In the courtroom where Huizar was sentenced
Former Councilman Jose Huizar demonstrates that our justice system works
Despite what FOX, MSNBC, CNN, et al show us every day, our justice system can work. And it can work extremely well. This past week I watched this system work at former Councilman Jose Huizar’s sentencing on January 26th. I sat just feet away from the four prosecutors, one FBI agent, two public defenders and the defendant himself. This was personal for me, but more about that in a minute.
We were in the bright and cheery, brand new 600,000 sq. ft. US Court in downtown LA. How could something so serious happen in an environment that felt so optimistic?
At five minutes to eight Huizar walked through the doors with his two public defenders, looking more rotund, balder and certainly sadder than the last time I’d seen him at one of LACI’s events. A year earlier he had pled guilty to a 40-page charging document which explained in excruciating detail how he led a “criminal enterprise” that sought more than $1.5M in bribes from local developers to speed their real estate projects through LA City’s regulations/processes. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash stashed in closets, private jets to Vegas gambling parties, prostitutes and debts secretly paid were just the tip of Huizar’s corruption iceberg. Today was the final reckoning and he looked like he knew it was going to be a bad day. Huizar and the government had reached a plea agreement calling for a prison sentence between 9 and 13 years. Today’s hearing was to determine what end of that spectrum Huizar would serve. Moreover, U.S. District Judge John F. Walter didn’t have to accept this agreement and could take the Probation Department’s recommended 400 months if he wanted.
Huizar’s actions destroyed his family (he went through a divorce, his brother was indicted as well, he doesn’t have the money to take care of his special needs children), other associated lives were ruined, neighborhoods were blotted, and our city government was brought to its knees (to be fair, Huizar wasn’t the only city official arrested for corruption in recent years, just the most egregious: Councilmember Englander, County Supervisor Scott Ridley-Thomas, Deputy Mayor Chan, Los Angeles Department of Water & Power GM Michael White, and numerous other officials had all been arrested in the past couple of years. Councilmember Price is currently awaiting trial.) It’s been a very dark period for local government here in Los Angeles.
Why was this personal to me? I wrote in my Victims Impact Statement:
I am the co-founder and founding CEO of the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI), located in then Councilman Huizar’s district. LACI, a nonprofit created in 2011 by the City of Angeles, was established to lead the City’s efforts to build a cleantech innovation hub and its resulting green economy. As part of our mission, LACI was focused on growing family-supporting jobs in a high growth industry for residents of Boyle Heights and East LA.
We started LACI from modest beginnings – we were in a converted bus repair garage right across the river from Boyle Heights. It was tough gathering support for the project, attracting high-potential startups to LACI, and getting enough funding to operate during its first few years.
We were never able to get any support from Huizar despite LACI’s potential to provide a future for his constituents. Oh, Huizar was very willing to attend a grand opening or ribbon cutting where he could make a speech; but lending any actual support (either financial or otherwise) was never forthcoming. I could never understand why “our” Councilman would never give us the time of day despite the potential to help his constituents. Numerous efforts to build job-training “bridges” between the startups of LACI and the citizens of Boyle Heights/ East LA were met with silence and no action. Why?
Now we know why. We weren’t paying him to help us, thus he had absolutely no interest. During a time when “green tech” was (and is) the fastest growing business sector in the world, Boyle Heights and East LA residents were denied the opportunity to participate in this future. This is a shame.
Building LACI was my first experience in working with local government. I was naïve in thinking that local politicians and their staff were solely focused on helping their constituents. Unfortunately, I had the extreme displeasure of not only working with Mr. Huizar, but also former Councilmember Englander, former Deputy Mayor Chan, and former LADWP General Manager Wright – all of whom accepted bribes rather than putting in the hard, honest work of building needed LA institutions like LACI.
First to speak that morning was Assistant U.S. Attorney Mack Jenkins. Jenkins looks 30-ish, is African American, and wore a powder blue suit. His team was equally young and diverse. Only the FBI agent sitting next to him looked like an… FBI agent. At the podium, Jenkins only referred to the hundreds of pages of evidence in record and got to the point quickly: “Councilman Huizar was the King Kong of Downtown, the King Kong of the Los Angeles City Council, and the leader of a criminal enterprise that has done irreparable damage to the City of Los Angeles..” The government wanted the full 13 years prison sentence plus restitution.
Then Deputy Federal Public Defender Charles Snyder made his way to the podium carrying a sheath of typed pages. Also young, Snyder was white, well groomed, and gave me the opposite vibe of Jenkins – he was part of the Establishment. For 30 minutes Snyder argued the case for leniency: Huizar’s historic rise from poverty in Mexico to UCLA law, the enormous toll his family and he had already suffered, all the good work he’d done on both the Los Angeles Unified School Board and City Council, how he’d single-handedly brought downtown LA back to life, and how even a nine year sentence was a major outlier if you looked at other high profile corruption cases across the nation. Judge Walter repeatedly told Snyder that he’s read all the documents more than once, and he didn’t need to go over the territory again. But Snyder pretty much ignored the requests and plowed on until 30 minutes in Walter said, “That’s enough, I’ve given you 30 minutes.”
Then Judge Walter started speaking. He covered each area of the Defendant’s argument: his story, his good work, the damage he’s already suffered – all with empathy. The most memorable part to me was his reference to President Theodore Roosevelt’s comments to Congress in 1903:
“There can be no crime more serious than bribery. Other offenses violate one law while corruption strikes at the foundation of all law. Under our form of government all authority is vested in the people and by them delegated to those who represent them in official capacity. There can be no offense heavier than that of him in whom such a sacred trust has been reposed, who sells it for his own gain and enrichment; and no less heavy is the offense of the bribe giver. He is worse than the thief, for the thief robs the individual, while the corrupt official plunders an entire city or state. He is as wicked as the murderer, for the murderer may only take one life against the law, while the corrupt official and the man who corrupts the official alike aim at the assassination of the commonwealth itself. Government of the people, by the people, for the people will perish from the face of the earth if bribery is tolerated.”
“Corruption requires a substantial sentence. Any other sentence would erode, if only by increments” the country’s intolerance for it as well as “the foundations of our democracy until it collapses under its own weight,”
After almost two hours of discussion, Walter got to the point: Huizar would have to spend 13 years in prison, pay $440,000 in restitution ($50,000 that day), $38,000 in taxes and abide by a long list of behavior requirements. He’s to report to the designated prison facility on April 30, 2024. He will be 68 when he gets out of prison if he serves the full sentence.
I’d come to the Court that morning to give Huizar his “going away party,” as I was so pissed. I guess building LACI was more personal than I had thought -- Goodbye and good riddance! was my attitude. Now, sitting in the courtroom as the hearing ended, I was in a completely different mood. I had just witnessed our judicial system at its best: somber, deliberative, argumentative, balanced, respectful. Fair. Huizar had gotten what he deserved after being given a chance to make his case.
I walked into the bright, cheery hallway and felt satisfied. Justice had been done. The system works. Remarkably, I was in tune with this building, I’m feeling optimistic.
Glad to know our justice system worked Fred let us know how you are Hello to Karen
Bravo, something good to cling to in a world gone mad. What a turd Huizar is, LA deserves the best, not the worst. Gregg