Geoffrey Eldridge Hull, a Baldwin Hills man pleaded guilty to wire fraud. He conned people all over the U.S. into giving him their high-end and exotic cars with bogus promises he would find other people to take over their car leases. From April 2016 to November 2019, Hull marketed himself and his companies as being able …
Thomas H. Peters, 55, the former head of the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Civil Litigation Branch from February 2014 to March 2019, will plead guilty to a federal charge for threatening to fire a plaintiffs’ attorney from a lucrative special counsel job with the city unless the attorney paid an extortion demand from a former employee who was …
Eduardo Moreno, 45,, a train engineer at the Port of Los Angeles pleaded guilty to a federal criminal charge for running a locomotive at full speed off the end of railroad tracks near a United States Navy hospital ship that was deployed to provide medical relief during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. On March …
Michael Godfree, 80, pleaded guilty to defrauding more than 100 investors out of $8.3 million through a scheme that sold “ancient slag.” For those who don’t know, “ancient slag is a mining waste byproduct that supposedly contained precious metals. From 2011 to November 2017, Godfree schemed to defraud victim-purchasers of material he …
David F. Alexander, a former Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) executive, will guilty to a federal criminal charge for lying to the FBI about a lucrative job offer he secretly solicited and agreed to accept in exchange for providing “guarantees” of additional LADWP contract money to a …
David H. Wright, 62, the former general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) will plead guilty to a federal criminal charge for accepting bribes from a lawyer in exchange for his official action to secure a three-year, $30 million no-bid LADWP contract for the lawyer’s company. The crime carries a statutory …
Paul O. Paradis, 58, a New York City lawyer, who represented both the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) and a ratepayer suing it will plead guilty to a bribery charge for accepting an illegal payment of $2.2 million for getting another attorney to supposedly represent his ratepayer client in a collusive lawsuit against …
A federal judge sentenced Adam Joiner, 43, of Manhattan beach to 97 months in federal prison for defrauding Asian investment firms out of $14 million by falsely claiming the he would use the money to produce a feature film distributed by Netflix. Then , while out on bond, he illegally sold the Manhattan Beach house …
Albert Pinedo, 78, a former school teacher who served five years in federal prison in 2003 for distributing child pornography, got 120 months in federal prison for trying to entice a minor to engage in sexual activity over the internet. On July 23, 2021, a federal jury found Pinedo guilty of attempting to persuade, induce or …
A federal judge sentenced Dr. Amir Friedman, 56, a Calabasas physician to 14 months in federal prison for accepting about $800,000 in bribes and kickbacks as part of a conspiracy that unlawfully billed health insurers for compounded medication prescriptions. Friedman pleaded guilty in October 2019 to one count …