Monthly Archives: November 2017

Cory Spencer v. Lunada Bay Boys

Lunada Bay Boys Defendants Blakeman And City of PVE File Timely Oppositions To Plaintiffs’ Motion For Sanctions, Blakeman Throws His Co-Defendant Frank Ferrara Under The Bus To Some Extent

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For background take a look at this excellent article from the Times on this lawsuit. Also see here to download all pleadings in this case. You can also read all my posts on the case.

OK, so the Lunada Bay Boys plaintiffs filed a motion for sanctions against defendants Brant Blakeman, the City of PVE, and some others. The motion is here. And a couple weeks ago Judge James Otero ordered all relevant parties to brief Rozella Oliver, the magistrate judge in the case, on the issues. She turned around and set a briefing schedule and a hearing, which will happen in her courtroom on Spring Street on Wednesday, December 6, at 1:30 p.m.

That order required Blakeman and the City defendants to file briefs in opposition by November 27, which they did, and which are the reason for today’s post.1 The issue is, of course, whether these particular defendants destroyed evidence, mainly text messages, after they had a legal duty to preserve it. No one seems to deny that they did destroy the texts, so the argument is mostly about precisely when their duty to preserve evidence was activated.2

You might recall that at some point various Ferraras argued that their duty to preserve only attached when they were served with papers in the suit, but Rozella Oliver wasn’t buying it. She said that because Frank Ferrara had been interviews by the Daily Breeze prior to service he knew about the suit and ought to have not destroyed his texts. Well, Blakeman turns that argument to his own account by asserting that because he wasn’t interviewed by the paper, there’s no evidence that he knew about the suit prior to service.

Anyway, here are the briefs filed, and there are selected transcriptions from Blakeman’s pleading after the break:

Continue reading Lunada Bay Boys Defendants Blakeman And City of PVE File Timely Oppositions To Plaintiffs’ Motion For Sanctions, Blakeman Throws His Co-Defendant Frank Ferrara Under The Bus To Some Extent →

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Los Angeles City Government

“Hello ■■■■■■■■■ and ■■■■■■■■■. My name is Josh Albrektson and I live in Downtown. I thought you guy smight [sic] be interested in what your colleage [sic], ■■■■■■■■■ does in his spare time.”

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Recently I reported on the fact that idiosyncratically facial-haired DLANC douchebag-at-large, Joshua Albrektson, had threatened to expose my deepest darkest secrets to the world if I didn’t stop requesting documents via the California Public Records Act and writing about them on this blog. Well, the other day I obtained a few of the emails he sent in furtherance of this criminal conspiracy to repress me, and I thought I’d publish them here. For once I don’t have any snark to intersperse. The guy’s work is self-mocking. So turn the page for links and transcripts!
Continue reading “Hello ■■■■■■■■■ and ■■■■■■■■■. My name is Josh Albrektson and I live in Downtown. I thought you guy smight [sic] be interested in what your colleage [sic], ■■■■■■■■■ does in his spare time.” →

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Los Angeles City Government, Miscellaneous

How Weirdly-Bearded Oswald-Mosely-esque Facebook Hero, DLANC Board Member, And Self-Proclaimed Radiologist Joshua Albrektson Threatened To Expose My Darkest Secrets If I Didn’t Stop Blogging And Making CPRA Requests So I Turned Him In To The FBI For Violating 18 USC §875(d)

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Maybe you’ve been following the loony-tunes saga of DLANC Board member Joshua Albrektson and how he can’t follow the freaking law to save his life. Well, it gets weirder, friends. The other day, this self-proclaimed radiologist sent me this exceedingly bizarre email, threatening me with some kind of exposure if I didn’t stop blogging and making CPRA requests:

From:Josh Albrektson <joshraymd@gmail.com>
To:■■■■■■■■■
Subject:Just wanted to give you a warning
Date:Friday, November 17, 2017 7:02 AM

Just you and me on this e-mail. You actually have pissed off a TON of people. And one of them has collected every misogynist or other bad article you have ever written. That person has almost had enough of you and is thinking of going public to the LA Times and calling the president of ■■■■■■■■■. So I would think very hard about the next time you send a public request.

As for me, I don’t appreciate the accusations you have done against me and some of my friends. So this is just my personal warning to you. Every time you publish an article, any article, from this second forward someone you wouldn’t want reading your work will find out what you are writing about. It could end right now with you and ■■■■ being the only people at ■■■■■■■■ who know about your articles. Or not. Your choice.

