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THE VIEW FROM HERE - Los Angeles lives on an endless stream of lies and myths. This article focuses on only three. They are:
Lie Myth #1. City Councilmember Curren Price is a bigamist.
Lie Myth #2. City Councilmembers Nury Martinez, Gil Cedillo and Kevin deLeon are anti Black racists.
Lie Myth #3. The FBI fights city hall corruption
Lie Myth #1 about Price’s bigamy falls on the myth side rather than a lie. Price and his lawyers only have themselves to blame for this widely held belief. However, an analysis of presently known facts does not support the legal conclusion that Current Price married his second #2, Del Richardson Price, while still married to his wife #1, Lynn Suzette Price. This myth began when columnist Daniel Guss could not find any divorce from wife #1 before Price’s marrying wife #2.
On February 27, 2017, writing in CityWatch, Guss stated, “according to media sources, she (Del Richardson) is married to Curren DeMille Price, Jr., the Los Angeles City Councilmember.” In 2017, Price had not divorced wife #1. Guss did not invent the idea, and as far as we have found, Councilmember Price did not proclaim, “Richardson and I are not married. We are living in sin.” LOL
More than one year later, Guss published a longer article detailing the bigamist claim, while debunking a variety of claims by Price, Richardson, and their attorneys that Price had divorced Lynn Suszette Price in addition to a weird claim of identity theft. Nonetheless, the Price smoke screen concealed one vital fact – his marriage date to Richardson. There was no certified marriage certificate. Without an actual marriage to Richardson, there was no bigamy whether or not Price had divorced wife #1.
According to District Attorney’s Gascón’s June 13, 2023 indictment, Price divorced wife #1 on February 8, 2018 “dissolved by mutual stipulation on February 8, 2018 in Los Angeles County Court Case BD556209.” This is strange language, “mutual stipulation” does not dissolve a marriage; it’s the court’s order/judgment which terminates divorce. No sensible attorney should rely on anything which the LA County District Attorney’s office says even under penalty of perjury. Per the court’s Case Summary in Price, Curren D. vs Price, Lynn Suzette, BD 556209, however, judgment, was entered on February 8, 2018.
The District Attorney then alleges Curren Price and Del Richardson were married the following May7, 2018 in Ada County, Idaho under File #2018-940. That marriage does not answer the question whether prior to May 7, 2018, there was another marriage between Curren Price and Del Richardson. Unless a pre Feb 2018 marriage is found, we may not conclude that Current Price was a bigamist.
Lie Myth #2 about the three Mexican councilmembers being anti-Black racists falls heavily into the Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire category. A reading of the transcript proves that none of the councilmembers said a single negative thing about any Black person or about Blacks in general. There have been outrageous lies that when Nury Martinez referred to Councilmember Bonin’s adopted Black son as “este niño,” she said “a little monkey.” The lies about anti-Black racism has been discredited. October 17, 2022, CityWatch, The Need for Perspicuity, October 27, 2022, CityWatch, Wokeism Has Become Anti-Mexican Racism November 3, 2022, CityWatch, Religious Bigotry Attacks Los Angeles, December 11, 2022, CityWatch, Lies Breed Violence, December 22, 2022, CityWatch, “Funny, Kevin De Leon Doesn’t Look Jewish”
In desperation to prove that Nury Martinez was anti-Black, they seized upon her calling Oaxacans “muy feo.” Of all the various backgrounds comprising indigenous Oaxacans, Blacks is not one of them. As far back as 2000 years ago, Oaxacans have inhabited the area known as the Mexican state Oaxaca. While Nury’s referring to Oaxacans was rude, especially since ellos son muy guapos y bonitos, it is not anti-Black racism, nor even racism. It similar to someone with a Haaavaard aaacent making fun of a Southern Drawl.
Did Lie #2 Cause Problems?
There is direct connection between Lie #2 and the January 6th style attack on city hall, the closing down of city council sessions, the weeks of disruption of council sessions and the assault and battery by Jason Reedy on city councilmember Kevin deLeon. The DA will charge Price after the statute of limitations has run, yet Gascón refuses to do squat about a criminal assault and battery which the entire world has seen.
