Huizar tried to make his wife his successor.)

BLM is correct – the problems are systemic, and we are fools to believe that one or two show trials will remedy anything. As we are now witnessing, the judiciary is handmaiden to the corruptionism.

(Richard Lee Abrams is a Los Angeles attorney and a CityWatch contributor. He can be reached at: [email protected]. Views expressed by Mr. Abrams are his own.)

-cw