LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department searched the home of County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl on Wednesday, escalating a probe that she maintains is politically motivated.
Department investigators executed a search warrant at Kuehl’s Santa Monica home around 7 a.m. as local reporters looked on and news helicopters flew overhead, suggesting they were informed of the search beforehand. News footage showed investigators seizing the county official's phone and searching through rooms.
A copy of the warrant posted on the department’s website showed it was issued in connection with an ongoing criminal investigation into a contract awarded by the county’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority to Peace Over Violence, a nonprofit tasked with operating a sexual harassment hotline.
The eye-popping development is the latest twist in a running feud between Kuehl and her colleagues on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and Sheriff Alex Villanueva, who has accrued a list of scandals since being elected in 2018 and has a history of targeting his critics.
Villanueva, who is up for re-election this year, drew sharp criticism in April after suggesting that a Los Angeles Times reporter who had been investigating his department was under a criminal probe connected to leaked information. He later backtracked and said his department is not interested in pursuing criminal charges against reporters.
The sheriff’s department said it launched its investigation involving Kuehl after an MTA employee who helped oversee the Peace Over Violence hotline alleged she faced retaliation for flagging misconduct at the agency. The employee's allegations included that Kuehl improperly pushed MTA to award the $494,000 contract to Peace Over Violence.
The warrant laid out a range of potential crimes the department said it’s investigating, including bribery, theft of public funds and perjury. It also authorized searches at Kuehl’s county office, the transit authority headquarters, Peace Over Violence’s office and the house of Patricia Giggans, a close friend of Kuehl's who has served as executive director of Peace Over Violence since the 1980s.
Kuehl has denied she had knowledge of the contract, which fell below the threshold requiring approval by the Board of Supervisors. She told reporters Wednesday that the search was part of a “bogus, non-investigation” and that the warrant was signed by a judge who is friends with the sheriff.
Judge Craig Richman, who approved the warrant, has a decades-long relationship with Mark Lillienfeld, a lead investigator for the department’s public corruption unit.
That unit has been blasted by county officials for targeting critics of Sheriff Alex Villanueva, like Kuehl, Giggans and LA County Inspector General Max Huntsman. Giggans also serves on the Los Angeles County Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission.
Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón rejected a proposal to form a joint public corruption task force with the department, arguing that the sheriff was likely to use it to pursue investigations of his rivals.
Villanueva has long denied that he’s involved in the Kuehl investigation, saying that he’s recused himself from operations conducted by the unit. But Kuehl tied him to the search Wednesday, saying that a responsible sheriff wouldn’t “allow a bogus search of anybody's home, much less a supervisor, based on nothing.”
The sheriff regularly clashes with Kuehl and other members of the board, who say he has blocked oversight of his department, failed to comply with subpoenas and rehired deputies previously fired for misconduct.
The powerful, five-member panel — which manages a $38 billion budget — further inflamed tensions when it placed an amendment on the local ballot in November that would give it the power to remove a sheriff from office for misconduct.
Villanueva is in a tight race for re-election against former Long Beach Police Chief Robert Luna, who is running on a platform to clean up corruption in the sheriff’s department.
The sheriff’s department did not provide any further details into the Wednesday searches. A spokesperson for the FBI said the bureau was not involved in the operation.
