L.A. bribery trial spotlights City Hall corruption in run-up to election

When billionaire Chinese developer Wei Huang burst into the U.S. real estate market 12 years ago, he did it with a bang, buying a downtown L.A. lot where he set out to build a 77-story skyscraper. It was supposed to be the tallest on the West Coast.

On Thursday, the criminal trial of Huang's development company opened a few blocks from that site at the federal courthouse, where Assistant U.S. Atty. Patrick Castañeda accused him of trying to grease city approval of the project by paying $1.5 million in bribes to Jose Huizar, then the L.A. councilman who was City Hall's effective gatekeeper on land-use approvals.

"Jose Huizar had the power to make Wei Huang's dream a reality or a nightmare," Castañeda told a jury.

From 2013 to 2018, the prosecutor said, Huang treated Huizar with all-expenses-paid trips on private jets to Caesar's Palace, the Venetian, the Wynn and other Las Vegas casino resorts, where he got high-luxury accommodations and his pick from "a lineup of prostitutes" provided by the developer.

The trial of Shen Zhen New World I, a limited-liability company owned by Huang, comes during the final two weeks of a heated L.A. election campaign in which City Hall corruption is a major issue.

It is the second of three trials in the sprawling Huizar pay-to-play scandal, in which six people have pleaded guilty to felonies.

At the first trial in June, developer Dae Yong Lee was convicted of paying Huizar a $500,000 cash bribe to quash union opposition to another proposed downtown tower.

In the third trial, set to begin Feb. 21, Huizar, a councilman from 2005 to 2020, and former L.A. Deputy Mayor Raymond Chan will face bribery, racketeering and other charges. They have pleaded not guilty.

Huang, a Chinese national who owns a house in San Marino, faces bribery and other charges. But soon after the FBI began executing search warrants in 2018, he "fled the country, has not returned and is now considered a fugitive," Castañeda told jurors.

Shenzhen New World I, an arm of Huang's development company in China, is standing trial on three bribery charges. Huang also owns the Sheraton hotel at Universal Studios, but the case focuses mainly on his plan for a skyscraper at the L.A. Grand Hotel site he owns at West 3rd and Figueroa streets.

Richard M. Steingard, the company's attorney, acknowledged in his opening statement that Huizar was provided private-jet flights, luxury hotel accommodations and prostitutes.

"This can sound troubling," he told the jury. "We admit that up front."

But he denied any of it was intended to win Huizar's approval of the skyscraper project. "We are going to show beyond a shadow of a doubt that is absolutely false," Steingard said.

The more than 20 trips Huizar took to Las Vegas that Huang funded, along with another to Pebble Beach, Calif., and another to a casino resort in Australia, occurred before Shen Zhen New World I had even applied for city approval of the skyscraper, Steingard told jurors. The company "never asked Jose Huizar or his staff for anything of consequence" on the project, and there's no evidence he ever agreed to take any action on it, he said.

"The evidence will show these trips were completely unrelated to the L.A. Grand project," Steingard told the jury. He offered no alternative explanation for Huang's largesse toward the councilman.

Steingard also suggested that what prosecutors describe as $1 million in travel expenses that Huang picked up for Huizar was not actually paid by the developer, a high-roller gambler whose luxury transit and accommodation were provided as "comps" by the casinos.

"These are freebies provided by the casino, not by Wei Huang," Steingard said.

Prosecutors say the $1.5 million in bribes that Huizar is accused of accepting from Huang included $250,000 in casino chips that the former councilman cashed out and a loan of about $600,000, which Huizar never repaid and used to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit a staffer brought against him.

The dramatic high point of the Shen Zhen New World I trial is expected to be the testimony of three prosecution witnesses: Huizar's wife, mother and brother. Castañeda told the jury they will explain how his family members laundered the $250,000 in cash that Huizar collected for the casino chips that he got from Huang.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.