Two years after Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies confirmed up with weapons and battering rams for an early morning raid on Sheila Kuehl’s dwelling in Santa Monica, the investigation is formally over — and there might be no felony expenses.
As an alternative, Los Angeles County Superior Court docket Decide William Ryan accepted an settlement Wednesday by which the California Division of Justice mentioned there was a “lack of proof of wrongdoing.” The division had taken over the politically charged investigation initially launched by then-L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva’s controversial public corruption squad.
“The DOJ has carried out a radical and unbiased investigation into the allegations that fashioned the premise of the LASD investigation,” state prosecutors wrote. “The DOJ has concluded, based mostly on this unbiased investigation, that there’s inadequate proof to help the submitting of any felony expenses.”
The case had centered on greater than $800,000 value of contracts Metro awarded to Peace Over Violence, a nonprofit run by Patti Giggans — considered one of Kuehl’s mates and Villanueva’s critics. The group had been tasked with working a hotline for reporting sexual harassment on the general public transit system, however the settlement to take action got here beneath scrutiny after a whistleblower alleged that Giggans had been unfairly awarded the contract as a quid professional quo for supporting Kuehl, a former Los Angeles County supervisor.
The investigation finally ballooned into different allegations, together with the unfounded declare — repeated regularly by Villanueva — that county Inspector Basic Max Huntsman had been concerned in tipping off Kuehl earlier than the search of her dwelling, in addition to Giggans’ dwelling and the nonprofit’s places of work.
Days after the raids, state Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s workplace took the investigation from the Sheriff’s Division. For 2 years, the state quietly investigated the matter whereas Villanueva fulminated about it at seemingly each alternative. He referred to Kuehl and Huntsman as “felony suspects” and seized on the case as a strategy to undermine among the most vocal critics overseeing his division. On Wednesday, he didn’t instantly reply to an emailed request for remark.
In a information launch, Bonta reiterated the phrases of the settlement, saying the company “has concluded that there’s inadequate proof to help the submitting of expenses based mostly on the MTA’s awarding of a sole-source contract to POV, or on the marketing campaign contributions obtained by Supervisor Kuehl from individuals affiliated with POV. Additional, DOJ has discovered inadequate proof to file expenses for interference with a search warrant. DOJ has subsequently closed the investigation into this matter.”
To Kuehl, who determined to retire in 2022, Wednesday’s consequence got here as a vindication.
“I feel it’s a pure victory,” she mentioned. “As a result of there was by no means something there, and it was all made up by the sheriff.”
The conclusion to the case comes weeks after The Instances revealed that state prosecutors additionally just lately turned down one other high-profile investigation spearheaded by the identical public corruption squad. In that case, investigators had accused Huntsman and a number of other others — together with a former Instances reporter — of a wide range of felonies involving supposedly stolen data and leaked paperwork. Federal and state authorities repeatedly rejected the case, and at one level a authorized advisor for the county warned division officers that it was “not legally viable.”
That inquiry — together with the Kuehl investigation — served as considered one of Villanueva’s chief criticisms of the county watchdog. At one level, he cited it as a part of the justification for locking Huntsman out of division databases. Not less than twice, he requested county officers to take away Huntsman from his job. However now, after years of authorized wrangling, Huntsman is lastly now not within the crosshairs of investigations launched by the company he oversees.
The Sheriff’s Division didn’t instantly remark.
Although the raids befell within the fall of 2022, the supposed corruption that led to them allegedly began years earlier.
Amid persistent complaints about sexual harassment and groping on native buses and subway rides in 2013 and 2014, Metro turned to Peace Over Violence for assist. The Metro spokesman on the time later mentioned he discovered the group from an web search. He cold-called Giggans, and she or he began informally collaborating with Metro, serving to officers provide you with an advert technique and an anti-harassment slogan: “It’s Off Limits.”
Finally, Giggans mentioned, her group would want to receives a commission if Metro officers wished extra of her assist. So in 2015 and 2016, Peace Over Violence obtained $105,000 for consulting work, as The Instances beforehand reported.
Although Kuehl was elected to the Board of Supervisors in 2014 and served on the Metro board of administrators in that capability, Metro officers mentioned she had nothing to do with the preliminary anti-harassment efforts.
The scope of that work grew after three Metro board members — together with Kuehl — requested workers to rent an outdoor group that would supply help to victims as a technique of addressing the continued issues with out relying extra on police.
Then Peace Over Violence proposed a 24-hour hotline for $160,000 a yr. The hotline launched in early 2017, and Metro workers prolonged the contract three extra years for a further $495,000 — a call that didn’t require board approval, which means Kuehl had no say.
