Federal prosecutors launched their second try at convicting former Los Angeles Deputy Mayor Raymond Chan on corruption costs this week by portraying him as a central determine in a sprawling “pay-to-play” scheme.
In opening arguments on Tuesday, Assistant U.S. Atty. Brian R. Faerstein advised jurors that Chan and former Metropolis Councilmember Jose Huizar used the downtown actual property increase of the prior decade to complement themselves and their allies.
Faerstein described Chan as an important middleman between Chinese language builders seeking to construct downtown high-rises and Huizar, who headed the highly effective committee that served as a clearinghouse for such tasks.
“[Chan] acquired bribes for himself, and he acquired bribes for different public officers,” Faerstein stated.
Chan’s first trial on costs of racketeering, bribery, sincere companies fraud and mendacity to federal investigators was derailed after his lawyer, Harland Braun, was hospitalized and unable to return to work for months. A decide declared a mistrial in April.
Chan is the final defendant charged within the Metropolis Corridor corruption investigation, dubbed “On line casino Loyale” by the federal authorities, to go on trial. Huizar, who pleaded responsible to racketeering and tax evasion costs, was sentenced in January to 13 years in jail.
George Esparza, Huizar’s onetime aide, pleaded responsible to racketeering conspiracy however has not but been sentenced. He’s scheduled to testify in opposition to Chan. Actual property marketing consultant George Chiang, who labored with Chan and in addition pleaded responsible to racketeering, is anticipated to testify as nicely.
John Hanusz, Chan’s new legal professional, agreed that Huizar and the others had been deeply corrupt, committing crimes on a degree that was “cinematic in scope.” However whereas Huizar and Esparza accepted flights to Las Vegas, on line casino chips and lavish lodge stays, Chan obtained none of these issues, he stated.
Chan, whereas working with builders, was motivated not by greed however by a need to make L.A. extra business-friendly, Hanusz stated.
“There was no quid professional quo on this case with Ray Chan,” he stated. “With Jose Huizar, there completely was.”
Hanusz advised the jury that among the authorities’s witnesses are liars who dedicated crimes — and now hope that their testimony will end in a lighter jail sentence.
The case in opposition to Chan covers the five-year interval from 2013 to 2018, when Huizar was in control of the council’s Planning and Land Use Administration Committee. In that place, Huizar had the ability to resolve when actual property tasks obtained a public listening to and once they can be despatched to the total council for a vote.
Chan was the highest govt on the Division of Constructing and Security till 2016, when he turned the deputy mayor in control of financial growth underneath Mayor Eric Garcetti. He held that job for barely greater than a 12 months, then left metropolis authorities to develop into a private-sector marketing consultant, representing actual property builders.
Prosecutors have accused Chan of secretly establishing a consulting agency whereas working for the town and overseeing authorities actions for which he was paid by a developer after he left his metropolis employment.
The federal authorities additionally alleges that Chan helped Huizar acquire a bribe from a Chinese language developer who later sought to construct a 77-story skyscraper in Huizar’s district. Huizar later admitted that the developer helped him safe a $600,000 mortgage that he used to secretly settle a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by a former staffer, proper earlier than a reelection marketing campaign.
Prosecutors stated Chan helped Huizar acquire the funds after Huizar killed a proposed merger of the Division of Metropolis Planning and the Division of Constructing and Security. That merger threatened Chan’s job as normal supervisor at Constructing and Security, prosecutors stated.
Shen Zhen New World I, the corporate that proposed the 77-story tower, was convicted of offering Huizar an enormous array of bribes, together with journeys to Vegas. A decide fined the corporate $4 million. Its proprietor, Wei Huang, fled the nation and is now a fugitive, in line with the Division of Justice.
Hanusz, in his remarks, known as the federal government’s case in opposition to Chan a “fiction.” Chan was a revered metropolis chief with many years of expertise who targeted on tearing down bureaucratic obstacles to new development, he stated.
“He rolled out the crimson carpet” for actual property growth, the lawyer stated. “And this metropolis benefited.”
