Remember the Los Angeles City Council LAtinX scandal? In October 2022 former District 6 councilwoman Nury Martnez, former District 1 councilman Gil Cedillo and District 14 councilman Kevin de Leon were recorded while they met in a secret at the L.A. Federation HQ. The union leader and Council members were dividing up the pie in order to redistrict Los Angeles, while also making disparaging comments about the adopted Black son of former District 11 Councilman Tom LaBonge and Oaxacans.
We previously reported that Martinez, Herrera, and Cedillo had resigned from their positions of power or been removed by primaries. Kevin de Leon is still in office, but he’s being plagued by angry activists and constituents who want him to leave. He will never be at peace as long as he remains a Los Angeles council member. The local and national media were captivated by this story for a long time last year. But after a few weeks and the full takeover of the L.A. City Council by the Democrat Socialists the storm that had rocked L.A. Politics for decades finally subsided.
Los Angeles Magazine has an exclusive on the leaker.
LAPD could be on the verge of arresting the suspect responsible for the recording and leak of City Council meetings in October last year, which sparked the largest scandal in recent Los Angeles politics. Los Angeles has heard from multiple sources that the bookkeeper of the Los Angeles County Federation secretly recorded racist banter between the city’s powerful politicians.
Santos Leon was the Director of Finance at the L.A. Fed for 10 years until he resigned in July. LAPD detectives found recording software on his computer. Several sources confirmed that he had planted it in the office and conference room of Ron Herrera, the president of his organization.
Karla Vasquez was Herrera’s executive secretary, but she is not suspected of leaking an hour-long private conversation between several L.A. Councilmembers, including her boss, who are all Latino Democrats, as they plotted to gain more political power amid racist rants in October.
This leaker has apparently been found, as opposed to the person or persons who leaked the SCOTUS Dobbs Draft. Score points for LAPD who, it seems, do better investigation work than the FBI. It’s not surprising. It’s not surprising.
Los Angeles Police officers searched the Eagle Rock homes of two former employees of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor as part of an investigation into the secret audio recording which shook City Hall politics in the past year.
According to a source who is familiar with the investigation and has knowledge of this warrant, but who is not authorized by the government to speak, a search warrant was executed earlier this month on the home of Santos Leon, and Karla Vaquez. The couple were married and employed by the Federation at the time the recording was recorded. The person claimed that the police took Leon’s computers.
California has rare exceptions to the recording of conversations without consent. It is a crime and can lead to a criminal charge. Source: The warrant cited penal codes for eavesdropping, destroying, or hiding evidence and concealing evidence.
Someone higher up wants blood. The police searched for several hours, according to neighbors. The public records do not show that Vasquez or Leon are suspects. However, the attorneys of Vasquez and Leon refused to comment. Both have left Cal Labor and have nothing to gain by keeping quiet.
According to a source familiar with the investigation, on Tuesday last week, the federation convened an emergency meeting in order to inform its executive board of the results of the internal investigation conducted by the organization into the recording.
The source declined to name themselves because they weren’t authorized to discuss the federation’s internal investigation.
“Why California Federation of Labor is Nervous About the Leaked Conversation”
It sure seems that the LA City Council and Cal Labor has an incestuous relationship. Cal Labor is highly miffed at the leaked audio that came from *their* offices.https://t.co/X0fyhIbIL4— Gray Wolf (@graywolf442) October 12, 2022
The Federation had dismissed the notion that one of their staffers might be responsible for this secret recording. They said last fall that they have “the best staff” in the country.
The federation tweeted last year: “We reject any accusations that a member from our staff is responsible for these recordings. They are absolutely false and completely outrageous.”
Cal Labor, as we reported in 2022’s October, is headed by the former Assemblywoman Lorena Fletcher. Her signature moves were apparent in the way that the audio was leaked, and the subsequent aftermath.
This writer has been fascinated by the way the Los Angeles City Council has taken the heat for this scandal while Cal Labor is pretending to be a savior at the moment.
Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher is the newest Secretary-Treasurer for Cal Labor. She has “led” the charge to condemn the racism in the recordings that were leaked and played at uniting union workers.
Who would benefit if President Ron Herrera were forced to resign from his position? It is not surprising that the Black woman who assumed Herrera’s position was also a Black woman. The LAtinX Scandal discussion involved disparaging Blacks and Black leaders in the city. The election of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who is also a Black woman, makes a strong statement. Cal Labor’s appearance of cleaning up its act to keep its connection with the power brokers in the city is also a statement. What happened with the former Latino City Council Members is still happening. The same thing is happening but with different faces and different days.