The hotline was overseen by Jennifer Loew, then a Metro worker. However by 2019, as The Instances beforehand reported, Loew was beginning to run into bother at work. She was finally admonished after an inner investigation discovered that she’d been “intimidating” to workers.
A couple of weeks later, court docket data present Loew started alleging corruption at Metro — and she or he centered her claims on the Peace Over Violence contracts, which she mentioned had been awarded in return for $2,000 Giggans donated to Kuehl’s marketing campaign in 2013 and 2014. Metro workers, Loew mentioned, pushed the offers ahead to remain in Kuehl’s good graces.
First, Loew requested Metro’s inspector basic to analyze. She additionally requested the FBI, the Los Angeles Police Division and the L.A. County district lawyer’s workplace to take up the case. There was no signal any of them took curiosity, however in September 2019, the Sheriff’s Division despatched detectives to analyze Loew’s report.
The detectives had been from the general public corruption unit, which critics mentioned Villanueva used to focus on his political enemies. It was the identical unit whose actions the Civilian Oversight Fee, of which Giggans has lengthy been a member, later condemned in a 10-page memo calling for an investigation into whether or not Villanueva was abusing his energy.
The unit’s first search warrants within the Peace Over Violence inquiry had been carried out in February 2021. Investigators focused the places of work of the nonprofit in addition to of Metro and the Metro inspector basic. Peace Over Violence turned over packing containers of data. Metro and its inspector basic questioned the investigation’s legitimacy and went to court docket to problem the warrants.
That fall, the Sheriff’s Division took its proof to native prosecutors and requested them to contemplate submitting expenses. Prosecutors refused, saying the proof didn’t show “past an affordable doubt” that anybody had dedicated against the law. The Sheriff’s Division saved investigating. Although he regularly spoke and posted concerning the inquiry on-line, Villanueva mentioned he recused himself from the case, in addition to from different instances dealt with by his public corruption unit.
Within the fall of 2022, Superior Court docket Decide Eleanor Hunter instructed the Sheriff’s Division that if investigators wished to hold out extra searches they wanted to slim the scope of the warrants they had been in search of. However the next week, whereas Hunter was on trip, Max Fernandez — the lead investigator on the case — took a brand new batch of warrant requests to a distinct decide and received approval for the raids, saying they could reveal proof of bribery and different crimes.
The assertion Fernandez introduced to the court docket to justify the warrants additionally alleged the Peace Over Violence hotline was a “full failure” and, regardless of that, the contract had been prolonged and not using a aggressive bid or evaluation. Outdoors the courtroom Wednesday, Fernandez declined to touch upon the case or its consequence.
Simply after 7 a.m. on Sept. 14, 2022, deputies began pounding on the door of Kuehl’s Santa Monica dwelling. They went inside, escorted Kuehl outdoors barefoot and took her cellphone. Investigators additionally searched Giggans’ dwelling, Peace Over Violence places of work and a number of other different buildings downtown.
In an interview outdoors her home whereas the search was underway, Kuehl known as the allegations in opposition to her “completely bogus” and mentioned she “didn’t know something concerning the contract.” Then, she mentioned the county’s lawyer had alerted her to the upcoming search the night time earlier than.
Afterward, Villanueva despatched a letter to Bonta asking him to open a felony inquiry into the early warning Kuehl had obtained — a warning for which Villanueva blamed Huntsman. Huntsman denied the allegations and mentioned cellphone data would clear him.
Simply as they’d the primary time round, the searches sparked a months-long authorized battle over the warrants that allowed them — a battle that continued even after Bonta’s workplace took over the case. Within the settlement accepted this week, the state agreed to quash the warrants and return the confiscated gadgets.
Although the case is over and the general public corruption unit is now defunct, the political tensions that led to it may nonetheless be the fodder for future traces of inquiry — this time into the unit and its actions. In accordance with Sean Kennedy, a Civilian Oversight Fee member who represented Giggans throughout the probe, in current weeks the watchdog group has been making an attempt to subpoena testimony from Fernandez, who continues to be with the Sheriff’s Division.
“I’m involved that there’s a deputy gang connection,” Kennedy instructed The Instances. “A number of sources have instructed me the general public corruption element was hand-selected by former Sheriff Villaneuva and former Undersheriff Tim Murakami. We’ve already realized Murakami is a tattooed Caveman and lied about his tattoo for years. We’re deeply involved if the general public corruption element is or was getting used to dissuade oversight officers from investigating deputy gangs within the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Division.”