Leave aside the surreal assumption that there are people I “wouldn’t want reading” work that I myself consciously publish on the open Internet, what do we have here but a thuggish attempt, however misguided, to intimidate me into not writing about Joshua Albrektson’s friends by threatening to, I don’t know, destroy my reputation?

I don’t know what you would do, but I turned the guy in to the FBI for violating 18 U.S.C. §875(d), which criminalizes this kind of conduct for reasons that you can read about in detail after the break!
Continue reading How Weirdly-Bearded Oswald-Mosely-esque Facebook Hero, DLANC Board Member, And Self-Proclaimed Radiologist Joshua Albrektson Threatened To Expose My Darkest Secrets If I Didn’t Stop Blogging And Making CPRA Requests So I Turned Him In To The FBI For Violating 18 USC §875(d) →

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Los Angeles City Government

How I Reported DLANC’s Douchebaggiest Development Diva, Lover-Of-Non-White-Women, And DTLA Dustbowl Refugee Josh Albrektson To The Los Angeles County District Attorney For Violating The Brown Act With Evidence Provided By His Own Confession Against Interest Published, For Peak Derp, On Freaking Facebook

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Anyone who follows this blog regularly knows that we’re raking in big bucks from George Soros and similar sources to support our merciless over-coal raking and to-the-duly-constituted-authorities reporting of the propertied classes of Los Angeles and their eager brown-tongued lap-minions like, e.g., the six members of the Board of Directors of the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council who participated in a sub rosa, barely legal conspiracy to do in the recent Skid Row Neighborhood Council formation effort.

One of the many targets at which we direct this firehose of Sorosbux is the Facebook, where Internet amateurs and malcontents will gather to vent their collective spleens in the comfy company of their moronic six-fingered peers. In particular, we have a dedicated, Soros-funded, intern3 doing absolutely nothing all day but sifting through opposition Facebookery. And mostly it’s predictably dumb and sadly inconsequential, this material. The political equivalent, if you will, of kitten memes. Occasionally, however, a gem pops up in the feed, and when it does, well, we will write about it!

So you can well imagine our glee over here at MK.Org secret headquarters when this little slab of puckey was brought to our attention.4 The author is DLANC board member and erstwhile DTLA resident5 Joshua Albrektson, writing about his actions after receiving the grievance against DLANC board member Dan Curnow that I filed a few weeks ago:

This is his latest article. He sent a grievance to DLANC that was literally about 40 pages about Dan Curnow being on a e-mail chain of people opposing the Skid Row NC. In order to file a grievance, you have to be a stakeholder of the place. He attached a page stating he is a stakeholder because he investigates the BIDS. I told everybody that he lives in Hollywood and works in Whittier and doesn’t own property here. I don’t think anybody even read his grievance.

So what would you do if you read something like this? Well, what I did is to turn the guy in to the Public Integrity Division of the Los Angeles County District Attorney for violating the Brown Act. Turn the page for details!
Continue reading How I Reported DLANC’s Douchebaggiest Development Diva, Lover-Of-Non-White-Women, And DTLA Dustbowl Refugee Josh Albrektson To The Los Angeles County District Attorney For Violating The Brown Act With Evidence Provided By His Own Confession Against Interest Published, For Peak Derp, On Freaking Facebook →

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Cory Spencer v. Lunada Bay Boys

Lunada Bay Boys: Otero Orders Parties To Brief Magistrate Judge Oliver On Spoliation By Defendants, Other Issues, On Basis Of Plaintiffs’ Ex Parte Application For A Hearing — Oliver Sets Hearing For December 6 at 1:30 p.m.

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For background take a look at this excellent article from the Times on this lawsuit. Also see here to download all pleadings in this case. You can also read all my posts on the case.

As usual things are super complicated over in Lunada Bay. A couple weeks ago the plaintiffs filed this ex parte application for an order setting a hearing on something something something regarding Blakeman’s and the City Defendants’ spoliation of evidence. I can’t untangle the recursive character of the name of this thing, but essentially the plaintiffs are asking for a hearing on the issue of whether defendant Brant Blakeman and the City of PVE destroyed evidence after they weren’t allowed to any more. This request was based on text messages newly obtained out of Papayans’s cell phone.

