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The cursed Bahia Emerald ruins lives. Or is something else to blame?

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December 13, 2024

The cursed Bahia Emerald ruins lives. Or is something else to blame?

It was an ordinary day at his Los Angeles law office when John Nadolenco opened a letter from Brazil enlisting his help in a mission to retrieve a stolen, and quite possibly cursed, 836-pound emerald.

The year was 2014, the heyday of the Nigerian prince email scam, and the up-and-coming attorney was no fool.

“I immediately thought it was just completely fake, a total hoax,” he said. “I was like, ‘I’m not falling for this one. I’m smarter than this.’”

He tossed the letter in the trash.

But Nadolenco’s boss asked if, as a favor, he could look into the Indiana Jones-esque request to reclaim the Bahia Emerald. So Nadolenco skeptically reached out to a colleague in his firm’s Brazil office.

He was flabbergasted to learn that not only was the Bahia Emerald real, but the Brazilian government was genuinely interested in using his legal skills to retrieve the gem, which was being held in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s custody amid lawsuits over its ownership.

The emerald had been plucked from a mine in the Carnaíba mountain range, located in the Bahia region of northeastern Brazil.

“Bahia Emerald” is a misnomer because it is not one gem but nine dazzling crystals encased in a rough black rock 30 inches wide and 33 inches high. Each crystal is as thick as a Coke bottle, and one is believed to be the largest single emerald ever found.

But how did the stone, which weighs about as much as a full-grown bison, end up in L.A. County? And how could Brazil get it back? It was Nadolenco’s mission to find out.

The stone, he learned, was smuggled to the U.S. in 2005, and a series of lamentable tales — some fact, some fiction — have followed those who claim to own it, giving rise to the belief that the emerald is cursed.

A Bay Area building contractor swore his house burned to the ground (true) with his deed of ownership inside (likely false). Investors in a failed tech startup almost lost the gem to the flooding of Hurricane Katrina (true). A Northern California plumber claimed he was kidnapped by Brazilian warlords while owning the emerald (false).

The value of emeralds in general is highly variable and often set at whatever a buyer is willing to pay; appraisals of the Bahia Emerald have ranged from a couple thousand dollars to a jaw-dropping $925 million. Its value is especially tough to pin down due to its sheer size and one-of-a-kind nature.

“Our final valuation is that we would never sell it because it’s priceless for us,” said Fernando Filgueiras de Araujo, a federal attorney in Brazil’s foreign disputes unit.

Despite the many hands grasping to own it, few people have ever laid eyes on it. No one in the Brazilian government has seen the emerald in person, nor has Nadolenco.

One of the few who have seen the stone is Scott Miller, a now-retired Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department detective, who seized the emerald from a Las Vegas warehouse in 2008.

“It wasn’t as pretty as the pictures,” Miller said. “It was this large black rock, almost like a lava rock. But it did have the huge spires of emerald coming out of it, which was really cool to see.”

The men responsible for starting the mythology surrounding the Bahia Emerald are Elson Alves Ribeiro and Rui Saraiva Filho, the two Brazilians who took possession of the stone after it was pulled from a mine in 2001.

What happened to the rock for the next 23 years is the subject of controversy and confusion. The following timeline of the stone’s convoluted history is drawn from the facts laid out in a Los Angeles County Superior Court ruling over its ownership.

According to court documents, in September 2001, two friends from Northern California — mining consultant Kenneth Conetto and building contractor Anthony Thomas — flew to Brazil to purchase emeralds as part of a Hail Mary effort to save a failing tech start-up.

Thomas had sunk more than $200,000 into a digital imaging company, Digital Reflections Inc. (DRI), which was in dire financial condition and on the brink of shutting down.

The company learned of an investment opportunity that promised sky-high returns on a $100-million investment, and the following get-emeralds-get-rich plan was born:

Conetto, Thomas and DRI executive Wayne Catlett would secure $25 million worth of small cut and polished emeralds from Ribeiro and Filho. Then, they would use the stones as collateral for the $100-million loan needed to participate in the investment program.

The idea was to make quick money, pay Ribeiro and Filho over $3 million, save the failing company and live happily ever after.

Things did not go as planned.

For starters, no one from DRI had been able to assemble a loan that could use the cut emeralds as collateral by the time Conetto and Thomas arrived in Brazil in September 2001. During the trip, Ribeiro and Filho did, however, take the Americans to see the Bahia Emerald in storage.

The Bahia Emerald contains nine dazzling crystals encased in a rough black rock

A month later, Thomas wired $60,000 to Ribeiro — a fee that he said was to purchase the Bahia Emerald, but that court documents said was used to cover the cost of cutting and polishing the collection of emeralds the Brazilians had gathered for the DRI loan.

Thomas told the court that the Bahia Emerald mysteriously disappeared in transit to California and he suspected a corrupt Brazilian government was to blame, which is why he never bothered filing a theft report. When asked where his bill of sale was, Thomas said it burned up in a 2006 fire that destroyed his home in Morgan Hill.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael Johnson ultimately ruled against his ownership claim, writing in a 2014 judgment, “Thomas’s testimony was like sand in the wind — constantly shifting and changing its shape.” Thomas filed for bankruptcy a few weeks later.

Thomas never ended up possessing the stone, which instead was sent from Brazil via FedEx to his friend-turned-rival Conetto in 2005.

Conetto then sent the stone from San Jose to a storage facility in New Orleans, where it was submerged for weeks after Hurricane Katrina flooded the city that year.

At the time, Conetto was still working with DRI staff and the two Brazilians to use the Bahia Emerald as collateral for a loan, but as time passed and no progress was made, the team decided to sell the emerald.

In order to do so, they enlisted the help of two additional colorful characters: a Northern California plumber called Larry Biegler and a Florida gem dealer called Jerry Ferrara. Both men would later join the legal fray, claiming they owned the emerald.

