The former councilor of Los Angeles, Kevin de León, faces a fine of ethics of $ 18,750 for voting on the decisions of the City Council in which he had a financial interest and for not revealing income.
De León has admitted four positions to “make or participate in a decision in which a financial interest” and a position of not revealing income is maintained, according to a report prepared by the application arm of the Ethics Commission of the City of Los Angeles.
The Ethics Report says that in León 2020-21 he voted on three issues of the City Council that benefited the Aids Healthcare Foundation and one that helped USC, all decisions that were made less than a year after receiving more than $ 500 of each other's income. According to state law, elected officials must reveal each source of gross income of $ 500 or more received in the 12 months before taking office.
Less than 12 months after receiving the income from the Aids Healthcare Foundation, De León participated in three separate city decisions that affected the foundation in which he knew or had reasons to know that he had a financial interest, according to the report of the Ethics Commission. But according to the report of the Ethics Commission, De León did not reveal $ 109,231 in income he had received from the Foundation before assuming the position.
On November 25, 2020, he voted for the application of the Foundation for the historical designation of King Edward Hotel, owned by the Foundation. On April 22, 2021, he voted for an article regarding a lease of the city of the Hotel Retan owned by the Foundation. On May 4, 2021, he voted again for a lease of the city of the Retan hotel.
De León's lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comments, but the Times received a statement from a spokesman in De León: “This matter focuses on dissemination, not a personal gain. The articles in question provided homes for homeless people during a pandemic and health services to vulnerable Angels,” the statement said. “They passed unanimously, and if the councilor of León had been advised to be challenged, he would have done it without hesitation, the results would have been the same.”
USC paid $ 155,000 as an independent contractor from July 2019 to June 2020.
Less than 12 months later, De León participated in a decision of the city that benefited USC, according to the Ethics Commission. In June 2021, De León voted to approve the budget proposed by the Consolidated Housing and Community Development Plan, which included an allocation of $ 1 million to the KECK School of Medicine of the USC.
In March 2020, De León was chosen to represent the 14th district of the Council in the City Council of Los Angeles. In May 2020, while he was still an elected member of the Council, De León held a consulting agreement with the Healthy Housing Foundation, a division of the Aids Healthcare Foundation and began providing services as a strategic policy advisor.
The agreement said that De León had to “advise and strengthen the strategy regarding associations and policy ideas on behalf of the HHF portfolio”, and “”[e]NGAGE with policy formulators and regulators in all areas related to the general strategic objectives of HHF, “according to the Ethics Commission.
De León assumed the position in October 2020. He presented a financial dissemination form next month, but did not reveal the Aids Healthcare Foundation or its Healthy Housing Foundation as sources of income. In December 2020, he presented a financial form amended but did not reveal the income of the Aids Healthcare Foundation, which was “the true source of the income she received under the consulting agreement”, according to the report of the Ethics Commission.
When determining the amount of fine, the Ethics Commission said that De León cooperated with the staff and that he has no prior application record. However, the Ethics Commission said that violations in this case are serious and that “violations seem to indicate a pattern of behavior.”
Similar problems were highlighted in a 2023 Times story that found De León helped organize a meeting in the summer of 2020 with a group of city department leaders and employees of a high -ranking mayor to address the problems facing the Aids Healthcare Foundation. At that time, De León had been chosen but not yet assumed.
In the months prior to the meeting, the Aids Healthcare Foundation was studying that the city illegally denied the funds for an affordable housing project that the Foundation was proposing. An email from the then chief of the mayor's cabinet to colleagues said that De León “wants to participate and find a solution.”
Five city officials who attended the information or were involved in the organization of the organization and told the Times in 2023 who did not know that De León was used as a consultant for the foundation at that time, or of the more than $ 100,000 that he was paying in the six months before his position.
Meanwhile, political ethics experts told The Times that León's relationship with the foundation and failure to reveal their financial ties raised a possible concern about conflict of interest. They believed that their actions could have left the city employees with uncertainty about who was serving the interests: the city or its then employer.
