Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Could This L.A. Times Story Be The Beggining of the End For L.A. City Political Corruption

Here's a little item that was on the front page of Tuesday's Los Angeles Times:

"(The founder of) multimillion-dollar chain of Numero Uno markets, may face life in prison on charges including bribing an L.A. planning commissioner."

Supermarket mogul guilty of bribery, racketeering, soliciting murder

(The founder of) the multimillion-dollar chain of Numero Uno markets, may face life in prison on charges including bribing an L.A. planning commissioner and arranging opponents' slayings
By Scott Glover
April 21, 2009

(A) feisty entrepreneur who built a multimillion-dollar grocery store chain by catering to some of Los Angeles' poorest communities, was convicted of racketeering, solicitation of m*rder, bribery and other crimes Monday by a federal court jury.

The grocery store founder faces potential life imprisonment as a result of the verdict.


Could this be the reason there were no positions in the Obama administration for Antonio Villaraigosa and Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti? This was a FEDERAL conviction. Do you not think that the Prez has access to this information and had a little peek before slamming the door on Los Angeles City Hall (Villar and G-Shady)? I DO!

Do you think all you need to do is bribe one commissioner? Maybe because elected officials get to accept "campaign contributions" they don't have to accept bribes. But wait until you hear what type of questionable money may have been being used (keep reading):

But what this may end up being tied to is the Vignali story where then President Clinton pardoned Vignali just before leaving office. Vignali and The Supermarket Mogul had a real estate land development company together doing business in Los Angeles.

Turns out, in a freak coincidence, the money being used to fund these deals; the deals that were being approved by City Hall, along with hard to get variances that were needed to move these developer mountains -- WAS LAUNDERED MONEY!

All the while, local and state politicians went along with all of this. And although I know the Federal government takes the types of actions that were being taken by the Grocery Store mogul, alone, VERY SERIOUSLY...I think they may be just as concerned, if not more so, with any shenanigans of actual elected representatives of the United States (City Council, Assembly, Senate) that were a part of any of this.

But it will all depend on whether or not the Supermarket Mogul decides to offer any additional information, or just stay silent and leave all of his untold stories behind him in the past. Look for the answer to that question sometime around the sentencing phase.

Personally, I haven't seenVillaraiogsa's name associated with this story as other elected officials have been. So although there may be smoke around Villaraigosa, he may not be the primary focus of any further investigations. If you want to find out the elected officials who have been named and associated in this story, check the LA City Beat story.

Full L.A. Times story:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-torres21-2009apr21,0,1631443.story

See also: Mike Corona story. That was the first shoe to drop. Looks like we are seing the second.