Los Angeles Metropolis Councilman John Lee repeatedly violated the town’s reward legal guidelines in 2016 and 2017, accepting freebies throughout a lavish journey to Las Vegas and at a number of eating places in L.A., a choose stated in a submitting launched Friday.
In a 59-page proposed determination, Administrative Legislation Choose Ji-Lan Zang concluded that Lee dedicated two counts of violating a legislation governing the dimensions of items a metropolis official can obtain and three counts of violating a legislation requiring that such items be publicly disclosed.
Zang really helpful a $43,730 penalty for Lee, who represents the northwest San Fernando Valley and was chief of workers to then-Metropolis Councilmember Mitchell Englander on the time of the alleged reward violations. Nevertheless, the choose didn’t agree with allegations by metropolis ethics investigators that Lee misused his place or helped Englander misuse his place.
In 2020, federal prosecutors accused Englander of accepting $15,000 in money from businessman Andy Wang, mendacity to FBI brokers and obstructing their investigation into the 2017 Vegas journey. Englander in the end pleaded responsible to a single depend of offering false info to the FBI and was sentenced to 14 months in jail.
The five-member Los Angeles Metropolis Ethics Fee is scheduled to make a willpower on Wednesday, deciding each the variety of violations Lee dedicated and any monetary penalties to impose on him.
The fee has the facility to simply accept or reject Zang’s suggestions. Ethics investigators have really helpful that the fee take a extra punitive method by fining Lee about $138,000 and holding him liable for all 10 counts.
The Lee case revolves round items — principally meals and alcohol but additionally resort stays, transportation and $1,000 in playing chips — supplied by three males who’ve sought to do enterprise with Metropolis Corridor: Wang, who peddled Italian cupboards, “sensible house” expertise and facial recognition software program; architect and developer Chris Pak; and lobbyist Michael Bai.
The choose issued her report six months after a multi-day listening to on the allegations towards Lee, who changed Englander on the council in 2019.
Throughout these proceedings, Lee denied that he improperly accepted items, saying he made religion effort to pay his personal method and, in some instances, declined to eat throughout meals. For instance, he testified that he didn’t bear in mind consuming throughout his conferences at Yxta Cocina Mexicana and Water Grill, each in downtown L.A.
Zang, in her report, referred to as Lee’s denials “not credible,” describing his testimony as “evasive and self contradictory.” She stated Lee’s testimony additionally was in battle with info he gave the FBI throughout its investigation into Englander, in addition to testimony from different witnesses.
“It strains credulity to consider that [Lee] would be a part of Englander, Bai, and Wang for lunch at Yxta and dinner at Water Grill with out consuming any meals through the meals,” she wrote.
Ethics investigators have accused Lee of receiving an assortment of items through the 2017 Vegas journey with Englander and several other others. Lee and a bunch of buddies stayed on the Aria resort and spent a night on the Hakkasan Nightclub, in keeping with the town’s allegations.
On the resort restaurant, Blossom, Wang ordered a dinner value almost $2,500 for the group, which included Englander, Lee and several other others, sending out servings of shark fin soup, Peking duck and Kobe beef, in keeping with the choose’s abstract of occasions.
Lee testified that he arrived on the restaurant in time for a dessert of chicken’s nest soup, tasting it and deciding he didn’t prefer it, the choose stated in her submitting.
At Hakkasan later that evening, Wang bought three rounds of bottle service for the group for round $8,000 apiece, whereas Pak paid for a fourth spherical at a value of $8,418.75.
“Every spherical of bottle service was served with fanfare, as feminine VIP hostesses introduced bottles of alcohol to the desk with flashing lights,” the choose wrote.
That evening, not less than 20 different membership patrons went to Wang’s sales space and drank alcohol on the desk, in keeping with the choose’s submitting.
Lee was by no means charged by federal prosecutors and has stated he was unaware of wrongdoing by Englander. In a submitting submitted final week, his attorneys stated that investigators incorrectly calculated the worth of the items, together with the bottles of alcohol, whose contents have been distributed amongst many individuals.
Lee gave Wang $300 in money as reimbursement for his drinks, withdrawing cash from an ATM in Las Vegas to cowl these bills, his legal professionals stated.
Of their reply to the town, Lee’s attorneys contend that the statute of limitations has expired on the town ethics counts. They’ve additionally pushed again on the advice from metropolis ethics investigators that Lee pay a $138,000 penalty.
“Such inflated numbers usually are not grounded in cause, don’t have any foundation within the file, no help within the governing legislation, and no place in a good and neutral enforcement system,” they wrote of their submitting.
Englander beforehand agreed to pay $79,830 to settle the same Ethics Fee case over the items he obtained.
Ethics investigators have accused Lee of committing 10 counts of violating metropolis legal guidelines — two counts of accepting items in extra of the authorized restrict, three counts of failing to report these items on his public disclosure types, 4 counts of misusing his place and one depend of aiding and abetting Englander’s misuse of his place.
In 2016, the authorized restrict on items to metropolis officers was $460 per donor. The next yr, it was $470.
In Englander’s 2020 federal indictment, Lee was talked about not by identify, however as a substitute known as “Metropolis Staffer B.” Regardless of his authorized troubles, he gained reelection in 2024.
