Delgadillo Urged to Return Landlord Money

Tenant-rights advocates called Wednesday for Los Angeles City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo to return thousands of dollars in political contributions that he received from two landlords who had been accused of operating apartments with slum conditions.

But a spokesman for Delgadillo said the city attorney was proud of his record of enforcing housing laws and intended to keep the money.

The Times reported Wednesday that Delgadillo accepted $16,600 in contributions before and after he settled a lawsuit for $1 million with Lance Robbins, Stanley Treitel and their associates. The city initially said they owed $3 million in delinquent water and power bills and penalties.

Abdullah Muhammad, chairman of the Assn. of Community Organizations for Reform Now, said Delgadillo’s acceptance of the contributions sent a message that he was not on the side of tenants.

“He should give the money back,” Muhammad said. “He has sold out to the slum housing landlords at the expense of tenants in slum housing. It’s sickening.”

Darla Fjeld, executive director of the tenant-rights group Coalition L.A., said that although it was legal for Delgadillo to take contributions from those he enforces the law against, it didn’t look right.

“If he wants to really show there is no influence, he should give it back,” Fjeld said.

Delgadillo, who is running for state attorney general, said through a campaign advisor Wednesday that he would not return the contributions and that he believed that he had been tough on the landlords who donated the money.

“He doesn’t feel the need to” return the money, said Roger Salazar, adding that the settlement required the landlords to pay $1 million. “If someone wants to get their butt kicked and then contribute later on, that is up to them.”

In court papers, the city attorney’s office admitted that the settlement with Robbins, Treitel and associates was “below the actual amount of back bills,” but prosecutors said later that they had concluded it would have been difficult to prove much more than that was due the city.

In one filing, however, they acknowledged that the deal was a “dramatic compromise” and that the city was “entitled” to collect $3 million in treble damages but didn’t ask for it.

Salazar, however, said the settlement was one of the largest of its kind and that Delgadillo was not influenced by contributions.

Delgadillo has said he was unaware that the two were donors.

The Times also reported Wednesday that the number of landlords jailed for slum violations while Delgadillo has been city attorney dropped from 12 three years ago to two last fiscal year. Court-ordered fines were also down sharply last year.

Salazar said The Times’ article “paints a grossly distorted” picture of Delgadillo’s “tough record in crackdowns on slumlords.”

“Under Rocky’s leadership more than 7,200 units have been brought into compliance with city codes in the last four years,” he said.

Tai Glenn, directing attorney for housing at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, said Delgadillo seeks too many low settlements that landlords write off as the cost of doing business and instead should be putting more people in jail.