A federal jury on Thursday found hip-hop producer Metro Boomin not liable in his civil sexual assault case, after nearly a year of litigation. He is feeling more than relieved.
“I’m grateful and thankful to God that I can finally put all of this nonsense behind me,” the Grammy-nominated “Like That” musician said in a statement shared on Instagram after the verdict.
The jury sided with the 32-year-old artist, whose real name is Leland Tyler Wayne, after a brief trial that began Tuesday. He was cleared in all four actionable claims brought by Vanessa LeMaistre, who first raised her allegations in a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles in October 2024.
LeMaistre said in her initial lawsuit that she and Wayne struck up a connection in spring of 2016 amid their mutual grief: The musician had broken up with a longtime girlfriend and LeMaistre had lost a 9-month-old son “as a result of a rare and fatal disease,” according to court documents. LeMaistre alleged the assault occurred that September after he invited her to a recording studio to watch him work.
LeMaistre described the alleged incident as the “second worst thing that ever happened to her,” other than the death of her child. She also accused Wayne of impregnating her through rape and said she underwent an abortion.
The producer’s legal team quickly denied the allegations last October and dismissed the complaint as a “pure shakedown.” Attorney Lawrence C. Hinkle II echoed those sentiments Thursday in a statement shared after the verdict.
“We are extremely grateful for the jury’s careful consideration of the evidence and for reaching the correct decision,” Hinkle said. “The allegations against Mr. Wayne were frivolous and unequivocally false. Mr. Wayne has endured serious and damaging accusations, and today’s verdict confirms what he has always said — the plaintiff’s claims against him are completely fabricated.”
After Thursday’s verdict, LeMaistre attorney Michael J. Willemin said that although “the legal system is often stacked against survivors, our client showed unwavering fortitude throughout this trial.”
Willemin added: “We are disappointed in the outcome but are proud to represent Ms. LeMaistre and believe that the verdict will ultimately be overturned on appeal.”
Though the case — which was moved from L.A. County Superior Court to California Central District Court in December — ended in victory for Metro Boomin, he said in his statement it also resulted in a “a long list of losses.” He lamented the money and time “wasted” in the litigation process and said there had been an “incalculable amount of money and opportunities that did not make it to me or my team during this time.”
The Missouri-born artist also spoke about the case’s toll on his personal life, writing that “the trauma my family and I have endured during this dark period can never be forgiven.” He detailed adopting his youngest siblings and expressed concern over their possible online exposure to the case.
“I’m disappointed in not only the plaintiff but the janky lawyers who made the made the conscious decision to take on this suit, even though it was evident long ago that these claims had no legs or merit and would not end up going anywhere,” he said, later expressing gratitude for his own legal team.
Metro Boomin rose to prominence in the mid-2010s, working with rap stars including Young Thug, Future and Nicki Minaj. Over the years, he has also racked up collaborations with Drake, Kanye “Ye” West, Kendrick Lamar, SZA and Lil Wayne. Most recently, he reunited with Young Thug as a producer for Thug’s new album, “UY Scuti,” the rapper’s first since his release from Georgia’s Fulton County Jail last October.
With the case behind him for now, Metro Boomin concluded his statement by sending “peace and love to the actual victims out there as well as the innocent and accused.”
Frank McCourt will have to pursue his proposed Dodger Stadium gondola without legislation that would have limited potential legal challenges to the project.
After The Times reported on the legislation, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council publicly opposed it, asking a state Assembly committee to strip the language that would have benefited the gondola project or kill the bill entirely.
On Friday, the committee stripped the language and moved ahead with the remainder of the bill, which is designed to expedite transit projects in California. Under the now-removed language, future legal challenges to certain Los Angeles transit projects would have been limited to 12 months.
The language of the bill did not cite any specific project, but a staff report called the gondola proposal “one project that would benefit.”
A court fight over Metro’s approval of the environmental impact report for the project is at 17 months and counting.
In a letter to state legislators in which she shared the council resolution opposing the language in question, City Councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez said the language would amount to “carve outs” from a worthy bill in order to ease challenges to “a billionaire’s private project.”
McCourt, the former Dodgers owner, first proposed a gondola from Union Station to Dodger Stadium in 2018. The project requires approvals from four public agencies, including the City Council, which is expected to consider the gondola after the completion of a city-commissioned Dodger Stadium traffic study next year.