Biegler shipped the stone back to San Jose in August 2007 and unsuccessfully tried to secure a buyer. Biegler later told Ferarra that he’d been kidnapped by Brazilian warlords and asked him to send ransom money, according to reporting from Wired.

In April 2008, Ferrara decided to take over efforts to sell the stone and had it transported to a storage facility in El Monte.

Ferrara, too, struggled to find a buyer, but had no problem using the stone as collateral for an expensive diamond deal with Idaho businessman Kit Morrison.

Morrison paid $1.3 million upfront for the diamonds, but the deal fell through and he suddenly found himself the unintentional owner of an 836-pound emerald. With Ferrara’s help in September 2008, he moved the stone to Las Vegas.

Biegler was not happy about the disappearance of the precious emerald and reported the stone stolen from the El Monte storage facility.

This is where detectives from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department enter the scene. Unable to determine who was the true owner of the stone, Miller and his colleague Mark Gayman decided to track it down and let the courts decide.

The pair traveled to Morrison’s home in snowy Idaho, where — after a threat to unwrap every present under his Christmas tree in pursuit of the gem — Morrison’s attorney informed them that the gem was in Las Vegas, Miller said.

So the detectives drove back to the Boise airport, landed in Los Angeles at 2 a.m., rendezvoused with co-workers at 4 a.m. and headed to meet Morrison at a high-security storage center in Las Vegas.

“He let us in and we opened up the crate and there was the emerald,” Miller said. “It took five of us to lift the crate into a van. We did some quick photographs for evidence and then drove in a caravan, fully armed all the way back to L.A.”

This was part of their heritage that had been stolen from Brazil. They felt wronged and they wanted it back.

— Attorney John Nadolenco on Brazilian efforts to reclaim the emerald

Soon afterward, a member of the U.S. Department of Customs and Border Protection contacted the Brazilian government to say the Sheriff’s Department was in possession of a massive Brazilian emerald.

The Los Angeles County Superior Court ownership battle over the stone began in 2009. This tussle was still ongoing five years later, when Nadolenco received the letter from the Brazilian government and embarked on a separate legal battle to repatriate the stone to Brazil through federal court.

Nadolenco remembers being extremely stressed when it appeared that the Los Angeles County Superior Court judge would rule on the gem’s ownership before Brazil could finish presenting its case.

To the Brazilians, “this wasn’t just a legal case,” Nadolenco said. “This was part of their heritage that had been stolen from Brazil. They felt wronged and they wanted it back.”

In June 2015, Judge Johnson ruled the stone did indeed have an owner: FM Holding Inc. “presented evidence establishing clear title to the Bahia Emerald.” This company was co-owned by Morrison, the Idaho businessman; his business partner Todd Armstrong; and Ferrara, the Florida gem trader.

But as seems to happen with the giant gem, there was a twist.

Just days before the stone was to be released, a federal court judge ordered that the emerald remain under lock and key until the federal case with Brazil concludes.

Meanwhile back in Brazil, government attorneys were accusing Filho and Ribeiro of illegally mining the gem and smuggling it out of the country.

After a lengthy trial and appeal process, the men were found guilty in 2017, but they never served jail time because of the statute of limitations surrounding their crime, said Filgueiras de Araujo, the federal attorney.

Nevertheless, their conviction allowed Brazil to invoke a mutual legal assistance treaty with the United States and ask the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to order the emerald’s forfeiture.

U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton approved the forfeiture motion on Nov. 21, asserting that American “interventors” have no right to the stone. The true owner, he declared, was Brazil.

If no appeal is filed, the next step will be to schedule a repatriation ceremony to turn the stone over to Brazilian officials, who plan to display it in a museum.

Nadolenco said he hopes to attend the ceremony, as he’s curious to finally make the gem’s acquaintance. He never asked to earlier because it wasn’t necessary to the legal case. But he’d like to see it now, with slight trepidation.

“I’d love to see it in person, but there’s a small part of me that may throw salt over my left shoulder or keep my fingers crossed behind my back, just in case,” he said.

In its travels around Brazil and America, the stone has wreaked havoc on the lives of smugglers, schemers and dreamers.

But retired detective Miller, one of the few people to have temporarily possessed the stone and suffered no dark twists of fate, sees no reason to fear the emerald.

“I believe that greed,” he said, “is the only curse that stone ever had.”

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After losing reelection, San Francisco mayor says she leaves office ‘a winner’

Ben Shapiro

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December 13, 2024

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After losing reelection, San Francisco mayor says she leaves office ‘a winner’

SAN FRANCISCO — Mayor London Breed may have lost reelection, but after more than six years at the helm of one of America’s most iconic cities, she says she will leave office next month as a champion.

“No matter what the results said, I’m still a winner,” Breed said in an interview this week. “The fact that I have come out of the most problematic circumstances of San Francisco to be mayor, and I’m here, and I have been able to serve, it is an absolute privilege.”

Indeed, it has been a meteoric rise to the top for Breed, 50.

Raised in poverty by her grandmother in the Western Addition, at the time one of San Francisco’s toughest neighborhoods, Breed was elected to the powerful Board of Supervisors in 2012 after serving as executive director of the African American Art and Culture Complex. She made history in June 2018 when she won a special election as the first Black female mayor of San Francisco after the unexpected death of Mayor Ed Lee.

The years that followed would be defined by crises: a deadly pandemic; the explosive availability of fentanyl and corresponding surge in overdose deaths; the twin plagues of rampant homelessness and untreated mental illness; the racial justice protests of 2020; and in the wake of COVID-era closures, a crushing rise in retail theft and collapse of the downtown economy.

“I had to deal with crisis after crisis after crisis,” Breed said.

Her track record in the face of these challenges became a decisive factor in the mayor’s race, a hard-fought competition among Breed and four other top Democrats. Breed lost to Daniel Lurie, 47, a nonprofit executive and heir to the Levi Strauss family fortune who has never held elected office.

