Kaiser Puts Ticket Tab at $250,000

Leland Wong, a Kaiser Permanente executive who recently quit his job after the HMO said he had improperly given sports tickets to politicians, spent about $250,000 in company funds over the last seven years to buy tickets to Laker games and other events from Los Angeles Airport Commissioner Ted Stein, an internal review has found.

Wong resigned from Kaiser and from the city Department of Water and Power Commission on Jan. 13 after Kaiser said it had found he had improperly used company resources for political purposes.

A company official also said at the time that Wong, who was Kaiser’s director of governmental relations, had given politicians tickets worth more than the $100-per-person limit on gifts from city contractors. Kaiser is a healthcare provider for the city.

Wong, a major behind-the-scenes player in Los Angeles politics, told The Times last month that his office at Kaiser had bought Laker tickets to “build relationships” with community leaders and opinion makers. He also denied having mishandled Kaiser money.

A Kaiser official said for the first time on Wednesday that Stein, who holds four season tickets to professional basketball and hockey games at Staples Center, was a source for tickets for the company’s government relations office. Company spokesman Jim Anderson said the internal probe had concluded that Wong had not gotten the necessary approvals to spend company money on the tickets.

Wong did not return calls Wednesday seeking comment on the latest disclosures.

Anderson declined to say how much Wong had paid Stein for tickets, but three people familiar with Kaiser’s internal investigation said he had spent about $250,000 between 1997 and 2003. These sources asked not to be identified because city ethics officials had requested that the company’s findings be kept confidential.

Stein said he had sold his tickets to Kaiser and others for years because he had more than he could use.

He said he had sold them at a modest profit.

Stein added that he did not know the exact amount he had been paid by Kaiser without going back through the checks, but that the $250,000 figure sounded accurate.

Because Kaiser is a city contractor, one expert in the city’s ethics laws said, officials should review whether Stein and his wife, Public Works Board member Ellen Stein, should have disclosed the revenue from the ticket sales.

Bob Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies in Los Angeles and co-author of the city’s ethics laws, said the public should know if commissioners are receiving income from city contractors so they can be aware of potential conflicts of interest.

A Kaiser official said the information on the ticket purchases had been turned over to the Ethics Commission for review, but commission representatives declined to comment.

Stein said he had consulted a legal expert and determined that neither he nor his wife was required to disclose the income from Kaiser because the money had gone to his sole-proprietorship law firm.

“If there was any way I thought it should be disclosed, I would have disclosed it,” Stein said. “I have nothing to hide.”

He said that another Kaiser official, not Wong, signed the checks.

Stein also said that Kaiser had never appeared before his commission and that he did believe the firm had ever had business before his wife’s panel.

“Every transaction was proper and 100% aboveboard,” he said.

Stein’s four Premiere seats at downtown Los Angeles’ Staples Center allow the holder to attend all games there of the Lakers, Clippers, Sparks, Kings and Avengers. He also has the option of buying tickets to the seats for any concerts at Staples for face value.

Premiere seats, which are generally in rows 20 through 32, cost the holder $13,000 to $18,750 per seat per year. The seats are not supposed to be resold, but the practice is fairly common, a Staples official said.