'Take care of my donors': L.A.'s forgotten corruption trial

Good morning. It’s Tuesday, May 5, and the day will see alternating bursts of sunshine and clouds, with the chance of light rain.

In today’s newsletter, we have Kamala Harris’ Malibu real estate, Jitlada’s sudden closure, Pulitzer Prize news, and the high cost of the World Cup for our cash-strapped city. But first, a dispatch from a high-profile corruption trial playing out in a downtown courtroom.

Now that we've been live for a little over a month, we want to hear from you!

Even by the glacial standards of L.A. County's clogged criminal court system, the corruption case against former L.A. County Assessor John Noguez is a standout.

Some perspective: When Noguez was first charged in an alleged scheme to lower property taxes in exchange for bribes, Barack Obama was running for reelection against Mitt Romney, Steve Cooley was the District Attorney of L.A. County, and Donald Trump had just finished season 12 of The Apprentice. 

In the years since, Noguez’s case has wound through the legal system, delayed by all manner of issues. There was the pandemic, of course, and the time an appellate court tossed out the case due to a clerical error, forcing prosecutors to refile it in 2020. One of the co-defendants even tried to plead guilty in 2023 — in a deal approved by prosecutors — but a judge nixed that as too lenient. 

Last week, lawyers finally stood before jurors to make their opening statements, although you’d be forgiven if you were unaware of that. Despite the seriousness of the allegations, and the headlines it made back in 2012, the actual trial has received scant coverage, save for Hillel Aron of Courthouse News’ dispatch last week. On Monday afternoon, when lawyers finished opening statements, L.A. Material was the sole news outlet in the courtroom. 

The county assessor is an elected official whose office determines the value of each of the 2.3 million lots in the county, which is then used to calculate its tax bill. Many property owners push for a lower valuation so that they can reduce their taxes. In their quest for a lower tax bill, some hire an agent who helps advocate before the assessor, and the tax agent typically gets a cut — up to 50% — of the tax savings and refund.

Prosecutors allege that Noguez, who had worked in the assessor’s office for years before he was elected to the top job in 2010, entered into a conspiracy with Arizona-based tax agent Ramin Salari to slash property values in exchange for cash bribes of more than $180,000 and campaign contributions. (Salari is the one who tried to plead guilty in 2023, only to have a judge refuse to allow it.) Former chief appraiser Mark McNeil was also charged in the scheme. 

Another former county appraiser, Scott Schenter, was also accused, but he has since flipped and is now a star witness for the prosecution. 

The prosecutor, Bobby Zoumberakis, told jurors that Schenter will testify that Noguez never gave explicit instructions to slash property values, Courthouse News reported. Instead, Noguez gave more subtle directions, like, “Take care of my donors.” 

On Monday, McNeil was the final defendant to deliver his opening statements, and in a rare move, he is representing himself. 

“I’m really innocent and I’m going to show you that with the facts,” McNeil told the 12 jurors and 13 alternates, at times reading from a stack of index cards. 

During his two hour presentation, McNeil walked jurors through decisions in two of the 14 properties at issue in the case — an apartment complex in Van Nuys and a nine-unit apartment building on Federal Avenue in Sawtelle. He insisted everything was above-board, documented by paperwork and other records. 

McNeil noted that he rejected 90% of requests that Salari made on behalf of his clients. 

“If taking care of Mr. Salari means kicking 90 percent of his cases, that’s what I did,” McNeil said.

McNeil and others charged in the case have argued that the reductions in property values came during and after the Great Recession, when home prices plummeted. 

As the assessor case has been dragging on in state court, federal prosecutors across the street have brought several corruption cases of their own against elected officials. Among them: Councilman Jose Huizar was convicted in a bribery scheme in 2023 and Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas was convicted of fraud the same year. The assessor case preceded those cases and many others, and is one of the first big corruption cases that the local district attorney has brought to trial in some time.

For more than a decade, an anonymous artist has been putting up posters and official-looking metal signs in Griffith Park and other places on the Eastside. The metal signs look like they could be from the city, except they say things like: “NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR YOUR TAKE” and “TRY QUIET INTROSPECTION.” Needless to say, the city’s park rangers are not amused, and often remove the signs within hours. But some slip through unnoticed, and the artist has acquired a cult following.

L.A Material Contributor Anna Holmes has the story.

“He’s using the streets of Los Angeles as the pages in his book. What is the book about? I’m still not quite sure yet. It’s just so all over the place and so different and so unexpected that you just don’t know where it’s coming from next,” said one fan.

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KAMALA MOVES: Former vice president Kamala Harris has made numerous headlines in recent days. She gave her endorsement for  another term for L.A. Mayor Karen Bass.  She bought a home in Malibu, which Politico wrote about, assessing what  that seven-figure acquisition says about her political future. And the New York Times explored whether Harris should have entered the governor’s race, where she would have dominated the crowded-but-lackluster field.

BAD WORLD CUP NEWS: While the World Cup is expected to generate billions in profit for FIFA, host cities — including Los Angeles — will see little in return, according to a report from The Houston Chronicle and ProPublica. “Everybody signed an agreement that was very, very one-sided,” said Alan Rothenberg, who is on the Los Angeles host committee for the 2026 tournament.

MORE BAD WORLD CUP NEWS: Hotels in the 11 U.S. host cities for the 2026 World Cup are seeing lower-than-expected demand, according to new data from the American Hotel and Lodging Assn. Los Angeles is among the cities that saw high cancellation rates in advance of the tournament, which runs June 11 to July 19. 

RENT PRICING BAN: The City of West Hollywood is expected to ban algorithmic rent-pricing Monday night, rendering it illegal for landlords to use software that sets rent based on nonpublic competitor data, with fines of up to $1,000 per violation. 

PULITZER SEASON: The 2025 Pulitzer Prizes were announced. The San Francisco Chronicle won for the first time in years, for in-depth coverage of California’s insurance crisis, and podcaster Pablo Torre was recognized for an investigation into whether the L.A. Clippers circumvented the NBA salary cap. There were no wins for the L.A. Times, but columnist Gustavo Arellano and the photo staff were finalists, as was the Alden Global Capital-owned SoCal News Group for its coverage of the January 2025 wildfires. Congrats to all.

VERMIN STATUS: The beloved Thai restaurant in Hollywood, Jitlada, was shuttered last week due to a vermin infestation, as was the Jefferson High School cafeteria, according to L.A. County public health records.

BACKYARD DINING BOOM: Backyard restaurants were once illegal. But since loosening restrictions in 2024, L.A. County has issued more than 320 permits for such dining options, resulting in a culinary boom in neighborhoods across the region, the L.A. Times reports. 

We’re giving away 2 tickets to Indigo Girls at The Bellwether on May 14th. Share this with a friend and hope they take you as a +1 if they win. Enter here.

For today’s peek inside our subscriber-only Discord server, one couple’s homage to cones at the La Brea Tar Pits.

AND FINALLY… A poem to pair with your morning coffee: “All My Friends Are Finding New Beliefs” by Christian Wiman.

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