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For years, Los Angeles City Councilmember John Lee declined to publicly discuss a fateful Las Vegas trip he took in 2017 with his then-boss Mitch Englander and a trio of businessmen.
That trip led to an FBI investigation of Englander, then a City Council member, who accepted an envelope of cash in a casino bathroom from one of the businessmen and later pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators.
Last week, in court to address allegations from the L.A. Ethics Commission, Lee finally broke his silence, divulging details of the high-rolling trip and insisting that he paid for his share.
There was his comped Aria hotel room — a standard room, not a suite, he said. There was the Hakkasan Nightclub, where he sipped whiskey and danced as hostesses paraded out $8,000 bottles of booze. And there was the casino, where he played blackjack — after losing $1,000 at the baccarat table — because he preferred the lower-stakes game.
Over and over, Lee, who was then Englander’s chief of staff, denied accepting gifts in violation of city ethics laws. Under grilling by a city enforcement officer, Lee described stuffing $300 into the pocket of one of the businessmen, Andy Wang, to cover his share at the nightclub. At dinner earlier that night, he said, he paid for his own drinks.
“I believe I made a good-faith effort to repay what I consumed that night,” Lee testified.
In 2023, the Ethics Commission accused Lee, who occupies Englander’s former seat representing the northwest San Fernando Valley, of accepting “multiple gifts” in violation of ethics laws, including free hotel rooms, poker chips and food, from a businessman and a developer during the Vegas trip.
The businessman and the developer were not named in the complaint, but details indicate that one was Wang and the other was Christopher Pak, both of whom testified as witnesses.
The commission has also accused Lee of helping Englander backdate checks to repay the businessman who comped the hotel rooms.
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The ethics accusations filed against L.A. City Councilmember John Lee, related to a trip to Las Vegas in 2017, could complicate his 2024 re-election bid in the San Fernando Valley.
Federal prosecutors never criminally charged Lee, and he has said he was unaware of any wrongdoing by Englander.
At the time, city officials, including high-ranking council aides, could accept gifts with a value between $50 and $470 from a single source but had to disclose them, according to city and state laws. They were not allowed to accept gifts over $470 from a single source.
The Ethics Commission alleges that Lee violated both provisions.
Attorneys for Lee, who denies the allegations, have repeatedly tried to block the commission’s case, arguing that the statute of limitations had expired.
Witness testimony concluded last week, and Administrative Law Judge Ji-Lan Zang is expected to make a recommendation about what, if any, ethics violations Lee committed.
Then, a panel of ethics commissioners will vote on whether violations occurred and what the financial penalties, if any, should be.
In 2023, Englander agreed to pay $79,830 to settle a similar Ethics Commission case.
At last week’s hearing, city enforcement officer and attorney Marian Thompson sought to cast doubt on Lee’s version of events. She zeroed in on his insistence that he joined the group at an expensive Chinese restaurant, Blossom, but didn’t eat because he arrived late.
She read aloud the bill for the nearly $2,500 dinner — Kobe beef, Maine lobster, Peking duck, sea bass and more. Surely Lee, who had previously described himself as a “meat and potatoes” guy, liked Kobe beef? Thompson asked.
Lee said he tried only the bird’s nest soup. He described taking a spoonful of someone else’s bowl and saying, “Absolutely not” — it was “gelatinous,” he told Thompson.
Lee acknowledged drinking at the restaurant, giving someone — he couldn’t remember whom — $100 to cover the tab.
According to Englander’s 2020 federal indictment, a “City Staffer B” received some of the same perks as Englander during the Vegas trip. That staffer was widely presumed to be Lee, prompting calls for the newly elected council member to resign. Since then, questions about the Vegas trip have dogged Lee, though he easily won reelection in 2024.
Englander was sentenced to 14 months in federal prison. In his plea agreement, he admitted lying repeatedly to federal investigators and receiving a combined $15,000 in cash — $10,000 in a casino bathroom in Las Vegas, plus $5,000 at the Morongo Casino Resort & Spa from an unnamed businessman.
That man, Wang, ran companies that sold cabinets and home technology systems, was seeking relationships with real estate developers and others to increase his business opportunities in the city.
During his testimony last week, Lee said he followed city ethics laws during the Vegas trip. At the Aria hotel-casino, Englander showed Lee poker chips that Wang had given him, Lee testified.
“I told him immediately that he needed to give those chips back to Andy,” Lee said.
Lee also said he gave Englander a blank check with the understanding that Englander would reimburse Wang, who had comped Lee’s room.
But in a declaration in the ethics case, Englander wrote that neither he nor Lee reimbursed Wang “for any of the gifts we received at the Aria,” including the room, meals and drinks.
“While in Las Vegas, NV, Lee did not give me a check to reimburse Wang,” Englander added.
Thompson asked Lee about Englander’s statements.
“He’s lied before,” Lee replied.
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The two candidates in the west San Fernando Valley are blasting each other as untrustworthy in the run-up to Tuesday’s election.
In addition to Wang, two others — Michael Bai, a lobbyist who formerly worked at City Hall, and Koreatown developer Pak — came on the Vegas trip. Bai also testified as a witness last week.
Lee and Englander gave Wang separate checks for $442 on Sept. 14 that year. The ethics commission has accused Lee and Englander of backdating the checks to Aug. 4 — before they were interviewed by the FBI.
Lee disputed that during the hearing, saying he gave Englander his check on Aug. 4, after he said Englander had lost the earlier one.
At the Hakkasan club, Wang spent $24,000 on bottle service, with Pak spending an additional $10,000.
According to an estimate by the commission, the share Lee drank was worth $5,666.67.
But Lee’s attorney, Brian Hildreth, challenged that assertion. Dozens of revelers streamed through the group’s VIP booth that night, Lee and Pak both testified.
Lee said he had only two to four drinks and suggested that many people drank from the bottles.
Addressing questions about the casino, Lee acknowledged accepting $1,000 in poker chips from Wang, saying he thought he was playing on Wang’s behalf. Lee said he would have given any winnings to Wang.
But Lee testified that he didn’t know how to play baccarat and warned Wang that he wasn’t doing well, ultimately losing all the chips.
During questioning by Hildreth, Lee described withdrawing a total of $1,500 from ATMs in Vegas, with a bank statement listing the three withdrawals over two days.
Lee testified that he wanted “to make sure that I had my own money and paid for everything that I was a part of.”
Thompson pursued a counternarrative, describing the spectacle of nightclub hostesses bringing out bottles.
“You got VIP treatment?” Thompson asked.
“Treatment I’d never received before,” Lee answered.
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Dakota Smith covers City Hall for the Los Angeles Times. She is part of the team that won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in breaking news for reporting on a leaked audio recording that upended City Hall politics. She joined the newsroom in 2016 and previously covered City Hall for the Los Angeles Daily News. She is a graduate of Lewis & Clark College and lives in Los Angeles.
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