Heyyyyyy, so remember yesterday morning when I wrote of the state of California’s objections to the Los Angeles Angels stadium land sale that “unless by ‘everything in our power’ the state agency means it’s threatening to actually pull out of the agreement, this likely goes nowhere”? Yesterday afternoon, this happened:
The state attorney general has asked a court to put the Angel Stadium land sale on hold because of a public corruption investigation into Anaheim Mayor Harry Sidhu and into the potential illegality of the deal.
In an affidavit, FBI special agent Brian Adkins stated Sidhu “has attempted to obstruct an Orange County grand jury inquiry into the Angel Stadium deal.” The agent also said he believed there was probable cause that Sidhu “may have engaged in criminal offenses,” including fraud, theft or bribery, making false statements, obstruction of justice and witness tampering.
Grand jury obstruction! Fraud! Theft! These are some heavy charges, so let’s hold them up to the light and roll them between our fingers for maximum enjoyment:
- According to the affidavit, Mayor Sidhu, who took over from longtime Mayor Tom Tait and immediately reopened talks on an Angels land sale, allegedly shared confidential information with the Angels “with the expectation of receiving a sizeable contribution to his reelection campaign from a prominent Angels representative.” The affidavit includes one recorded phone call where Sidhu says to an Angels representative, “You gotta at least, minimum of a million dollars to come up with my election,” and another where he tells a Chamber of Commerce staffer, “I am hoping to get at least a million from I’m going to be pushing it. [Angels Representative 1] actually asked me. [Angels Representative 1] said, ‘What can I do for your election?’ I said, ‘Let me finish your deal first, and then we’ll talk about that.’” (BRIBERY)
- Sidhu possibly destroyed evidence to conceal them from the grand jury in the lawsuit charging the land sale with violating the Brown Act, which was dismissed in March. In another recorded conversation, he told the Chamber employee he hadn’t provided the grand jury with emails about the Angels negotiations: “It was my private emails on even my text and all that with you, I erased everything.” (OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE)
- Sidhu apparently instructed the Chamber staffer to lie to the grand jury, saying in another recorded conversation, “Your key thing is, when, when they talk to you about this basically say, ‘Yeah I talked with him, about, you know, during the time of, not negotiations, but after the negotiations was done.’” (WITNESS TAMPERING)
- Sidhu is charged with trying to register his helicopter in Arizona despite the fact that he lived in Anaheim. (FRAUD. Also, WEIRD FOR A MAYOR, but mostly FRAUD.)
We’re still missing THEFT, but you get the idea. The federal investigation into Sidhu first came to the attention of state attorney general Rob Bonta’s office on Friday, leading Bonda to request a 60-day stay of the Angels land sale; a hearing on the stay is scheduled for today at 11:45 a.m.
And that’s where we stand: The sale of $500 million in Anaheim land for $150 million to the Angels’ billionaire owner is likely to be put on hold because the FBI is about to come down on the mayor who negotiated the deal like a shit-ton of shit-bricks. After that, who knows where this will go — props to whoever is showrunner for this season of “Anaheim,” this is a plot twist I don’t think anyone saw coming!
Any day now and Long Beach will come up as a relocation site for the “LA” Angels of SoCal.
Asked and answered:
https://www.fieldofschemes.com/2019/05/20/14921/is-angels-owner-arte-moreno-just-playing-long-beach-for-leverage-or-what/
Can you imagine the traffic? No way they can put a stadium off the 405/710. (reads Neil’s link). By the AQUARIUM? hahahahaha. I know the arena is there, and I also know that it’s a nightmare to get to already.
What? We’re just writing off the Los Angeles Angels of Tustin already??
Nah, Tustin would be too easy. How about putting them in Corona? Everyone loves the 91, it will be swell.
I mean, nothing a few dozen (publicly funded) gondolas couldn’t cure, amiright?
Yikes. Corruption used to be a skill. Now they dont even bother to try to conceal ir
Double bonus: through poor redaction, it looks like “Cooperating Witness #2”, who’s also taken part in a fair amount of criminality himself, has been outed as the recently replaced President/CEO of the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce. During years of attending Angels-related meetings, he’s always come across as smarmy, smirky, and openly contemptuous of members of the public not in favor of immediately giving the Angels everything they want — really couldn’t have happened to a more deserving pair of guys.
I’m never convinced that wealthy connected people will ever face the kind of justice an unemployed poor person would for the same crimes. However, these crimes have begun to take on a Watergate level of stupidity to them. And it’s still so early in the process…
We’ll see if anything sticks I guess.
… and right after I posted that, the news came along that the Feds have charged Todd Ament, “Cooperating Witness #2” and the former Chamber president, with mortgage fraud (using Chamber funds to inflate his assets so that he could get a mortgage on a $1.5mil, 5500 sq ft vacation home).
The affidavit for Ament includes a lot of material about a ‘cabal’ running Anaheim politics — which ordinarily sounds like material for a rant during the public comments portion of a City Council meeting, but hopefully is a sign that the FBI is ready to roll a lot of people up.
The mayor of Anaheim purchases a helicopter?
A new helicopter is like $5M. A used one, certainly one that is flightworthy, is about $1M.
Where does the mayor come up with these kind of Benjamins?
According to the affidavit, the helicopter was a Robinson R44 “Clipper II, with pop-out floats”.
The Robinson R44 is a fairly small helicopter. A very quick and half-baked look at Trade a Plane seems to indicate that they go for somewhere around $350,000:
https://www.trade-a-plane.com/search?make=ROBINSON&model_group=ROBINSON+R44+SERIES&s-type=aircraft
I have no idea how much “pop-out floats” add to the price, but I would think it would still be less than $1 million. Maybe an extra $10K?
Here’s a photo — looks like Sidhu bought it in November 2020, when everyone was adopting pandemic helicopters:
https://flightaware.com/resources/registration/N277MC
In a twist of events that you’ll have to make your own moral judgment on, the R44 is famous for losing it’s rotor… and becoming a bbq
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0043164821002519
https://www.taic.org.nz/sites/default/files/inquiry/documents/AO-2015-003%20Final.pdf
https://www.baumhedlundlaw.com/blog/2022/march/two-dead-in-rowlett-texas-helicopter-crash/
One crashed not far from where I live a couple of years ago, but in that instance it was strictly pilot error (CFIT while flying VFR)
I see one (or more than one) flying out of John Wayne on the regular. Heading west, which could be anywhere. Sticks out among the student birds and executive bad boys.
If you think you need a helicopter, rent one. Aircraft ownership is how newly rich people become newly poor people. Well less rich.
So, will the Angels franchise be involved in this in any way? It sounds like they went out of their way to bribe an elected official.
Affidavit says the FBI doesn’t have proof yet that the Angels paid the bribe, only that Sidhu said he would ask for it.