Prosecutors will not file criminal charges against 2 people at center of Los Angeles racism scandal

Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Los Angeles city attorney’s office said Tuesday that it does not plan to file criminal charges against two people who were investigated in connection with the unlawful recording of a racist conversation that rocked City Hall and prompted the city council president to resign after the audio was leaked in 2022.

The local prosecutors declined to file misdemeanors against the two people, a married couple, just months after the district attorney’s office announced that it would not pursue any felony charges against them.

The Associated Press is not naming the two people because they were not charged. Both previously worked at the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor and lived at a home that investigators traced to social media posts highlighting the controversial recording.

Prosecutors could not meet the burden of proof for a case, even though the district attorney’s office, in a charge-evaluation worksheet, said “the evidence indicates that a crime was committed by one or both of these individuals.”

Under California law, all parties must consent to the recording of a private conversation or phone call, otherwise the person who made the recording could face criminal and civil penalties. The state’s wiretapping statutes are among the strongest in the nation and allow the “injured party” — the person being recorded without their permission — to sue.

“After careful review, it was determined that there was insufficient evidence to meet the constitutional standard of proof,” city attorney spokesperson Ivor Pine wrote in an email to the AP on Tuesday. “Because of this, our office will not be filing criminal charges.”

The scandal was triggered by a leaked recording of crude, racist comments during a private meeting in 2021 in which four Latino Democrats plotted to expand their political power at the expense of Black voters during a realignment of council district boundaries. The recording was leaked the following year.

Council President Nury Martinez and powerful labor leader Ron Hererra resigned in disgrace. Councilman Gil Cedillo’s term ended weeks later, but Councilman Kevin de León resisted calls for his ouster — including from the White House — and he ran for reelection. He faces a runoff in November.

The meeting occurred at the headquarters of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, known locally as the “LA Fed.” The couple both worked at the LA Fed at the time.

The couple’s identities have been made public in court filings and media accounts. Bob Schwartz, an attorney for the husband, said his client is “relieved that no charges will be brought against him.”

While his client has been “adamant” from the beginning that he was not responsible for the recording, Schwartz said whoever did it “performed a great public service” for the city and acted in the tradition of whistleblowing.

Michael A. Goldstein and Hagop Kuyumjian, attorneys for the man’s wife, hailed the decision not to file charges.

“Since the recordings originally surfaced, we have remained confident that neither the District Attorney nor the City Attorney’s office would pursue criminal charges in this matter. Sadly, the negative content of those recordings has taken a backseat to lawsuits now working their way through our civil courts. We believe the City Attorney’s office made the right call taking a pass on this case,” the attorneys said in a statement Wednesday.

No other potential suspects or persons of interest in the recording have been named by investigators or prosecutors.

Pine, in the city attorney’s office, and a spokesperson for the district attorney did not immediately return requests for comment late Tuesday to say whether anyone else had come under investigation in connection with the case.

Investigators said the recording was anonymously posted on Reddit in 2022 and that a Twitter account amplified the post. Both accounts were associated with an email account that was traced to an IP address — a numeric designation that identifies its location on the internet — and linked to the couple’s home.

Detectives recommended charging the couple with felony eavesdropping and illegal audio recording or wiretapping charges in relation to the recording of that 2021 conversation as well as another of a 2022 phone call between Herrera and a federation spokesperson, according to a charge-evaluation worksheet released by the district attorney’s office.

The district attorney declined to file felony charges earlier this year and referred the case to the city attorney’s office for possible misdemeanors.

Cedillo and de León have separate pending lawsuits against the couple.

The district attorney’s charge-evaluation worksheet notes that both people had “similar motives to carry out the offense,” but it does not detail the alleged motives. Prosecutors wrote that the evidence indicates either person, or both, made the recording.

“However, it is unclear how the unlawful recordings took place, the device used to do so, or who uploaded the recordings online and created the anonymous accounts on Reddit, Twitter, and Gmail,” the worksheet states.