The LA Times’ Pulitzer Prize
For its vigorous promotion of Lie #2, the LA Times receives a Pulitzer Prize. Did the committee even bother to read the transcript? Did anyone on the committee speak Mexican Spanish? Did they consult anyone with expertise in Mexican culture or did it merely superimpose on Mexicans some variant White Anglo-Saxon culture? Did the Pulitzer Committee consider anything other than the LA Times’ bogus and racist screeds and preening? Now the world knows how to get a Pulitzer – intentionally tell an outrageous lie to launch a series of articles and persistently cover-up the truth. One need have no fear that Pulitzer might actually pay any attention to other publications which are debunking the LA Times! Why do that? What great PR Pulitzer gains from parading forth its holiness by anointing the racist LA Times with one of its prizes! What’s next? A Pulitzer Prize for the Protocols of the Elders of Zion?
Lie Myth #3 that the FBI fights corruption is perhaps LA’s most damaging deception. As we previously wrote, the FBI could not find the Pacific Ocean while standing on the Santa Monica pier. The great shame which no one in Los Angeles’ power structure will admit is that the city council is a criminal enterprise. The FBI’s criminal prosecutions look a lot more like protecting the real criminals while taking out the competition. The discussion of the remedy to Los Angeles rampant corruptionism is recapitulated in Zwartz Talk. February 7, 2016, Zwartz Talk, The Corruption Eradicator, The 3/15/45 City Council
Briefly, each councilmember agrees to Vote Yes on each project which another councilmember places on the city council agenda in return for Yes votes on any item he/she may place on the agenda. Penal Code § 86 criminalized this conduct. The Vote Trading System is not a hit or miss affair which happens now and then, but a requirement on each and every project so that each and every project no matter how horrible receives unanimous approval. If each councilmember received the maximum four year prison term for each illegal vote, collectively city councilmembers have earned two million years of prison time.
What Did Englander and Huizar Do?
They interfered the corrupt Vote Trading System and the FBI had to take them out as a warning to others. The genius of Vote Trading System is that a developer need bribe only the councilmember in the district where he wishes to build – The One and Done Rule. When the councilmember puts a project on the council agenda, everyone has to vote yes. It matters naught if it has destroyed 30 RSO units, made scads of poor people homeless and paid no Ellis Act fees. To borrow Judge Goodman’s lingo in the Hollywood Community Plan case, No degree of “intentionally fatally flawed data” could justify a Vote No. Without the FBI protected Vote Trading System, Los Angeles would have no homeless crisis, Los Angeles would not be losing Millennials and Gen Zers, and LA would not have the state’s highest poverty rate with more than 25% in poverty and 6.7% in “deep poverty.” (Cato Project: An Overview of Poverty and Inequality in California)
The January 2023 Homeless Study found that homelessness was up 10% in the City in the last year to 69,144. How does homelessness increase while there is an eviction moratorium? How about this? There was no construction moratorium so that destruction of RSO units, authorized by the Vote Trading System, continued. Since the 2015 count, LA City homelessness has increased by 80%.
The Englander’s - Huizar’s Real Sins
From the data, it appears that Englander and Huizar were demanding additional bribes to other councilmembers in order for a project to get through the PLUM Committee, which is not subject to the Vote Trading Rule. When the LA Times was controlled from Chicago, it did publish a vital article which should have been titled “Bribe-Flation.” October 30, 2016, A $72-million Apartment Project. Top Politicians. Janice Hahn, $203,500, Buscaino $94,700, Garcetti $60,000, Nury Martinez $7,700, Huizar $30,400, Englander $65,800. So much for the One and Done Rule. Then, Huizar had the gall to try to have his wife succeed him in CD 14 when he was termed out. Everyone knows that his royal highness Garcetti got to select the next councilmember.
Has the FBI ever undertaken an alleged LA City corruption case which did not in fact protect the vote trading system?
(Richard Lee Abrams has been an attorney, a Realtor and community relations consultant as well as a CityWatch contributor. You may email him at [email protected])
