(Ken Silva, Headline USA) In a move that implicates former Los Angeles city attorney and Democratic congressional hopeful Mike Feuer, the non-profit Consumer Watchdog and the Los Angeles Times petitioned a federal court on Thursday to release a trove of Justice Department documents about an investigation into unethical and illegal activity at the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office.
The investigation that Consumer Watchdog and the LA Times seek information about stems from the city’s water and power provider, the DWP, overcharging taxpayers by hundreds of millions of dollars. Rather than try to resolve the situation by compensating ratepayers, the city hatched a plan to engineer a sham lawsuit by a ratepayer, which the city would be able to resolve on favorable terms.
The government’s investigation ended in November 2023. One City Attorney official, Thomas Peters, was sentenced to 9 months of home detention, and two DWP officials pled guilty. However, significant questions remain about the roles other key officials played in the City’s misconduct, including former City Attorney Mike Feuer, according to Consumer Watchdog.
Feuer retired as city attorney in 2022 and announced last year that he’s running for Rep. Adam Schiff’s soon-to-be-vacant seat. Schiff is running for Senate this year.
“The public is left to wonder whether Peters, the lowest ranking of several other unnamed City Attorney personnel, was really just the fall guy acting to benefit his bosses who have not been held to account,” said Jerry Flanagan, litigation director for Consumer Watchdog. “The public has a right to know what top City officials did while performing their public duties.”
As it pertains to Rep. Feuer, Consumer Watchdog seeks to unseal DOJ records about the former city attorney’s knowledge of the illegal and unethical behavior.
For example, former Special Counsel Paul Paradis—who was sentenced to three years imprisonment for participating in the sham litigation scheme—alleged that FBI Special Agent Andy Civetti “testified in at least two . . . affidavits that Mike Feuer testified falsely and perjured himself before a United States grand jury.”
At Paradis’s sentencing hearing, Judge Stanley Blumenfeld similarly remarked that “too few people have been held to account,” and that prosecutors did not “succeed in sweeping up all of the dirt that needs to be swept up,” according to Consumer Watchdog.
Paradis later reportedly told journalists that the FBI agent’s determination “involves extortion and it also involves when Feuer knew about the collusive scheme. He lied about both.”
Consumer Watchdog and the LA Times seek to unseal those FBI affidavits that describe Feuer’s alleged perjury.
A hearing on the application to unseal the records is expected in the coming weeks.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
