When a former Los Angeles City Council member dubbed by a prosecutor "the King Kong of L.A. City Hall for many, many years" reports to prison this week, he will be the third recent council member brought down by corruption charges, part of what federal authorities called an “extraordinary” recent wave of bribery and influence-peddling across California, the New York Times reports. Over the last 10 years, 576 public officials in California have been convicted of federal corruption charges, according to Justice Department reports, exceeding the number of cases in states better known for public corruption, including New York, New Jersey and Illinois. It's not just the state's sheer size driving the numbers. A heavy concentration of power at Los Angeles City Hall, the receding presence of local news media, a population that often tunes out local politics and a growing Democratic supermajority in state government have all helped insulate officeholders from damage, political analysts said.
The former council member going to prison this week is Jose Huizar, a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, Princeton University and U.C.L.A. law school whose perch on the City Council representing downtown L.A. gave him control of the influential committee that approves multimillion-dollar commercial development projects across the city. His spectacular fall — after F.B.I. agents caught him accepting $1.8 million worth of casino chips, luxury hotel stays, a liquor box full of cash and prostitutes from Chinese developers — was cast by federal prosecutors as an epic Hollywood tale. They persuaded a judge in January to sentence him to 13 years in prison on charges of tax evasion and racketeering. Huizar, 55, pleaded guilty to racketeering, a charge often used in prosecuting organized crime or street-gang cases. The $1.8 million in bribes he received was twice the amount that recently convicted Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey was charged with accepting. In March, a jury convicted Raymond Chan, a former Los Angeles deputy mayor whom prosecutors called the “architect” of the Huizar conspiracy, also on racketeering charges. In all, more than 50 key political figures and executives in Los Angeles and San Francisco have been convicted since 2019. Many more were investigated or resigned after allegations surfaced.