Lurie seized on voter disillusionment with brazen retail thefts, homeless encampments and open-air drug use that made San Francisco a favorite punching bag of right-wing pundits and President-elect Donald Trump. Lurie pitched himself as a political outsider whom voters could rely on to usher in a new era of accountability and good governance.

Though Breed has never been a bleeding-heart progressive, she tacked right in recent years, championing policies to more aggressively move homeless people off the streets and give police more authority and resources to tackle crime. She said she feels she is leaving office just as “everything is starting to come together.”

Violent crime rates have fallen over the last year, with homicides down 34%, robberies down 22%, burglaries down 12% and motor vehicle theft down 21%, according to the San Francisco Police Department.

In summer, Breed launched a campaign to clear homeless encampments, an effort she said is paying off with 60% fewer tents across the city. Fatal overdoses have fallen for six consecutive months after hitting a high of 810 deaths last year.

Susie Tompkins Buell, a prominent Democratic donor and staunch supporter of Breed’s, said the mayor deserves credit for effectively leading San Francisco through an unusually difficult period. “I think she handled some serious problems very well, and I think there were new problems, problems we had never experienced before,” Buell said.

Buell applauded Breed’s decisiveness during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when she was one of the first big-city mayors to declare a state of emergency — a decision credited with saving thousands of lives.

“Nobody knew what to do, and everyone was scared and trying to do the right thing, and be bold and careful at the same time,” Buell said. “I know she gave it her all.”

But those early pandemic decisions were a distant memory for many voters when it came time to cast ballots this year. There was a grim sense that San Francisco had lost control of its street life — and some of its charm.

Lurie’s reputation as a “non-politician” almost certainly helped him win election. Though considered a political outsider, Lurie comes from one of San Francisco’s most influential families. He was born the son of a rabbi. His parents divorced when he was young, and his mother went on to marry Peter Haas, an heir to the founder of the Levi’s brand. Haas has since died, and Lurie and his mother are among the primary heirs.

Lurie spent nearly $9 million on his campaign, and his mother, Miriam Haas, contributed an additional $1 million to an independent expenditure committee backing his mayoral bid. The committee received millions more from tech titans and wealthy investors who saw in Lurie an opportunity to set the city on a new course after what they perceived as years of misdirection.

Breed said that heavy spending disadvantaged her campaign.

“It just was definitely very challenging to run the city, which is the priority, and then try to run a campaign against the kind of financial resources that were coming at me from a lot of different places,” she said.

The rise in tech sector influence has become a defining theme the last two years in an array of San Francisco elections. Breed is still weighing whether that shift will ultimately improve local politics. “There’s a lot of money that I wish could be poured into the things that are important in San Francisco,” she said. “It can’t just be about investing in a particular person. … It has to be about investing in a city regardless of who’s in charge.”

Breed’s critics say her loss was about more than campaign money.

Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, who ran against her for mayor as an old-school progressive, said she could be uncompromising and brusque in policy deliberations.

“It was kind of her way or the highway. And politics is the business of negotiating a compromise, which she did splendidly during COVID,” Peskin said. “But that was not everybody’s experience before COVID or after COVID, and that came back and bit her.”

In addition, he said, Breed’s shift away from the more liberal policies she championed when she served on the Board of Supervisors and in her early days as mayor cost her support from the progressive voters who helped elect her.

“She had alienated herself from liberal San Francisco along the way,” Peskin said. “And they abandoned her.”

James Taylor, a political science professor at the University of San Francisco and author of “Black Nationalism in the United States: From Malcolm X to Barack Obama,” agreed that Breed leaves office with a “mixed legacy.”

Breed governed the city during a challenging tenure, Taylor said, but some problems were of her own making. Her time in office was marred by a string of scandals that rocked city departments and nonprofits, undermining trust in government oversight.

Most recently, an investigation by the San Francisco Standard found that the head of the city’s Human Rights Commission funneled contracts worth more than $1 million to a nonprofit led by a man with whom she shared a home address and car — a close personal relationship she had not disclosed. The episode raised larger questions about how city funds have been managed for one of Breed’s signature programs, the Dream Keeper Initiative, which she established with the stated aim of directing more money into economic and cultural development in Black communities.

In the wake of the scandal, Taylor said, many Black San Franciscans felt the city lost the momentum for change they thought would come with her leadership.

“In other words, London Breed’s demise was self-inflicted,” he said. “The way this plane crashed, everything around it was destroyed.”

State Sen. Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat and one of Breed’s allies, disputed that conclusion, contending Breed has been remarkably successful despite historic challenges.

“The city has been through a lot in the last five years,” he said. “The voters ultimately decided they wanted to go in another direction. But she’s done a lot of good things.”

Among her accomplishments, Wiener said: Breed was a forceful advocate for legislation to make it easier to build homes, and a reliable ally for the LGBTQ+ community.

“She really deeply understands our community,” Wiener said.

Breed acknowledged Lurie will inherit a list of tribulations. Among the more pressing issues is a projected $876-million city budget deficit. The office vacancy rate remains stubbornly high nearly five years after the pandemic. The city schools system is on the brink of state takeover.

Her advice to Lurie? “It’s important not to be afraid of what constituency you’re going to piss off when you have to make life-and-death situation decisions here in the city that may be unpopular.”

That grit is critical as California prepares for Trump to resume office, Breed said.

“San Francisco has been a consistent target and will be used as an example,” she said. “San Francisco is going to be impacted whether we want it to be or not.”

Her election loss coincided with Trump’s victory over her friend and mentor, Vice President Kamala Harris. Breed said their defeats should prompt reflection inside the Democratic Party.

“I hope the Democratic Party tries to figure out a way to help more people, especially even people like me, be more successful,” she said.

Breed said she has been focused on a smooth mayoral transition and hasn’t had much time to think about life after the mayor’s office. She has spent nearly her whole life working, she said, starting with babysitting gigs and grocery runs for neighbors as a preteen. She’s eager — and a bit anxious — to figure out her next job.

