The day after Los Angeles City Councilmember John Lee was accused this week of violating city ethics laws for not reporting gifts he allegedly got from a developer while he was a city employee, his city council colleagues were largely silent while some residents in his council district said they were not surprised by the accusations.
The Los Angeles Ethics Commission announced on Monday, Oct. 2, that there was “probable cause” to believe that Lee, in 2016 and 2017 as chief of staff to then-City Councilmember Mitchell Englander, accepted gifts far in excess of the gift limit for city officials, failed to report the gifts, misused his position, and aided and abetted Englander’s misuse of his own position.
The probable cause finding by Ethics Commission staff doesn’t necessarily mean that Lee violated the law. That will be determined at a future hearing of the Ethics Commission board.
Lee denies wrongdoing and has pledged to “vigorously fight these baseless accusations.”
Trial lawyer and former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani, a former member of the Los Angeles Ethics Commission, said he was surprised that the commission hadn’t pursued an investigation earlier.
“The question is, why he wasn’t charged when all the Englander stuff came out? I really don’t have an answer,” he said, referring to a scandal that sent Englander to prison to serve a 14-month sentence in 2021. “This really should have been handled years ago,” Rahmani said.
He added, “When it comes to the ethics commission, until the public accusation is filed, everything is secret. … They don’t want the fact that there’s an ethics investigation to come out until charges are filed.”
Accepting gifts, Rahmani said, wasn’t considered a violation of ethics law on Lee’s part. Instead, his failure to report the gifts in 2017, right after receiving them. was the problem.
“This is a big deal when it comes to government ethics. You’re getting gifts from…
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