Mike Feuer
Photo: File photo from LA Attorney’s office.
Until now L.A. City Attorney Mike Feuer, who is running for Mayor, has maintained “I don’t know nuthin about nuthin” about his office and its response to the DWP overbilling.
Feuer has denied any knowledge of wrongdoing by people he oversaw or worked with and that includes Attorney Paul Pardis, Assistant City Attorney Thomas Peters, former LADWP senior Cyber Official David Alexander and LADWP General Manager David Wright. All four have pled guilty to charges.
In March 2019, Paradis began working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation into the corruption at the L.A. DWP and the City Attorney’s office. Feuer maintained that he had not attended meetings when plans were made for manipulating a class action lawsuit, for a rigged $30-million no-bid contract and for false statements to the FBI.
NBC4’s investigative team obtained copies of Feuer’s calendar, which showed he participated in a December 1, 2017, meeting with top deputies.
The report, by Eric Leonard ran April 4, 2022: “The City Attorney attended multiple meetings over the years about the PWC/DWP litigation, and it appears from his calendar that he attended one on December 1, 2017,” said Feuer’s spokesman Rob Wilcox (who is now running for City Controller) in an email to NBC. PWC refers to PricewaterhouseCoopers, the firm that sold the DWP the billing software.
Peters, a Palisades resident, in court filings by federal prosecutors said on “December 1, 2017 he met with, ‘senior members of the City Attorney’s Office,’ to consider paying a blackmailer, who had threatened to expose that lawyers working for the City were both suing the provider of the DWP’s billing software and drafting documents and manipulating a settlement for the DWP customers – who were suing the City for reimbursement of the erroneous billing.
Jamie Court with Consumer Watchdog said that complaints had been brought to the City Attorney or the Mayor since 2015 but have been ignored.
Pacific Palisades David Peterson wrote in an email to CTN, “This is an incredibly spot-on NBC News Report. A California Public Records request produced Feuer’s calendar which confirmed Peters guilty plea where he described the meeting with Feuer regarding the City Attorney’s Office directing their counsel, Paul Kiesel, to pay $800,000 to his former employee who was threatening to expose the City Attorney’s fraudulent conduct.
“It’s amazing how many residents are not aware of what is going on in the City Attorney’s office and the DWP,” Peterson said.
Thanks for confirming the details. It looks like Mike Feuer should drop out of the race for L.A. Mayor.