“I don’t have no rich mama with money,” she said, laughing. “I gotta go make my own money.”

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L.A. wants to ban using nitrous oxide to get high. But challenges loom

Ben Shapiro

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December 13, 2024

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L.A. wants to ban using nitrous oxide to get high. But challenges loom

The Los Angeles City Council is considering cracking down on the sale of nitrous oxide — known as laughing gas, typically is administered by anesthesiologists as a short-acting sedative, but when used recreationally it can lead to disorientation, falls and even death.

But a ban intended to keep young people from using the gas to get high could prove challenging as California now allows the sale of the gas for other uses throughout the state.

In a 14-0 vote last month, the council directed the city attorney to analyze Rialto’s 2017 ordinance to ban the sale of nitrous oxide to minors. The city attorney was asked to look at how that city enforced the law and penalized violators, and to make recommendations for implementing a ban in Los Angeles.

“Nitrous oxide is a trending drug that is extremely addictive, harmful, and now more than ever, easily accessible at smoke and tobacco shops across the City,” said Councilmember Imelda Padilla. “California law allows individuals 18 years and older to purchase nitrous oxide, as long as it is not inhaled after purchase.”

Purchasing nitrous oxide with the intent to inhale is considered a misdemeanor in California — punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine, or both.

But the sale of the gas is permitted for culinary and automotive uses. Small canisters of nitrous oxide are used to power whipped cream dispensers, with a box of 50 canisters selling for about $26 on Amazon. Specialty car shops sell the gas to boost the oxygen forced into the engine, increasing the performance of certain vehicles.

Some TikTok influencers have been seen promoting businesses in L.A. selling nitrous oxide canisters.

“This makes the law difficult to enforce and allows vendors, such as smoke shops and liquor stores, to sell nitrous oxide products,” Padilla said. “Vendors have now even introduced flavored nitrous oxide onto shelves. Studies have shown that adding flavors and colorful packaging to drug products play a key role in youth initiation and continued use.”

Padilla spearheaded the motion alongside Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez. Hernandez said young people are intentionally being targeted by advertising and lured by flavored “whippet” canisters used for dispensing whipped cream.

“We are seeing a lot of these types of activities in a lot of our public spaces with our young people,” Hernandez said. “I have some containers the community has given me as evidence of this activity. And the bottles are white, looks like whipped cream, have pictures of peaches and smells like peach.”

Rialto was the first city in the nation to ban illegal sales of nitrous oxide. Councilmember Ed Scott led a three-year effort to adopt the ordinance after the nitrous oxide-related death of his 17-year-old son, Myles “Eddie” Scott, on June 5, 2014.

His son was riding in a 1998 Acura, inhaling nitrous oxide along with the driver. About 7:15 p.m., the driver struck a tree along the 10 Freeway, killing everyone inside. Scott’s son graduated from Bloomington Christian High School a week before the crash.

“He was always a good kid. Never been in trouble,” Scott said. “I thought it was odd there was nitrous oxide in the car. So, I went into his phone and found that he had been engaging with other kids to start buying this stuff to sell at parties.”

Extensive research led Scott to uncover numerous parties in Rialto involving the recreational use of nitrous oxide. He said the Rialto Police Department conducted raids at automotive shops selling laughing gas to minors.

“We started pushing to come out with an ordinance to target smoke shops, because whippets mostly come from smoke shops,” Scott said. “So we banned it in smoke shops, started going after the car shops, and pretty much got a better control of it in our area than most other cities had.”

Rialto’s 2017 ordinance made the overall sale of the nitrous gas illegal regardless of recreational use, allowing it for medical and industrial purposes only. People who violated the ordinance face jail time, a $1,000 fine or both.

The ordinance was met with overall support, Scott says. It has helped decrease the number of deaths associated with the inhalation of nitrous oxide.

“We’ve had no deaths. We’ve had a couple of accidents and some DUIs, but not very many. It has definitely made a change in Rialto, Scott said. “Kids know that the Rialto Police Department doesn’t play with it. They have zero tolerance. It’s the same as alcohol or any other drug, as far as we’re concerned.”

Dr. Arash Motamed, an anesthesiologist at USC’s Keck Hospital, said nitrous oxide has historically been used to help get people unconscious but recreational use of the gas can lead to health problems.

“It’s hard for someone using nitrous recreationally to cause serious damage to yourself, unless you fall, or injure yourself in some other form,” Motamed said. “But it can have a problem with pregnancy, impacting neuron development of a fetus, potentially causing issues with the spinal cord formation of the fetus.”

A 2015 study on the recreational risks of nitrous oxide says people experience a short-lived euphoric trance after inhaling the gas from a balloon. The side effects included transient dizziness, dissociation, disorientation, loss of balance, impaired memory and cognition, and weakness in the legs. High levels of intoxication can lead to tripping and falling down, and fatal accidents were reported due to asphyxia.

The L.A. City Council faces a potential challenge in having police enforce the ban. The Los Angeles Police Department’s gang and narcotics unit said in a statement that it does not have a current tracking system or enforcement of nitrous oxide. It is unclear what role the LAPD would have if a ban is approved.

But during a council meeting in November, Padilla noted two separate fatalities that authorities said were related to the use of nitrous oxide.

The Los Angeles Unified School District reported 11 incidents of nitrous oxide possession during the 2023-24 academic school year. LAUSD Representative Genesis Coronado submitted a written communication supporting Padilla’s push for action.

“We respectfully urge the city council to vote in favor of the nitrous oxide motion. Our student population has already been detrimentally impacted by the prevalence of fentanyl laced drugs and other controlled substances,” Coronado wrote. “As a school district, we rely heavily on the support of our municipal partners to help us address societal challenges that extend beyond the walls of our schools.”

Scott said L.A. is moving in the right direction.

“I just think there needs to be more attention paid to it. And unfortunately, young people are the casualty of it, while adults are selling and making money. That’s a sad thing for me.”

