Lawsuit: Former Pasadena City College officials sought $250,000 bribe

Two former Pasadena City College administrators facing a criminal bribery probe offered a lucrative campus contract to a lighting company in exchange for a lavish visit to India and $250,000 in payoffs, a lawsuit claims.

A countersuit filed Tuesday by former PCC Vice President Richard van Pelt and then-campus facilities chief Al Hutchings acknowledges the pair traveled to India, but denies they sought a bribe.

Los Angeles-based LED Global LLC, a manufacturer of energy-efficient light bulbs, alleges in a suit filed July 26 in Los Angeles Superior Court that van Pelt and Hutchings solicited kickbacks in 2011 after promising the firm a $5-million contract to upgrade campus lighting.

The company refused to make the illegal payments, was denied the contract and contacted law enforcement authorities, according to a related claim LED Global filed July 30 against PCC with the city of Pasadena.

On July 7, investigators with the L.A. County district attorney’s office seized computers and documents from the homes and campus offices of van Pelt and Hutchings. The men have not been charged, and the investigation remains open, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. David Demerjian, who heads the office’s public integrity section.

PCC fired van Pelt after the raid and removed Hutchings from his job pending an administrative hearing.

LED Global’s lawsuit claims that the company’s owners met with van Pelt and Hutchings in January 2011 to discuss a contract, and that in February 2011 the firm examined the college’s lighting needs.

The suit claims that the company received a $5-million purchase order for LED lighting from van Pelt and Hutchings on March 17, 2011, after agreeing to pay for the men to travel to Mumbai, India, from May 1 to May 6 for a factory tour.

During that trip, van Pelt and Hutchings twice asked for a 5% kickback on the proposed PCC contract and on future contracts they would broker for LED Global at other community colleges, according to the suit.

The lawsuit also claims van Pelt and Hutchings made “unusual and expensive” requests during the trip, asking for company-paid stays at luxury hotels in Mumbai and New Delhi, an excursion to the Taj Mahal, access to prostitutes, limousine rides, lavish meals and $2,000 worth of Cuban cigars.

LED Global owners Robert Das and Salia Smith claim the company paid for most of those demands but refused to hire prostitutes for the men. They allege that Hutchings — a former Los Angeles Police Department officer — made veiled threats after they refused to make the payoffs.

Van Pelt and Hutchings did not inform the college about the trip to India, said PCC spokesman Juan Gutierrez.

The countersuit by van Pelt and Hutchings accuses LED Global of fraud and slander in retribution for not getting a contract. It describes the March 17 document as a “non-binding purchase requisition” sought by LED Global to assure investors that the college was in the market for new lighting.

Philip Layfield, attorney for LED Global, said Thursday that he has not received notice of a countersuit.

Craig Renetzky, an attorney representing Hutchings in the criminal probe, said Hutchings and van Pelt went to India to ensure that LED Global’s products were safe and had been produced in an ethical manner, but left without confidence in the firm.

“The factories were substandard,” Renetzky said. “This whole case is the result of sour grapes because the company did not get the contract.”

Hutchings maintains the allegations against him are “completely baseless,” Renetzky said.

Van Pelt and Hutchings, he added, “did a tremendous job in service to that college, reducing energy costs and making it more sustainable.”

Van Pelt headed the committee that hired Hutchings to oversee facilities-related contracts in May 2009, according to college documents.

Before working at PCC, Hutchings had resigned from his LAPD job after pleading no contest to charges of fraudulent overtime billing and was fired from Los Angeles Valley College for dishonest conduct, according to Los Angeles Times reports.

The claim LED Global filed in Pasadena accuses college officials of negligence in the hiring and supervision of van Pelt and Hutchings. It also states that LED Global installed lighting “in certain classrooms and parking garages as a ‘beta test’ and incurred substantial expense in doing so,” and seeks at least $276,000 from the college.

LED Global’s suit against van Pelt and Hutchings also targets Sustainagistics LLC, a company van Pelt and Hutchings formed in 2010. PCC President Mark Rocha has said van Pelt kept the existence of Sustainagistics secret from the college in a violation of conflict-of-interest rules.

Ultimately, the college awarded a $2.5-million lighting contract to Simi Valley-based Seesmart Inc. in October 2011. Seesmart officials did not return calls seeking comment.