This was opposed by Blakeman on the usual grounds and possibly also by the City Defendants.6 Blakeman’s opposition was the subject of a fine rejoinder filed by the plaintiffs. And yesterday Judge Otero filed an order ruling that the plaintiffs had raised allegations sufficient to require a hearing and told Judge Oliver to get on it. She filed her own order this morning setting a hearing date for December 6 at 1:30 p.m. Transcriptions of the orders are after the break.
Continue reading Lunada Bay Boys: Otero Orders Parties To Brief Magistrate Judge Oliver On Spoliation By Defendants, Other Issues, On Basis Of Plaintiffs’ Ex Parte Application For A Hearing — Oliver Sets Hearing For December 6 at 1:30 p.m. →

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Cory Spencer v. Lunada Bay Boys

Lunada Bay Boys Trial Continued Until February 6, 2018 — Transcript Of Contentious October Hearing Before Rozella Oliver Published! — Plaintiffs Call Out Brant Blakeman On His Nonsense For The Eleventy-Jillionth Time

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For background take a look at this excellent article from the Times on this lawsuit. Also see here to download all pleadings in this case. You can also read all my posts on the case.

Here’s an update of what’s going on with the Bay Boys. Most crucially Judge Otero has moved the trial date from next month out to February 6, 2018. Here’s a copy of the order he filed the other day.

We also have the Ferraras filing their objection to the fairly heavy sanctions against them recommended recently by Magistrate Judge Rozella Oliver. If you recall, back in August Judge Otero specifically granted her the authority to rule on this stuff and given the moderate nature of her recommendations it seems unlikely that he’s going to ignore her thoughtful work just because a bunch of Ferraras ask him to. But of course we’ll see what we see.

Most interestingly, I think, we have this Plaintiffs’ reply to Blakeman’s opposition to their ex parte application for relief from Blakeman’s and the City’s spoliation of evidence. Blakeman filed this whiny-baby opposition a while ago, but the plaintiffs’ response is well worth your time. There are transcribed selections after the break.

Best of all, though, is the fact that as part of this pleading, the plaintiffs filed this transcript of the hearing held before Rozella Oliver on October 12, which attended and reported on, but how much nicer to have the transcript. Read the whole thing, please! Oliver’s dry humor is just lovely. I wish I had time to transcribe the whole thing for you, but I don’t.
Continue reading Lunada Bay Boys Trial Continued Until February 6, 2018 — Transcript Of Contentious October Hearing Before Rozella Oliver Published! — Plaintiffs Call Out Brant Blakeman On His Nonsense For The Eleventy-Jillionth Time →

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Los Angeles City Government, Skid Row Neighborhood Council

Yesterday’s Grievance Against Dandy Dan Curnow Invalidated By Some Random Ordinance Passed In 2015 Which, Although Unincorporated In DLANC Bylaws, Nevertheless Seems To Override Them, Proving Yet Again That The Sheer Overwhelming Incompetence And Habitual, Almost Mannered, Inaction Of DLANC President For Life Patricia X. Berman In The Face Of Any Matter That’s Not A Real Estate Development Approval Is More Than Mere Fecklessness, It’s Actually Some Kind Of Highly Evolved Defensive Tactic

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Well, good lord friends! It seems like just yesterday that I filed a grievance against Dandy Dan Curnow, DLANC secretary and law-flouting bow-tie wearing flower-arranging dude about Skid Row for his egregious violations of the Brown Act in concert with piratical POS Jacob Douglas Van Horn. And, mostly, that’s because it was just yesterday.

So imagine my shocked surprise to receive, this very afternoon, less than 24 hours after I filed the durned thing, an email from DLANC President for Life Patti Berman informing me that, despite the fact that I had followed the procedures given in DLANC’s infernal bylaws to the very letter, nevertheless that procedure was in fact invalidated by some random law I’d never heard of and which has remained unincorporated in the Bylaws since it was passed by the City Council in May 2015. Unfortunately it turns out that she didn’t just make the whole thing up, and you can turn the page for a few details. Fortunately for the sane and the righteous, though, this complaint to the DA against Dandy Dan is still active.
Continue reading Yesterday’s Grievance Against Dandy Dan Curnow Invalidated By Some Random Ordinance Passed In 2015 Which, Although Unincorporated In DLANC Bylaws, Nevertheless Seems To Override Them, Proving Yet Again That The Sheer Overwhelming Incompetence And Habitual, Almost Mannered, Inaction Of DLANC President For Life Patricia X. Berman In The Face Of Any Matter That’s Not A Real Estate Development Approval Is More Than Mere Fecklessness, It’s Actually Some Kind Of Highly Evolved Defensive Tactic →

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Los Angeles City Government, Skid Row Neighborhood Council

How I Reported DLANC Board Member Dan Curnow To The LA County DA For Violating The Brown Act And Also Filed A Grievance Against Him For Violating DLANC Bylaws

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Background: You can read my previous stories on the Skid Row Neighborhood Council formation effort and also see Jason McGahan’s article in the Weekly and Gale Holland’s article in the Times for more mainstream perspectives.

