By FRED SHUSTER
City News Service
LOS ANGELES (CNS) – Former Los Angeles City Councilman José Huizar will plead guilty to federal charges that outline a City Hall-based bribery and money laundering scheme in which he took more than $1.5 million in cash, gambling trips and escorts in exchange for his support of a planned downtown hotel project, according to court papers obtained today by City News Service.
Huizar’s plea agreement to racketeering conspiracy and tax evasion was signed Wednesday and filed in Los Angeles federal court Thursday afternoon.
The document states that Huizar faces a sentence of up to 26 years behind bars once he pleads guilty, but he has agreed to a prison sentence of no less than nine years. A motions hearing in the case is on the calendar for Friday morning, but that could be updated to a hearing for Huizar to enter his plea.
At sentencing, Huizar will be ordered to pay restitution of about $1.85 million, the document states.
There is no immediate word on whether Huizar’s co-defendant, former Deputy Mayor Raymond Chan, will also plead guilty. The trial for the defendants was scheduled for Feb. 21.
Two trials arising out of a 34-count indictment against Huizar and his associates have ended in convictions. Real estate development company Shen Zhen New World I LLC was found guilty last month of paying Huizar $1 million in bribes to obtain city approval to build a 77-story skyscraper.
In the first Huizar-related trial, a federal jury in June found Bel Air real estate developer David Lee and 940 Hill LLC, a Lee-controlled company, guilty of felony charges, including fraud and bribery, for providing $500,000 in cash to Huizar and his special assistant in exchange for their help in resolving a labor organization’s appeal of their downtown development project.
During the Shen Zhen trial, Huizar’s 83-year-old mother, his older brother and his estranged wife testified for the prosecution.
Chan, a deputy mayor who oversaw economic development for ex-Mayor Eric Garcetti in 2016 and 2017, is accused along with Huizar of shaking down developers.
As part of his roles on the City Council, Huizar was the chairman of the Planning and Land Use Management Committee commonly referred to as the PLUM Committee, which oversaw major commercial and residential development projects in the city.
Federal prosecutors have thus far convicted a total of nine defendants along with receiving over $3 million in criminal penalties to resolve the federal probe into two other major real estate development companies, as a result of Operation “Casino Loyale,” the ongoing corruption investigation into City Hall corruption being conducted by the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
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