In February, former Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer acknowledged to the editorial board of this newspaper that he was under investigation by the California Bar Association. He smoothly characterized the probe as no big deal, just the Bar appropriately investigating every lawyer involved in a case that had resulted in multiple convictions for such federal crimes as bribery and extortion.
Feuer was a candidate for Congress in a crowded primary and asking for an endorsement, ultimately unsuccessful in both endeavors.
Two years earlier, Feuer was unsuccessful in a run for mayor of Los Angeles, exiting the race in mid-May, just before the June 7 primary.
But two years before that, Feuer told FBI investigators he thought he’d be “among the favorites” in the 2022 campaign for L.A. mayor. According to a 2020 affidavit by FBI Special Agent Andrew Civetti, Feuer gave misleading answers to federal agents investigating his office and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. He provided a “narrative of apparent obfuscation, false and misleading statements and omissions,” Civetti alleged.
That’s one of the revelations in newly unsealed documents from the now-closed case, forced into the public record after litigation by the Los Angeles Times and the nonprofit organization Consumer Watchdog. “The government documents paint a disturbing picture of Feuer conspiring to obstruct justice and ordering an extortion payment to cover up illegal and unethical activity in order to protect his political career,” said Consumer Watchdog litigation director Jerry Flanagan.
Feuer has denied all wrongdoing and federal prosecutors did not charge him with any crime.
“As we have stated before, where the evidence did not establish every element of a federal crime beyond a reasonable doubt, we have not pursued charges,” said Ciaran McEvoy, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office. McEvoy confirmed that the federal investigation into the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is closed.
In July 2019, the FBI raided City Attorney Feuer’s offices and the downtown headquarters of the LADWP. The search warrant said agents were seeking evidence of crimes that included bribery, kickbacks, extortion, mail fraud and money laundering.
The sprawling investigation stemmed from the 2013 launch of a new DWP billing system, overseen by consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, that was a debacle. L.A. customers were wildly overcharged and class action lawsuits bubbled up.
Lawyers working for the City Attorney’s office secretly manipulated the litigation to ensure that the city’s lawyers were improperly representing both the city and the ratepayers who were suing. Feuer says he knew nothing of this collusion and insisted that the blame was solely on the lawyers who were hired by his office.
Later, an employee of one of the attorneys threatened to expose the collusive lawsuit unless she was paid off. According to the government documents, unnamed “senior members of the City Attorney’s office” directed that a payment of $800,000 should be made in response to the extortion.
Feuer says he didn’t know. But the Times reported that the affidavit by Civetti, the FBI agent, says Feuer was aware of the demand and “impliedly directed” one of his deputies to handle it.
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There were a number of convictions and prison sentences in the case. David Wright, the former general manager of the LADWP, was convicted of bribery. Thomas Peters, a former top official in the City Attorney’s office, was convicted of taking part in an extortion scheme. David Alexander, formerly in charge of the DWP’s information security and cyber risk operations, was convicted of lying to the FBI about a sweetheart business deal with one of the city’s attorneys, Paul Paradis. And Paradis was convicted of accepting a multi-million-dollar kickback of legal fees from one of the other attorneys in the collusion scheme.
To be clear, what happened here is that LADWP ratepayers were abused by an overbilling and customer service disaster, and the city sought to abuse them further by secretly undermining their legitimate claims in court. To pull this off, lawyers working for the City Attorney’s office coordinated with other outside lawyers, eventually negotiating a $67 million settlement, of which roughly $19 million went to the plaintiffs’ attorneys.
Did now-former City Attorney Mike Feuer tell investigators the whole truth? Maybe the California Bar Association is still investigating that question.
Write Susan@SusanShelley.com and follow her on Twitter @Susan_Shelley