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Los Angeles County plans to raze historic headquarters building

Ben Shapiro

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December 13, 2024

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Los Angeles County plans to raze historic headquarters building

With the ink dry on the County of Los Angeles’ $200-million purchase of the Gas Company Tower office building downtown, a fight is brewing over what to do with the 1960s-vintage headquarters it plans to leave behind.

Supervisor Janice Hahn and preservationists are pushing back against a plan to move workers into the newly purchased skyscraper on Bunker Hill and raze the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration, which was renamed after Hahn’s father and is a centerpiece of the government-oriented Civic Center neighborhood.

“It came as a big shock to me when I realized what was happening,” she said, blaming county administrators for quietly pushing through what she called a closely held plan to move the seat of county power and thousands of workers, then knock down a prominent public building.

“I thought it was a little bit of a secretive process, a little bit of they knew what they were doing, but didn’t exactly reveal it,” she said.

County officials, however, plan to start moving staff from the Hall of Administration and other county buildings into the downtown skyscraper next summer, the start of a process that could take three or four years.

The Gas Company Tower in downtown Los Angeles

Preliminary county plans call for razing the Hall of Administration but keeping the building where the Board of Supervisors convenes in public sessions. That building is connected to the Hall of Administration but is a separate structure that could stand on its own.

The plan to raze the Hall of Administration is not set in stone, county officials said. Formal planning for the future of the site will begin in early 2025 and a master plan should be complete in about a year, followed by an environmental review of the plan that may last into 2027. But keeping the building would raise budget challenges because a large portion of the funds used to buy the Gas Company Tower came from money that had been earmarked for seismic retrofits and other necessary fixes to the Hall of Administration and other county buildings.

Hahn cast the sole “no” vote on the county’s purchase of the Gas Company Tower last month. When she first learned of the proposal to buy the 52-story building, which faced foreclosure, she thought it was an opportunity for the county to make a favorable investment in a down market. The county could potentially consolidate some of its many offices there and then sell it later at a profit when the office real estate market recovered.

Then, she said, “it was revealed” that the plan was to move the the Board of Supervisors offices and county services to the Gas Company Tower, and ultimately demolish the Hall of Administration.

“It’s really still unnerving to me, and a bit of a shock, that this was their plan all along,” Hahn said. “I think the public is still a little in the dark about what the plan is.”

The Hall of Administration was a source of civic pride when it and other key buildings in the Civic Center, including the Los Angeles County Superior Court — Stanley Mosk Courthouse, were being built starting in the 1950s.

“What the Acropolis was to Ancient Greece during her Golden Age, the new Civic Center now being hewn from the shabby slopes of Bunker Hill will be to Los Angeles,” The Times wrote in 1957.

The Hall of Administration was being built to last a century, it was reported. The capital projects analyst in the office of the county’s chief administrative officer was “ready to wager the Hall of Administration will still be in service by 2059,” The Times said

The building was renamed the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration in 1992 in honor of Hahn’s father, who was the county’s longest serving supervisor and a former Los Angeles city councilman.

Hahn said she is not driven by his legacy to save the building.

“Hey, if you want to take the name off, if that makes you feel better about preserving it,” she said, “I’m OK with that.”

The head of the Los Angeles Conservancy, which advocates for the preservation of meaningful local structures, said the Hall of Administration is “definitely historic” and significant. It was designed by a prominent team of midcentury architects including Paul R. Williams, the first licensed Black architect west of the Mississippi, who designed movie stars’ homes and prominent public buildings.

Knocking the Hall of Administration down would be “a misstep for a lot of reasons,” conservancy President Adrian Scott Fine said.

Among the reasons to keep it, he said, is its position across Gloria Molina Grand Park from the Mosk Courthouse. The two are a pair that frame the park connecting City Hall with the Music Center.

“These two buildings are integral” to the Civic Center, Fine said. “You can’t lose one without losing the function that they were intended to do.”

The Hall of Administration public spaces are filled with light brown marble and terrazzo that can make the halls feel institutional. There are spots in the building that appear to need painting, patching and other maintenance.

“It’s kind of a bleak place,” acknowledged frequent visitor Will Wright, director of government and public affairs for the L.A. chapter of the American Institute of Architects. “Which tells me you really need to invest in its upkeep.”

With investment the county could “restore and uplift” the interior to make it more appealing to employees and visitors, he said.

Ideally, the county would own both the Gas Company Tower and a restored Hall of Administration, Wright said, a position Hahn supports.

“I believe the amount of money that it would take to retrofit this is still an amount of money that we could easily find in a $50-billion budget,” Hahn said in an interview in her office. “I don’t think it’s too big of an ask for what this has meant for decades to the people of Los Angeles County.”

Los Angeles County oversaw the renovation of the Hall of Justice a decade ago.

The Hall of Administration is less flashy than other downtown landmarks such as the Walt Disney Concert Hall, City Hall and the LADWP headquarters, but it doesn’t need to be eye-catching to be important, real estate developer and preservationist Dan Rosenfeld said.

“Not every public building needs to scream for attention,” he said. “It would be a very discordant city if they did.”

Rosenfeld worked on preserving other significant historic downtown buildings that were seismically unsafe and threatened by the wrecking ball, including City Hall and the Hall of Justice, both of which date to the 1920s and remain in use after renovations.

“It would be relatively simple to reinforce the building for lateral seismic strength and to modernize the interior,” Rosenfeld said of the Hall of Administration. “The building can and should be saved.”

The Hall of Administration is part of a Civic Center with public spaces and state, local and federal buildings “that defines Los Angeles,” he said, and should not be abandoned by the county. The Civic Center “is a symbol of our democracy,” he said, a place where citizens gather to celebrate, protest and mourn.

“A civic center is more than a collection of buildings,” Rosenfeld said. “It is a symbol of what a community believes in.”

The county will not neglect the Civic Center, Chief Executive Fesia Davenport said.

