A former Los Angeles chief deputy city attorney is facing State Bar of California disciplinary charges Friday for alleged misconduct related to the 2017 Department of Water and Power billing scandal.
James Patrick Clark of Los Angeles faces two charges of alleged misconduct related to his role in secretly directing — then lying under oath about — a scheme of collusion, deceit and concealed conflicts of interest intended to enable the city of Los Angeles to settle ratepayer class actions on terms favorable to the city and DWP, according to the State Bar.
Clark faces two additional charges for allegedly accepting rock concert tickets from one of the attorneys involved in the collusion and then failing to report the gift, as required by law, on his financial disclosure Form 700.
“As Chief Deputy City Attorney for the city of Los Angeles, Mr. Clark occupied a position of public trust and had an obligation to act honestly and in compliance with all ethical requirements,” George Cardona, State Bar chief trial counsel, said in a statement.
“Instead, the (Notice of Disciplinary Charges) alleges that he directed and authorized a scheme of collusion and deceit that was a blatant betrayal of his duties as an attorney and public official.”
According to the notice, in or about February to March 2015 when he was serving as a high-level official in the City Attorney’s Office, Clark met with attorneys Paul Paradis and Paul Kiesel, whom he knew represented the city of Los Angeles and DWP in a case against PriceWaterhouseCoopers related to the disastrous implementation of a new billing system for the DWP.
Clark authorized and directed the two attorneys to find outside counsel friendly to the city to represent Antwon Jones, a client of Paradis’, in a ratepayer class action lawsuit against the city and DWP. The goal of the scheme was to use Jones’ class action lawsuit as a vehicle to quickly settle all ratepayer claims against the city on the city’s desired terms,…
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