(See pdf here.)
[img]1697|left|Mr. Trutanich||no_popup[/img]The re-election campaign of Los Angeles City Atty. Carmen Trutanich said this morning that allegations that Mr. Trutanich's opponent, Mike Feuer, engaged in widespread ethics cheating and campaign finance fraud show Mr. Feuer is “morally unfit” to serve as the city's top legal adviser.
His actions place a “dark cloud of doubt” over the results of the March 5 primary election, Mr. Trutanich said.
In a 46-page lawsuit filed by Westside activists, it was alleged that Mr. Feuer received “hundreds of thousands of dollars” in illegal contributions during the campaign.
“The illegal tactics engaged in by Feuer, [John] Shallman and their co-conspirators were akin to Lance Armstrong ingesting illegal steroids…Simply put, the Feuer campaign cheated.” See the L.A. Times story on the lawsuit.
“This is undoubtedly the biggest, most outrageous election scam ever perpetrated in the city's election history,” said Rick Taylor, Mr. Trutanich's chief strategist.
“It has been clear all along that Feuer simply does not have the legal chops, the experience, needed to be city attorney. Now it's clear that Mike Feuer is morally unfit to hold public office – and especially unfit to be the city’s top legal adviser.
“The allegations against Feuer are so serious that they appear to call into question the very legality of the primary election,” said Mr. Taylor. “What we have here is a situation where Feuer got hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal contributions and then defrauded taxpayers out of an additional $300,000 of their money that – get this – was supposed to be used to encourage clean politics, not dirty politics!
“The voters have been horribly scammed,” said Mr. Taylor.
Why There Is a Runoff
In the primary, Mr. Feuer and Mr. Trutanich were the top two vote-getters in a field of four candidates. But neither received a majority of votes. A runoff between the two is set for May 21.
Mr. Feuer heavily outspent Mr. Trutanich in the campaign.
“Now we know how Feuer came up with all his money – by cheating the system,” said Mr. Taylor.
Mr. Trutanich was elected as the city's top legal adviser in 2009 in his first run for public office. Mr. Feuer first ran for City Attorney in 2001 and was defeated.
For the past six years Mr. Feuer has been a state Assemblyman representing Bel-Air and Beverly Hills. Term limits forced him out of the Assembly in December.
The 46-page lawsuit against Mr. Feuer, John Shallman, the Feuer campaign's treasurer and others was filed by longtime Westside homeowner activist, Laura Lake, a former professor at UCLA, and the non-profit government reform group, Fix the City, Inc.
No Word from Commission
Ms. Lake and others have filed multiple complaints about Mr. Feuer's campaign finance activities with the city's Ethics Commission, which, so far, has neither confirmed nor denied wheher it is pursuing the complaints. The lawsuit allegations center around Mr. Feuer's pay-deal with City Hall insider Mr. Shallman, Mr. Feuer's chief political consultant. According to the lawsuit, Mr. Feuer and Mr. Shallman conspired to violate city campaign finance laws by allowing Mr. Feuer to receive an unreported, secret campaign gift worth hundreds of thousands of dollars from Mr. Shallman.
City campaign finance laws prohibit contributions in excess of $1,300 from any single person per election.
Based on what he typically billed his clients, Mr. Shallman's services were worth “hundreds of thousands of dollars,” the lawsuit alleged. As of a month ago, Mr. Shallman had billed Mr. Feuer less than $8,000.
”By not paying Shallman, the Feuer campaign was able to, and did, pour hundreds of thousands of tainted dollars into mailers, newsletters, and other voter contact and persuasion efforts which gave Feuer a material advantage over his law-abiding opponents,” the lawsuit alleged.
“These two have repeatedly told reporters that their highly irregular pay-arrangement, which they always refused to disclose in detail, was okayed by the city Ethics Commission.,” Mr. Taylor said.
“However, the plaintiffs in this case have learned through the California Public Records Act that there is no evidence – none – that Ethics Commission staff ever gave the green-light to the Feuer-Shallman team's pay-deal.”
Mr. Schwada, director of communications for the Trutanich campaign, may be contacted at
john.schwada@gmail.com