“We understand the importance of a vibrant and well-functioning Civic Center and are committed to maintaining the County’s presence in this vital public space,” Davenport said in a statement. “As we embark on our Civic Center master planning process over the next year, we will be inviting extensive public input to help shape our recommendations to the Board of Supervisors to help guide their decisions on how best to reimagine our Civic Center buildings for optimal public use.”

The 52-story tower Gas Company Tower at 555 W. 5th St. was widely considered one of the city’s most prestigious office buildings when it was completed in 1991. It has nearly 1.5 million square feet of space on a 1.4-acre site at the base of Bunker Hill.

Slightly more than half of the building is leased to a diverse mix of tenants including law firm Latham & Watkins and accounting firm Deloitte, real estate brokerage JLL said. Its namesake tenant, Southern California Gas Co., said in September that it will move from the tower where it has been a primary tenant since the building was completed to another skyscraper a block north at 350 S. Grand Ave.

Times staff writer Rebecca Ellis contributed to this report.

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Judge orders rapper Lil Durk jailed in L.A. murder-for-hire case

Ben Shapiro

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December 13, 2024

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Judge orders rapper Lil Durk jailed in L.A. murder-for-hire case

Federal prosecutors said Thursday that rapper Lil Durk, who is accused of commissioning a murder two years ago in Los Angeles, may be linked to another killing in Chicago — new allegations that helped convince a judge to order the Grammy Award winner to remain jailed as his case proceeds.

During a detention hearing, U.S. Magistrate Judge Patricia Donahue said the 32-year-old rapper, whose legal name is Durk Devontay Banks, has significant resources and the ability to flee.

Lawyers for Banks had pressed for his release, offering a bond secured by $2.3 million in equity in two homes in Georgia and $1 million in cash. They also said they would hire around-the-clock security to ensure compliance with conditions imposed by the court.

More than 30 people, including family, friends and Sony Music representatives, packed into the courtroom, which Assistant U.S. Atty. Ian Yanniello called a bellwether for the fact that Banks “is a powerful and influential man who has significant resources.”

“This case is about how he used that power and used that influence and how he used those resources to promote and perpetuate violence with deadly consequence,” Yanniello said.

Banks is accused of ordering the murder of Tyquian Bowman, a Georgia rapper called Quando Rondo, whose cousin was killed in a botched ambush near the Beverly Center mall in Los Angeles in 2022.

In a brief filed Thursday, prosecutors also cited a separate federal case in Chicago, involving the killing of Stephon Mack outside a youth center.

An Illinois search warrant originally filed under seal in April 2023 and filed publicly with redactions Wednesday alleges that Banks “offer[ed] money for people to kill those responsible for his brother’s murder, and more specifically, offering to pay money for any Gangster Disciple that is killed.”

Banks’ brother, Dontay Banks, Jr., was shot and killed outside a nightclub in Harvey, Ill., in June 2021, according to the search warrant.

“Evidence collected in this case also shows defendant has allegedly placed monetary bounties to solicit other murders, including a family member of a witness,” California prosecutors stated in their brief. “Defendant’s modus operandi is clear: he will use his power, his money, his influence, and any pretrial release to endanger anyone who he perceives as a threat, including witnesses in this case.”

A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Illinois said two people have been charged in Mack’s slaying: Anthony Montgomery-Wilson and Preston Powell. Asked whether Banks has been or will be charged, the spokesperson declined to comment.

Jonathan Brayman, one of Banks’ attorneys, said after the detention hearing that his client has not been charged in connection with the Chicago shooting and “we do not anticipate that he will be charged.”

“The news that’s coming out of there has nothing to do with us,” said Drew Findling, another attorney for Banks. “Our client has nothing to do with that; that’s not part of our case.”

During his detention hearing, Banks smiled at his wife and mother, who cried during the proceeding. Banks blew a kiss to his wife as U.S. marshals led him away.

“We love you,” his family and friends shouted at him in the hallway outside the courtroom.

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Troy Masters dead: LGBTQ+ advocate and media trailblazer was 63

Ben Shapiro

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December 13, 2024

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Troy Masters dead: LGBTQ+ advocate and media trailblazer was 63

Troy Masters, the publisher of LGBTQ+ news outlet the Los Angeles Blade and a pillar of queer media, died unexpectedly on Wednesday at age 63.

His death was mourned by celebrities, politicians, artists and advocates who admired the work he did uplifting queer voices and advocating for LGBTQ+ rights through his trailblazing journalism. His family announced the news of his passing in a statement published in the Los Angeles Blade on Thursday. They did not disclose a cause of death.

“We are shocked and devastated by the loss of Troy,” the statement said. “He was a tireless advocate for the LGBTQ community and leaves a tremendous legacy of fighting for social justice and equality.”

Masters founded Gay City News in New York City in 2002. It quickly became a cornerstone of queer news on the East Coast.

In 2017, he became the founding publisher of the Los Angeles Blade, a sister publication of the Washington Blade, the nation’s oldest LGBTQ+ newspaper.

“All of us at the Los Angeles Blade and Washington Blade are heartbroken by the loss of our colleague,” said the organization in a statement. “Troy Masters is a pioneer who championed LGBTQ rights as well as best-in-class journalism for our community.”

Masters said his passion for LGBTQ+ media was sparked by his experience living in New York City, and watching his friends die, at the height of the AIDs epidemic.

“What started as a trickle of HIV positive friends became a tsunami of dying people and slowly my every day became consumed by their desperation and need for assistance, advice or help,” Masters told VoyageLA in a 2018 interview. “There were few services at the time for people with AIDS, and it fell to networks of friends to ease their burdens, fight their battles, administer their care and even bury them.”

This crisis prompted him to leave a lucrative sales job at PC Magazine to work for a gay and lesbian magazine called OutWeek. There he discovered a large community of people on the front lines of the fight for LGBTQ+ civil rights — and discovered his calling.

He dedicated himself to publishing stories about the fight for more HIV research, faster drug approvals for HIV medications and rising violence against the LGBTQ+ community.

