Former Los Angeles City Council member Jose Huizar has pleaded guilty to corruption charges after years of protesting his innocence.
Huizar was raided by the FBI over suspected payments from developers in 2020.
As Breitbart News reported:
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested L.A. City Councilman Jose Huizar (D) on Tuesday morning for corruption, alleging that he had taken hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes and treated his office like a “criminal enterprise.”
Huizar represent[ed] downtown Los Angeles. The DOJ alleges that he solicited bribes from developers, particularly Chinese developers, who sought his help in speeding their way through the planning procedures of the city.
The city settled a sexual harassment lawsuit in which the former L.A City councilman allegedly had a romantic affair with his deputy chief of staff in 2014.
According to Los Angeles Times:
Former Los Angeles City Councilmember Jose Huizar has agreed to plead guilty to racketeering and tax evasion, admitting that he extorted at least $1.5 million in bribes from real estate developers.
In a plea agreement filed Thursday in federal court in Los Angeles, Huizar acknowledged that sweeping corruption allegations that he has denied for years were actually true, saying he was “pleading guilty because I am guilty of the charges.”
Huizar’s unexpected capitulation caps a brutal downfall for a man who was born into poverty on a Mexican ranch, grew up in Boyle Heights, and went on to earn a master’s at Princeton and a law degree at UCLA before serving 15 years on the L.A. City Council.
A U.S. attorney’s office spokesman in Los Angeles declined to comment on the case.
Council President Paul Krekorian, in a statement, described Huizar’s offenses as “an indefensible betrayal of the public trust.”
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“We should all be relieved to see that justice will now be done,” he said in a statement.
In the plea deal, prosecutors agreed to request a sentence of no more than 13 years in prison; Huizar promised not to ask for less than nine years. The sentencing before U.S. District Judge John F. Walter has not been scheduled.
Huizar was praised as a civic leader in L.A. and honored for his career achievements with a plaque in his hometown in Mexico.
It has been fun watching the local L.A. news stations doing Everything they can to NOT mention that Huizar is aDemocrat.