A criminal offense was dedicated by a minimum of one former worker of the L.A. County Federation of Labor in reference to the recording of a racist dialog that rocked Metropolis Corridor, in response to L.A. County prosecutors.
However the prosecutors declined to file felony fees, and it’ll now be as much as Metropolis Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto’s workplace whether or not to cost the workers with misdemeanors, in response to a memo made public late Friday.
Within the memo, which explains their determination, prosecutors mentioned Santos Leon and Karla Vasquez lived at a residence tied to an Web service supplier deal with that was in flip linked to an e mail account related to social media posts that highlighted the audio, in response to the memo.
Leon and Vasquez are married and labored on the labor federation.
The covert recording captured racist and derogatory remarks throughout a 2021 dialog on the labor federation’s places of work between Metropolis Council President Nury Martinez, Councilmembers Gil Cedillo and Kevin de León, and labor federation boss Ron Hererra.
Martinez, Cedillo and Hererra have all since left these roles.
Based on the memo, dated April 26, Los Angeles police introduced a case to prosecutors in January, requesting that they cost Vasquez and Leon with illegally recording a dialog and wiretapping. Recording conversations with no particular person’s consent is against the law below California regulation, with uncommon exceptions.
Search warrants have been served at Vasquez and Leon’s Eagle Rock residence final July.
Based on the memo, the LAPD investigation discovered that between Sept. 19 and Oct. 6, 2022, the recording was posted on Reddit after which amplified on Twitter by accounts that had been just lately created. Each accounts have been linked to a Gmail deal with “laupolitic@gmail.com,” which police then linked to the IP deal with at Vasquez and Leon’s residence.
Whereas prosecutors decided that “against the law was dedicated by one or each of those people,” police couldn’t decide how the audio was made, determine a tool used to make it or decide who uploaded it to Reddit.
“Neither suspect was keen to offer an announcement and every are represented by separate counsel,” the memo acknowledged.
The memo states that the LAPD really useful fees over the Oct. 18, 2021, dialog involving Herrera and the council members and a Sept. 30, 2022 cellphone name with Herrera and one other person that concerned wiretapped communications.
Final yr, The Instances reported {that a} forensic investigator employed by the Federation of Labor found sound-editing software program on Leon’s laptop and turned the findings over to police.
Neither Vasquez or Leon spoke to investigators, in response to the memo.
“Neither suspect has any prison historical past and related fees haven’t been pursued by our workplace as felonies within the absence of such historical past or different counts referring to fraud or corruption,” prosecutors wrote of their determination to refer the case to the town legal professional’s workplace.
Town legal professional’s workplace didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
“Fairly frankly, a referral to the Metropolis Legal professional’s workplace isn’t a surprise,” Vasquez’s attorneys, Michael Goldstein and Hagop Kuyumjian, mentioned in an announcement. “Our place has at all times been, and stays, that Ms. Vasquez has not dedicated any crime related to the leaked recordings.”
Leon’s legal professional, Bob Schwartz, mentioned his consumer was “very relieved and gratified.”
“This was by no means felony conduct,” mentioned Schwartz. “He’s denying that he did something mistaken.”
Leon was positioned on go away by the federation final yr, and it was not instantly clear whether or not he was nonetheless employed by it.
The leak of the 2021 dialog successfully ended Martinez’s political profession and sparked Herrera’s resignation. Cedillo misplaced his bid for reelection to present Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez earlier than the discharge of the recording, and De León is now locked in a troublesome November runoff as he seeks reelection.