In 2015, he became increasingly concerned about the lack of a queer publication serving the growing LGBTQ+ community in Southern California. He set his eyes on a move to the Golden State and, two years later, successfully led the launch of Los Angeles Blade, an online and print news publication.

The announcement of his sudden death sent shock waves through the queer community in Southern California, where Masters had became a beloved and respected figure.

“I am terribly saddened to hear of the passing of Troy Masters,” said LGBTQ+ advocate and state Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur, (D-Los Angeles) in a statement. “A pillar in the LGBTQ+ community in his many roles, he has covered life in our community and the challenges of our fight for civil rights and social justice.”

L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, , in a statement on X, said she would miss Masters’ humor, wit and huge heart and praised his relentless journalistic pursuits and dedication to uplifting the LGBTQ+ community.

Journalist and culture critic Jasmyne Cannick said she was heartbroken by the death of Masters, whom she said she considered a personal mentor and friend.

“Through the years, he was supportive of my work, giving me space and a voice as a columnist and reporter for the Blade newspapers when it mattered most,” she said in on X. “Troy understood the importance of covering the Black LGBTQ+ community and made it a point to ask me what stories they needed to be telling.

“The void he leaves behind is deep,” she added, “but the community is better because of his dedication.”

For now, Los Angeles Blade Editor Gisselle Palomera will take over leadership of the paper.

Masters is survived by by his mother, Josie Kirkland, and his sister, Tammy Masters. His family said they planned to announce details of a celebration of his life in the near future.

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DMV apologizes for license plate that mocks Oct. 7 attack on Israel

Ben Shapiro

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December 13, 2024

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DMV apologizes for license plate that mocks Oct. 7 attack on Israel

The California Department of Motor Vehicles issued an apology for an “unacceptable and disturbing” personalized license plate that the agency said displayed hate speech related to the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.

The watchdog organization StopAntisemitism posted a photo on X, formerly known as Twitter, of the license plate on a Cybertruck that “[celebrated] terrorism against the Jewish people.”

In the photo, the license plate read “LOLOCT7.” LOL is an abbreviation for laugh out loud.

The plate seems to reference Oct. 7, when Hamas militants stormed into Israel, killing about 1,200 people and kidnapping about 250. The attack triggered an ongoing retaliation by Israel in neighboring Gaza.

The organization said the vehicle was spotted at the intersection of Jefferson and Sepulveda boulevards in Culver City.

On X, the DMV issued a statement Thursday, saying the department is “taking swift action to recall these shocking plates, and we will immediately strengthen our internal review process to ensure such an egregious oversight never happens again.”

The department apologized that the personalized plate was not properly rejected during the review process.

A spokesperson for the department told The Times the license plate should not have passed the review process and, after it was flagged on social media, many people who alerted the department found it offensive.

“The use of hateful language is not only a clear violation of our policies but also a violation of our core values to proudly serve the public and ensure safe and welcoming roadways,” the statement said.

According to the department spokesperson, the license plate owner will be notified about language of their plate and the recall of their license plate. The owner of the vehicle has the right to appeal the department’s decision.

The department will go through its license plate database to identify whether any configurations of this offensive language exists on any other license plates and recall them, the spokesperson said.

“StopAntisemitism was appalled to discover a vehicle with a license plate glorifying the 10/7 massacre of innocent Israelis,” said Liora Rez, executive director of the organization.

“With the swift action of thousands of emails from our committed supporters, the California DMV has now recalled the plate,” she said.

Assistant Editor Luke Money contributed to this story.

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Teenager dies from burn in a house fire in Riverside County

Ben Shapiro

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December 13, 2024

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Teenager dies from burn in a house fire in Riverside County

A family in Jurupa Valley is mourning the loss of their 14-year-old who died from severe burn injuries and smoke inhalation after their home was engulfed in flames earlier this month.

On Dec. 5 at 1:59 p.m., firefighters from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and Riverside County Fire Department responded to a single-story house that was completely inundated with flames on Pacific Avenue in Jurupa Valley.

One victim was trapped and pulled from the burning structure by firefighters and transported to a local area hospital in critical condition, according to county fire officials.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation.

Family members have identified the victim on social media as 14-year-old Zakaria Diaz.

Diaz was an eighth grade student of Central Middle School of Arts and Innovation, KTLA5 reported. The school released a statement that said Diaz died from his injuries in the hospital two days after the fire.

The school described Zakaria as a “profoundly kind student who enjoyed all aspects of school life.”

“As a 7th grader, he played in the Intermediate Band and his band mates from last year are still his close friends,” the statement said. “As one of the tallest students at Central, you should see him above all the other kids, but he was truly a gentle giant with a quick smile and an easy laugh.”

His mother, Nicky Rodriquez, is raising money through a GoFundMe page for funeral expenses and said the teen “had a happy fulfilled life and he will continue to give us the loving memories on the time we got to spend with him.”

A small memorial of flowers, candles and a plush Pikachu were left on the curb and behind it are the charred remnants of the family’s home.

The fire displaced seven people and also killed the family’s five chihuahuas, KTLA5 reported.

The family is holding a memorial for Diaz at the Rubidoux Mortuary – Kimberly Family Chapel on 6091 Mission Blvd. in Riverside on Dec. 20 at 1 p.m.

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Ex-wife arrested in ambush slaying of Southern California doctor

Ben Shapiro

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December 13, 2024

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Ex-wife arrested in ambush slaying of Southern California doctor

The former wife of a Woodland Hills doctor who was slain execution-style outside his medical practice this summer has been arrested in connection with his death, sources told The Times.

Hamid Mirshojae was shot in the back of the head as he walked to his car after work on Aug. 23. The shooting occurred a few months after the doctor was jumped by a trio of men with baseball bats, an attack that he said left him fearing for his life.

Ahang Kelk stands at the Woodland Hills memorial of her ex-husband Hamid Mirshojae on Sept. 1, 2024.

