The venerable Hillcrest Country Club, a historically Jewish resident organization once excluded from other elite Los Angeles social clubs, is being sued by the son of a former Bel-Air billionaire alleging racial discrimination and rights violations civilians.
Matthew Winnick, a 42-year-old Jewish man, claims in court documents that he was denied membership at the private club because his wife and children are of “Hispanic descent.”
His lawyers, his brother Alexander Winnick and Anthony Trujillo, call Hillcrest a “150-acre plantation in the heart of Los Angeles,” where its more than 500 members are protected from the city's true racial makeup and nepotism leads to who don't. Does not meet the socially acceptable requirements for membership.
The Winnicks are children of the late billionaire Gary Winnick, who took advantage of the dot-com boom to become one of the richest people in Los Angeles. Gary Winnick was a long-time member of Hillcrest, which has been popular with movie moguls, business moguls and a host of celebrities, including George Burns and Danny Kaye.
The club's attorney, Lyne Richardson, said the lawsuit is “completely without merit” and added: “Hillcrest Country Club intends to defend itself fully.”
Bryan Freedman, an attorney for Hillcrest's president and two other board members named in the lawsuit, also scoffed at the allegations, calling them frivolous.
“The late Gary Winnick, a longtime member, performed regularly at the 'racist' club until the time of his passing,” Freedman said in an email to The Times. “When Gary recently passed away, his family (which includes the plaintiff, Matthew Winnick, and his brother, Alex Winnick, the attorney in this case) requested to house the memorial in Hillcrest, the same location they claim is the 'discriminatory '. club.
“It seems to me that… what really seems to bother them [Matthew and Alex] “It's just that they couldn't get into Hillcrest despite the alleged nepotism policy.”
The lawsuit argues that the club is violating the state's civil rights law and, because it receives funding from non-members, is also subject to a 1987 Los Angeles ordinance that prohibits discrimination in such facilities.
Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, husband of Vice President Kamala Harris and an avid golfer, has been a member of Hillcrest. Winnick's lawsuit begins with a quote from the vice president: “In times like these, silence is complicity.”
The plaintiff claims in the lawsuit that he was granted access to the club as a mid-level member for many years and paid for that privilege. In February 2023, he says he applied for full membership. According to the lawsuit, he met all three criteria: 100 hours of community service, donating 5% of his free cash flow to charity and being considered socially acceptable as a person of good moral character.
The following month, Winnick and her family attended a birthday party with Jason Kaplan, a top member of Hillcrest's board of directors and now the club's president. Winnick alleges in the lawsuit that Kaplan, who knew his wife and children were Latino, yelled Be quiet! – “shut up” in Spanish – across the table towards him.
According to the lawsuit, Winnick was “alarmed, confused and embarrassed by Jason Kaplan's rude interruption” and then confronted him. Kaplan told him, “You want to mess with me,” the lawsuit states.
In April, Winnick wrote to Hillcrest's membership director “detailing his concerns about racial discrimination” and interference with his application and said he believed he was being treated differently because of his wife's “Hispanic ancestry.” In addition to his interaction with Kaplan, Winnick alleged that the club's previous president, Michael Flesch, had blocked his participation on a club subcommittee.
Kaplan, Flesch and Brad Fuller, another Hillcrest board member, are named in the lawsuit. Kaplan, a well-known equity fund manager, is accused of making “racist comments” and committing an unspecified sexual assault, which is not detailed in the lawsuit. Flesch is accused of using his position at the club to get his son into membership, despite his son's known history of drug addiction. And Fuller, a longtime Hollywood producer behind films like “The Purge” and “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” has “built his career creating pornographic and violent films that glorify murder and reinforce harmful stereotypes,” the lawsuit alleges.
Winnick says that instead of investigating his concerns, the club informed him on May 1 that he had not met the membership requirement and canceled his application.
At a hearing in Hillcrest to discuss his membership, Winnick said Trujillo, who is Latino and his brother's law partner, was denied entry to the club despite the presence of six other current or former attorneys.
Flesch insisted during the hearing that Hillcrest has many members of Latino descent, according to the lawsuit.
Winnick, however, argues in the lawsuit that Hillcrest is overwhelmingly white, pays an embarrassingly low property tax (only about a quarter of a million dollars on properties that would otherwise be taxed about $70 million a year), and he has no desire or incentive to change. .
“Hillcrest is a racial aristocracy, subsidized by the city,” the lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit includes social scientist Malcolm Gladwell's analysis that Los Angeles country club golf courses have used special exclusions that have allowed them to avoid millions of dollars in property taxes and have not been reassessed in decades because, Despite changing membership, the clubs claim they have not changed ownership.
Winnick alleges that the only minorities at most country clubs are the predominantly Latino staff. The lawsuit also notes that Hillcrest did not admit women until 1987, the year Los Angeles adopted a new law addressing discrimination by private clubs with more than 400 members who receive money from non-members.
“There is a group of people who run Hillcrest as their personal fiefdom, violating the basic principles of justice and fairness,” Alex Winnick said in a statement to the Times about the lawsuit. “Change is overdue.”
Freedman told The Times that the three Hillcrest members named in Winnick's lawsuit will pursue their own legal action. “Make no mistake,” Freedman said, “Brad Fuller, Jason Kaplan and Michael Flesch will sue for malicious prosecution.”
