New Details of Ludlow Investigation Revealed

Los Angeles labor leaders failed Thursday to name a successor to former City Councilman Martin Ludlow, as fresh details surfaced about the investigation that caused him to resign as head of their politically powerful coalition.

The 32-member executive board of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor met privately for 2 1/2 hours at federation headquarters near downtown. But shortly after noon, federation President Rick Icaza emerged to say no decision had been made on who should fill the post of executive secretary-treasurer.

“Discussions are continuing and until a decision is reached it is not appropriate to discuss the details of our deliberations in public,” said Icaza, whose group represents 354 unions with 825,000 workers in Los Angeles County.

One union official said board members wanted more time to hear from delegates before committing to a new leader.

The board’s next regular meeting is March 6, but Mary Gutierrez, another federation spokesperson, said a special meeting could be convened before then if needed.

Within labor circles and in City Hall, the expectation was that the leading candidate to replace Ludlow remains Maria Elena Durazo, the head of Unite Here Local 11 and widow of the late federation leader Miguel Contreras. Some union officials, however, are touting Kent Wong of the UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education. A two-thirds vote of the board would be required to appoint an interim chief.

Ludlow, meanwhile, has tentatively accepted the general terms of a plea bargain with federal and state prosecutors but talks on some details continue, according to sources close to the negotiations.

The former city councilman had been the subject of a months-long investigation by the U.S. attorney, Los Angeles County district attorney and city Ethics Commission.

Investigators suspect his 2003 council campaign received at least $53,000 in secret help from leaders of the Service Employees International Union Local 99 in the form of workers, cellphones, computers and phone banking, according to people familiar with the probe.

Under city ethics rules, Local 99 could contribute no more than $500 to a council campaign, so any additional direct assistance would be a violation of campaign finance laws.

Ludlow and former Local 99 President Janett Humphries could face possible felony conspiracy charges for allegedly violating the finance laws.

On Thursday it emerged that key witnesses in the case have been longtime Democratic political workers, including an elected school board member and a former campaign consultant for Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Sources said Thursday that a former administrative assistant to Humphries and a former bookkeeper for Local 99 have told investigators that they were directed by Humphries to put on the union payroll five people referred by Ludlow.

Sometime in December 2002, Ludlow and a political operative named Gregory Akili appeared at the Local 99 office with a list of five job descriptions, their terms and how much the positions were to pay, the sources said.

The monthly salaries ranged from $2,600 to $5,400 and were contained on a spreadsheet given to the two Local 99 employees.

At that time, it was made clear that Akili would be one of the people hired, so he was put on the payroll, sources said.

Akili, currently a political organizer for SEIU Local 1000, has previously worked for other Democratic candidates, including as a paid campaign consultant for Villaraigosa’s unsuccessful 2001 campaign for mayor.

Akili did not return phone calls seeking comment this week.

Later, another of the positions went to Mark E. Pulido, who has been an elected school board member in the ABC Unified School District in southeast Los Angeles County since November 2001. He currently also works as an aide to state Sen. Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach).

Despite being paid to work for Local 99, Akili, Pulido and others hired later spent much of their time working in support of Ludlow’s council campaign, according to documents and sources familiar with the investigation.

Neither Akili nor Pulido has been charged with any crime, and sources say both have cooperated with prosecutors in the Ludlow investigation.

When Ben Boyd, a spokesman for the international headquarters of the Service Employees International Union, was asked by The Times to confirm that the two men worked for Local 99, he declined.

“Unfortunately we cannot comment on matters that may be the subject of ongoing criminal investigations other than to reaffirm that we have fully cooperated with all requests from the investigating agencies and will continue to do so,” Boyd said.

After Akili and Pulido were on the union payroll, the administrative assistant and the bookkeeper “had questions about where they were after they were hired,” said one person familiar with their testimony. Later the new workers were converted from union employees to contractors for Local 99, which would allow them to work independently away from the office, the source said.

Reached at his state office, Pulido said he had no comment when asked about the work. However, John Casey, Lowenthal’s chief of staff, said Pulido has told the senator about the case and his cooperation with authorities.

“He [Pulido] doesn’t believe it was an improper situation,” Casey said, adding, “I have 100% confidence in Mark Pulido.”

In a state-required disclosure of his income, Pulido reported that in 2003 he was paid up to $10,000 by Local 99 to serve as a “consultant” and write a report, and up to $1,000 by “Ludlow’s political funds” to serve as a “campaign worker” for Ludlow.

Pulido told authorities that he was assured his pay by the union would be justified by writing a report for Local 99 regarding the Ludlow campaign.

Two people familiar with the research report said it was arguably not worth what he was paid, and mostly included material taken off the Internet.

In city filings, Villaraigosa reported that his 2001 mayoral campaign paid Akili $2,900, most of it for services as a campaign consultant.

Ludlow also reported paying Akili $1,000 for “campaign consultant” services in 2003.

Asked if Ludlow played a role in getting campaign helpers hired at Local 99, Ludlow attorney Stephen Kaufman said, “I’d prefer not to comment on a matter that is still pending.”

Attorneys for Humphries said Thursday that she had “no role” in any conspiracy with Ludlow to hire campaign workers through the union.

“Everybody in Los Angeles politics knows that the political power at Local 99 was Tom Newbury, the chief executive officer, and we are not surprised that his administrative assistant ... would try to make Janett Humphries a scapegoat in this matter,” Ricardo A. Torres II and former Los Angeles City Councilman Nick Pacheco, attorneys for Humphries, wrote in a statement.

Newbury did not return calls seeking comment.

Local 99 has long played a leading role in supporting candidates in Los Angeles.

The union contributed $500 to Villaraigosa’s 2003 campaign for council and $1,000 to his failed 2001 bid for mayor. It also spent $6,613 on Villaraigosa’s behalf in 2001 through a so-called “independent expenditure” committee acceptable under city law because it was not coordinated with the candidate’s organization.