His ex-wife, Ahang Kelk, was taken into custody Thursday. She denied in August that she was involved in the crime. Federal agents raided her home in Calabasas on Thursday, according to Fox 11.

“It’s all lies,” she said at the time.

Her arrest came two days after Ashley Rose Sweeting, 40, and Evan Hardman, 41, were taken into custody in connection with the August killing. Sweeting is from Reseda and Hardman is from Texas.

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California lawmaker questioned in cannabis corruption investigation

Ben Shapiro

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December 12, 2024

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California lawmaker questioned in cannabis corruption investigation

Documents made public by the U.S. attorney’s office last week allege that a public official who fits the profile of state Sen. Susan Rubio was part of sprawling cannabis bribery scheme when she served on the Baldwin Park City Council and campaigned for state office in 2018.

Rubio, a Democrat, said through a spokesman that she “has no reason to believe that she would be included in any criminal allegations.”

The documents do not name Rubio, but they describe a public official who fits her profile: someone who was in a position to terminate the Baldwin Park city attorney in 2017 and 2018, and was running for state office through November of 2018. Rubio is the only Baldwin Park official whose experience matches those criteria.

The information was revealed in a plea agreement in which former Baldwin Park City Atty. Robert Tafoya admitted his role in a cannabis bribery scheme and agreed to cooperate in ongoing public corruption investigations. Edgar Cisneros, the former city manager of Commerce, also pleaded guilty in the plot in which local officials allegedly took bribes to hand out permits for marijuana businesses.

According to his unsealed plea agreement, Tafoya alleges that an unnamed Baldwin Park official requested $30,000 in cash payments to later be funneled into their state campaign account through straw donors. The candidate allegedly wanted these small donations to “demonstrate to other donors his/her broad support in the community,” the plea says.

In exchange for the money, Tafoya alleges the candidate agreed to use their powers as a state elected official to protect Tafoya’s job and assist him financially.

The plea agreement describes Tafoya meeting with the unnamed Baldwin Park official in 2017 and providing the first $15,000 payment “in cash in an envelope.” A second cash payment of the same amount came after the unnamed official “won his/her primary in June 2018,” the document says.

Campaign finance reports show two contributions totaling $2,600 from Tafoya & Garcia, LLP — a law firm belonging to Tafoya that is mentioned in the plea agreement — to Rubio’s campaign in August and October 2018.

Rubio’s office did not answer The Times’ question about whether she is the unnamed individual Tafoya refers to in his plea.

“Mr. Tafoya has apparently made allegations against numerous individuals in order to reduce his sentence,” Rubio spokesperson Matthew Z’berg said in a statement.

Z’berg said federal officials informed Rubio that she is not a target in the government’s investigation, and he added that she “volunteered hours of her time” aiding the authorities in their investigation. A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office said he could neither confirm nor deny these claims.

Z’berg also pointed to Rubio’s record on the City Council voting against approval for a cannabis business.

Former Baldwin Park City Atty. Robert Tafoya admitted his role in a cannabis bribery scheme.

In his plea agreement, Tafoya said he agreed to the transaction because he believed the official could remove him from his job as city attorney. He also said the person would “provide [him] additional work” if they were elected to state office.

The unnamed official, referred to only as “Person 20” in the plea agreement, was identified as someone in a position to expel the Baldwin Park city attorney from office. Council members are the only officials with the authority to remove the city attorney, according to the Baldwin Park city code.

The plea also says that the official Tafoya bribed was a candidate for state office “starting in 2017 and ending in November 2018,” the same time frame when Rubio successfully campaigned for her first term as senator.

The Times checked the rosters of the sitting members of the City Council who were also running for state office during that period. No other public official in Baldwin Park who had the power to remove Tafoya from office was also campaigning for state office during that period, according to Robb Korinke, who runs GrassrootsLab, a public affairs firm that maintains a database of candidates who run for local and state office across California.

The Times identified two other people who are similar to the description of “Person 20” in the plea agreement, but missing key details. One was Monica Garcia, who served on the Baldwin Park City Council at the same time and also ran for state office. But she was eliminated in the primary election, so she was not running in November 2018, which is how the plea agreement describes “Person 20.” The other person was Mike Eng, Rubio’s opponent in the 2018 general election. But he was not a public official in Baldwin Park and therefore did not have authority to remove Tafoya from office as described in the document.

Garcia and Eng did not respond to requests for comment.

The alleged racketeering operation began in June 2017 when then-Baldwin Park City Councilmember Ricardo Pacheco began soliciting bribes from marijuana companies for permits to operate in the San Gabriel Valley community. Those scandals prompted a 2023 statewide audit aimed at curtailing bribery in the cannabis business.

In November 2023, Cisneros quietly resigned from his office in the city of Commerce in southeast L.A. County and pleaded guilty to federal bribery charges. Tafoya resigned as Baldwin Park city attorney in 2022 and pleaded guilty to federal bribery and tax evasion charges in December 2023.

“A lot of people felt bringing cannabis into our community was going to benefit them monetarily,” said Cruz Baca, a former Baldwin Park city councilwoman. “They saw an opportunity to charge whatever they want to and jumped on the bandwagon because [cannabis] companies wanted to come into the community.

“It was like a gold rush,” she added. “There were certain people who were attracted to that.”

After the legalization of weed in California, corruption bled through local governments from the Inland Empire to the San Gabriel Valley and southeast Los Angeles County, a Times investigation found.

When California legalized cannabis, many cities enforced strict limits on the number of cannabis licenses they would issue. Most cities still prohibit cannabis businesses from operating. With such a limited number of permits available, competition for them is high.

Baldwin Park bans delivery and laboratory testing of cannabis but allows sale at retail stores, and local manufacturing, cultivation and distribution of the plant. City officials began awarding licenses in late 2017 and have said the maximum number of permits they’ll allow is 25. The city is one of 27 in Los Angeles County that allow at least one type of cannabis business, while an additional 61 cities prohibit it completely.

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