L.A. City Councilman John Lee violated gift laws on lavish Vegas jaunt, judge says
Los Angeles City Councilman John Lee repeatedly violated the city’s gift laws in 2016 and 2017, accepting freebies during a lavish trip to Las Vegas and at multiple restaurants in L.A., a judge said in a filing released Friday.
In a 59-page proposed decision, Administrative Law Judge Ji-Lan Zang concluded that Lee committed two counts of violating a law governing the size of gifts a city official can receive and three counts of violating a law requiring that such gifts be publicly disclosed.
Zang recommended a $43,730 penalty for Lee, who represents the northwest San Fernando Valley and was chief of staff to then-City Councilmember Mitchell Englander at the time of the alleged violations. However, the judge did not agree with allegations by city ethics investigators that Lee misused his position or helped Englander misuse his position.
In 2020, federal prosecutors accused Englander of accepting $15,000 in cash from businessman Andy Wang, lying to FBI agents and obstructing their investigation into the 2017 Vegas trip. Englander ultimately pleaded guilty to a single count of providing false information to the FBI and was sentenced to 14 months in prison.
The five-member Los Angeles City Ethics Commission is scheduled to make a determination on Wednesday, deciding both the number of violations Lee committed and any financial penalties to impose on him.
The commission has the power to accept or reject Zang’s recommendations. Ethics investigators have recommended that the commission take a more punitive approach by fining Lee about $138,000 and holding him responsible for all 10 counts.
The Lee case revolves around gifts — mostly food and alcohol but also hotel stays, transportation and $1,000 in gambling chips — provided by three men who have sought to do business with City Hall: Wang, who peddled Italian cabinets, “smart home” technology and facial recognition software; architect and developer Chris Pak; and lobbyist Michael Bai.
The judge issued her report six months after a multi-day hearing on the allegations against Lee, who replaced Englander on the council in 2019.
During those proceedings, Lee denied that he improperly accepted gifts, saying he made a good faith effort to pay his own way and, in some cases, declined to eat during meals. For example, he testified that he did not remember eating during his meetings at Yxta and Water Grill, both of which are in downtown L.A.
Zang, in her report, called those denials “not credible,” describing his testimony as “evasive and self contradictory.” She said Lee’s testimony also was in conflict with information he gave the FBI during its investigation into Englander, as well as testimony from other witnesses.
“It strains credulity to believe that [Lee] would join Englander, Bai, and Wang for lunch at Yxta and dinner at Water Grill without eating any food during the meals,” she wrote.
Ethics investigators have accused Lee of receiving an assortment of gifts during the 2017 Vegas trip with Englander and several others. Lee and a group of friends stayed at the Aria hotel and spent an evening at the Hakkasan Nightclub, according to the city’s allegations.
At the hotel restaurant, Blossom, Wang ordered a dinner worth nearly $2,500 for the group, which included Englander, Lee and several others, sending out servings of shark fin soup, Peking duck and Kobe beef, according to the judge’s summary of events.
Lee testified that he arrived at the restaurant in time for a dessert of bird’s nest soup, tasting it and deciding he did not like it, the judge said in her filing.
At Hakkasan later that night, Wang purchased three rounds of bottle service for the group for around $8,000 apiece, while Pak paid for a fourth round at a cost of $8,418.75.
“Each round of bottle service was served with fanfare, as female VIP hostesses brought bottles of alcohol to the table with flashing lights,” the judge wrote.
That night, at least 20 other club patrons went to Wang’s booth and drank alcohol at the table, according to the judge’s filing.
Lee was never charged by federal prosecutors and has said he was unaware of wrongdoing by Englander. In a filing submitted last week, his attorneys said that investigators incorrectly calculated the value of the gifts, including the bottles of alcohol, whose contents were distributed among many people.
Lee gave Wang $300 in cash as reimbursement for his drinks, withdrawing money from an ATM in Las Vegas to cover those expenses, his lawyers said.
In their reply to the city, Lee’s attorneys contend that the statute of limitations has expired on the city ethics counts. They have also pushed back on the recommendation from city ethics investigators that Lee pay a $138,000 penalty.
“Such inflated numbers are not grounded in reason, have no basis in the record, no support in the governing law, and no place in a fair and impartial enforcement system,” they wrote in their filing.
Englander previously agreed to pay $79,830 to settle a similar Ethics Commission case over the gifts he received.
Ethics investigators have accused Lee of committing 10 counts of violating city laws — two counts of accepting gifts in excess of the legal limit, three counts of failing to report those gifts on his public disclosure forms, four counts of misusing his position and one count of aiding and abetting Englander’s misuse of his position.
In 2016, the legal limit on gifts to city officials was $460 per donor. The following year, it was $470.
In Englander’s 2020 federal indictment, Lee was mentioned not by name, but instead referred to as “City Staffer B.” Despite his legal troubles, he won reelection in 2024.