I reported a few weeks ago on how Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council Board member Dan Curnow violated the Brown Act in April 2017 along with his late, unlamented colleague, moral dumpster fire, and wannabe vigilante, Jacob Douglas Van Horn. Jacob Douglas VH, of course, famously resigned from DLANC under a cloud some time ago and, by doing so, perhaps placed himself beyond the suffering of consequences for his evil ways.7 Dan Curnow, as far as anyone around here knows, though, has not (yet) resigned from DLANC and so is eligible to be complained about in every possible venue.

First of all, then, I sent this complaint about him to the Public Integrity Division of the Los Angeles County District Attorney, which is charged with enforcing Brown Act compliance in L.A. There’s not a whole lot of information in there which wasn’t in my original story, but maybe you’ll find it worth reading. The bigger news, though, is that I also filed a grievance with DLANC against Dan Curnow for violating the Brown Act. This is a new direction for me, and there’s a detailed discussion of the issues after the break.
Continue reading How I Reported DLANC Board Member Dan Curnow To The LA County DA For Violating The Brown Act And Also Filed A Grievance Against Him For Violating DLANC Bylaws →

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Central City East Association, Skid Row Neighborhood Council

Estela Lopez’s Exclusion Of Andy Bales, Other Board Members, From Secret Email Discussion Of Skid Row Neighborhood Council Not Anomalous — Bales, Gardner, Kavoukjian Regularly Left Out Of Group Emails From Lopez To CCEA Board Members — What’s Lopez Hiding And Why Is She Hiding It?

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Background: You can read my previous stories on the Skid Row Neighborhood Council formation effort and also see Jason McGahan’s article in the Weekly and Gale Holland’s article in the Times for more mainstream perspectives.

Recently I reported that nine out of the twelve members of the Board of Directors of the Central City East Association egregiously violated the Brown Act during their weeks-long participation in the anti-Skid-Row-Neighborhood-Council conspiracy centered around the shadowy anonymous Delaware-incorporated entity United Downtown Los Angeles LLC. Well, I’ve been continuing to investigate this matter, not only with respect to the involvement of CCEA executive directrix and Skid Row voodoo queen Estela Lopez and the CCEA board of directors, but from many other angles as well.

As part of the investigation I’ve been seeking via the California Public Records Act various emails between CCEA’s board and staff. I’ve actually been asking for these for almost a year now. Estela Lopez has been consistently obstructionist, mostly claiming that all such emails are exempt due to the famously abused, mostly made up, so-called deliberative process exemption to the CPRA.8

This position is indefensible, of course, and there have been some demand letters exchanged between my lawyer and some attorneyesque dude known as Don Steier, who seems to be very buddy buddy with the CCEA conspiracy. The CCEA remains mostly uncooperative, although they did cough up about 50 pages of emails they’d formerly claimed were exempt.9 An even superficial perusal of the evidence will show conclusively that their original claim that this stuff was exempt is nonsense of the first water, and the material they released is mostly chaff.10

However, there is still some interesting information to be gleaned from this release. In particular, the fact that Estela Lopez was involved in extensive secret email discussions with 9 out of 12 CCEA directors, excluding Andy Bales, Richard Gardner, and Sylvia Kavoukjian, was in fact not an anomaly. It seems that she habitually sends emails to everyone but those three.11 I have no idea at this point why those three directors are excluded on a regular basis. Perhaps someone more up on Downtown politics will be able to figure it out. Anyway, turn the page for some examples, some discussion, and some mockery of Don Steier, the CCEA’s lawyerlike co-conspirator.12 Continue reading Estela Lopez’s Exclusion Of Andy Bales, Other Board Members, From Secret Email Discussion Of Skid Row Neighborhood Council Not Anomalous — Bales, Gardner, Kavoukjian Regularly Left Out Of Group Emails From Lopez To CCEA Board Members — What’s Lopez Hiding And Why Is She Hiding It? →

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