Former LA deputy mayor convicted in bribery case
LOS ANGELES — Former Los Angeles Deputy Mayor Raymond Chan was convicted Wednesday of racketeering, bribery, fraud and giving false statements to investigators in a sprawling pay-to-play corruption scandal at City Hall.
The federal jury reached the guilty verdict less than 24 hours after lawyers finished closing arguments, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Sentencing was set for June 10. Chan’s attorney, John Hanusz, told the judge that they will appeal.
“Chan used his leadership position in City Hall to favor corrupt individuals and companies willing to play dirty,” U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said in a statement. “With today’s verdict, we send a strong message that the public will not stand for corruption and that pay-to-play politics has no place in our community.”
This was Chan’s second trial in the bribery case involving downtown Los Angeles real estate development projects. The first fell apart after his lawyer, Harland Braun, was hospitalized and unable to return to work for months. A judge declared a mistrial last April.
In the latest trial, Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian R. Faerstein told jurors that Chan and former City Councilman Jose Huizar used the downtown real estate boom of the prior decade to enrich themselves and their allies, the Times reported.
Faerstein described Chan, 67, as a crucial intermediary between Chinese developers looking to build high-rises and Huizar, who headed the powerful committee that shepherded such projects.
BERKELEY — The city of Berkeley has agreed to halt enforcement of a ban on natural gas piping in new homes and buildings that was successfully opposed in court by the California Restaurant Association, the organization said.
The settlement follows the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ refusal to reconsider a 2023 ruling that the ban violates federal law that gives the U.S. government the authority to set energy-efficiency standards for appliances, the association said in a statement last week.
“While the Ninth Circuit’s ruling renders this particular ordinance unenforceable, Berkeley will continue to be a leader in climate action,” Berkeley City Attorney Farimah Faiz Brown said in an email to The Associated Press.
The restaurant association said Berkeley agreed to settle the case by taking steps to repeal its ordinance, but because the process will take several months, the city will immediately stop enforcing the ban to comply with the court ruling.
In 2019, Berkeley became the first U.S. city to adopt a ban on natural gas in new homes and buildings, starting a climate change-driven move in many other cities and counties that morphed into a culture war over the future of gas stoves.
The California Restaurant Association filed suit in federal court to overturn Berkeley’s ban.
After the 9th Circuit’s ruling, environmental groups contended it would not affect the majority of cities and counties that have already banned or curtailed natural gas through building codes that meet certain federal requirements. But they said jurisdictions with ordinances similar to Berkeley’s might be at risk.
LOS ANGELES — A Southern California police department has been handcuffed by Lego after the toy company asked the agency to stop adding Lego heads to cover the faces of suspects in images it shares on social media.
The Murrieta Police Department has been using Lego heads and emojis to cover people’s faces in posts on social sites since at least early 2023. But the altered photos went viral last week after the department posted about its policy, prompting several news articles and, later, the request from Lego.
“Why the covered faces?” the department wrote March 18 in an Instagram post that featured five people in a lineup, their faces covered by Lego heads with varying expressions. The post went on to reference a California law that took effect Jan. 1, limiting departments in sharing mugshots on social media.
“The Murrieta Police Department prides itself in its transparency with the community, but also honors everyone’s rights & protections as afforded by law; even suspects,” the department wrote.
Across the U.S., law enforcement agencies have often posted galleries of photos for “Mugshot Mondays” and “Wanted Wednesdays” to social media in efforts to bolster community engagement. But experts increasingly point to the harmful effects of putting such images online. For people awaiting trial, mugshots can carry a presumption of guilt. And for anyone seeking to move past a criminal conviction, the images can make it hard to get a job and haunt them for the rest of their lives.
Under California’s new law, police departments and sheriff’s offices are now required to remove any booking photo they shared on social media — including of people arrested for violent offenses — within 14 days unless specific circumstances exist, like the person remains a fugitive and an imminent threat to public safety.
It builds on a previous version that took effect in 2022. The prior law prohibited posting mugshots of all nonviolent offenders unless those circumstances exist. It also said departments should remove mugshots already posted to social media identifying any defendant who requests it if they can prove their record was sealed, their conviction was expunged or they were found not guilty, among a handful of other reasons.