LOS ANGELES – A serious estate developer and 1 of his providers were being observed guilty by a jury now of federal felony fees for delivering $500,000 in funds to then-Los Angeles City Councilman José Huizar and his special assistant in trade for their assist in resolving a labor organization’s appeal of their downtown Los Angeles growth task.
Dae Yong Lee, a.k.a. “David Lee,” 57, of Bel Air, and 940 Hill LLC, a Lee-managed organization, each ended up located responsible of a few felonies: one count of trustworthy providers wire fraud, a person count of bribery, and a single count of falsification of information in federal investigations.
In accordance to evidence presented at his 9-day demo, Lee, a professional authentic estate developer, was the majority owner of 940 Hill LLC and was preparing on creating a mixed-use improvement situated at 940 South Hill Street in downtown Los Angeles. The advancement was to consist of 14,000 sq. ft of professional place and much more than 200 household models.
In August 2016, soon after a labor organization filed an attractiveness that prevented the 940 Hill job from progressing as a result of the city’s acceptance course of action, Lee referred to as Justin Jangwoo Kim, a Huizar fundraiser, to ask for Huizar’s assistance in dealing with the appeal. At the time, Huizar was the chairman of the city’s Scheduling and Land Use Management (PLUM) Committee, a system that oversaw numerous of the city’s most considerable professional and residential assignments.
In September 2016, George Esparza, then Huizar’s specific assistant, educated Kim that Huizar would not aid the 940 Hill task for free of charge and would have to have a financial benefit. In 2017, immediately after quite a few months of bribe negotiations, Lee presented funds totaling $500,000 to Kim to produce to Huizar and Esparza, together with in a liquor box.
Two years immediately after having to pay the bribe, Lee and 940 Hill LLC impeded a federal legal investigation by altering accounting and tax records to falsely categorize the $500,000 bribe as a genuine business enterprise expenditure for resolving the labor business attraction.
United States District Choose John F. Walter scheduled a September 19 sentencing listening to, at which time Lee will facial area a statutory maximum sentence of 20 decades in federal prison for the trustworthy products and services wire fraud count, 20 years for the obstruction count, and 10 years for the bribery count. Defendant 940 Hill LLC will face a statutory most high-quality of $1.5 million or 2 times the gross achieve or gross reduction from the offense.
Kim pleaded guilty in June 2020 to a federal bribery offense. Esparza pleaded responsible in July 2020 to one particular rely of racketeering conspiracy. Both equally guys are cooperating with the investigation and are scheduled to be sentenced in September.
The next scheduled demo in this circumstance is towards Shen Zhen New Planet I LLC, an entity owned by real estate developer Wei Huang – a different defendant in the circumstance. Both defendants are billed with bribing Huizar related to another downtown Los Angeles development job and are scheduled to go to demo on October 18. Huang continues to be a fugitive.
Huizar and previous Los Angeles Deputy Mayor Raymond Chan are scheduled to go to demo February 21, 2023, on federal rates alleging they conspired to violate the Racketeer Affected and Corrupt Companies (RICO) Act. Huizar allegedly agreed to acknowledge at least $1.5 million in illicit monetary advantages and faces dozens of extra federal prison charges.
Assistant United States Attorney Mack E. Jenkins, Chief of the General public Corruption and Civil Legal rights Section, and Assistant United States Lawyers Veronica Dragalin and Cassie Palmer, also of the General public Corruption and Civil Legal rights Segment, are prosecuting this circumstance.
Any member of the community who has details connected to this or any other public corruption issue in the City of Los Angeles is inspired to ship facts to the FBI’s email tip line at [email protected] or to speak to the FBI’s Los Angeles Area Business at (310) 477-6565.