Ridership across Metro’s transit system plunged in June after federal immigration authorities conducted dramatic raids across Los Angeles County, sowing fear among many rail and bus riders.
Last month, the transit agency’s passenger numbers on buses continued to dip, although the reasons are not fully clear.
Ridership on rail crept up roughly 6.5% in July after a decrease of more than 3.7 million boardings across the rail and bus system the month before. Bus ridership accounted for the bulk of the June hit, with a ridership drop of more than 3.1 million from May. In July, bus boardings continued to decrease slightly by nearly 2%.
While it’s possible that concerns over safety have persisted as immigration raids continued to play out in the Los Angeles region, a drop in bus ridership from June to July in years past has not been uncommon, according to Metro data. A review of the number of boardings from 2018 shows routine dips in bus ridership during the summer months.
The agency said “there is a seasonal pattern to ridership and historically bus ridership is lower in July than June when schools and colleges are not in regular session and people are more likely to take time off from work.”
June saw a roughly 13.5% decline from the month before — the lowest June on record since 2022, when boardings had begun to climb again after the pandemic.
The reduction in passengers was not felt along every rail line and bus route. Metro chief executive Stephanie Wiggins noted during a board of directors meeting last month that the K Line saw a 140% surge in weekday ridership in June and a roughly 200% increase in weekend ridership after the opening of the LAX/Metro Transit Center.
Metro has struggled with ridership in recent years, first when the pandemic shuttered transit and then when a spate of violence on rail and buses shook trust in the system. Those numbers started to rebound this year and before June’s drop, had reached 90% of pre-pandemic counts.
But financial challenges have continued. Metro, which recently approved a $9.4 billion budget, faces a deficit of more than $2.3 billion through 2030. And federal funding for its major Olympics and Paralympics transportation plan to lease thousands of buses remains in flux. Maintaining ridership growth is critical for the the agency.
More than 60% of Metro bus riders and roughly 50% of its rail riders are Latino, according to a 2023 Metro survey. The decline in June’s ridership was due in part to growing concerns that transit riders would be swept up in immigration raids. Those fears were magnified when a widely shared video showed several residents apprehended at a bus stop in Pasadena.
Three of the men who were arrested at the stop by federal agents are plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the Trump administration. They spoke earlier this month at a news conference in favor of the 9th U.S. Court of Appeals decision to uphold a temporary restraining order against the immigration stops and arrests.
Pedro Vasquez Perdomo, a day laborer, said he was taken by unidentified men while waiting at the bus stop to go to work like he did every day. He said that he was placed in a small space without access to a bathroom or adequate food, water and medicine. Vasquez Perdomo said the experience “changed my life forever” and called for “justice.”
Closures at stations during the raids and D Line construction beneath Wilshire Boulevard also affected June’s numbers, according to Metro officials.
In April of 2006, I watched a posse of politicians gather at Skid Row’s Midnight Mission to introduce, with great fanfare and unbridled confidence, a 10-year plan to end homelessness in Los Angeles.
That didn’t work out so well.
Twelve years later, in his 2018 State of the City address, Mayor Eric Garcetti made a full-throated vow to quit fooling around and get the job done.
Los Angeles knows how to weather a crisis — or two or three. Angelenos are tapping into that resilience, striving to build a city for everyone.
“We are here to end homelessness,” he said.
Mission not accomplished.
We have a habit of setting lofty goals and making grand promises in Los Angeles and in California.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Better to have politicians and experts who study the pressing issues of the day and go out on a limb rather than shrug their shoulders.
“It’s hard to do anything if you don’t have a vision,” said Jessica Bremner, a Cal State L.A. urban geography professor. Transit, housing and infrastructure needs won’t materialize without that vision, she added. “Nothing will move.”
Agreed. And all of us, not just politicians, want to believe there’s a better version of our community — a brighter future.
But there is a big difference between a vision and a hallucination, and we’ve had some of both in recent years.
Here’s a sampling:
A mobile phone user looks at an earthquake warning application. After the Northridge quake, the state passed a law requiring seismic upgrades of hospitals by 2030. As of 2023, nearly two-thirds had yet to complete the required improvements.
(Richard Vogel / Associated Press)
In 2022, California set a goal of eliminating the sale of gas-powered vehicles after 2035 — which would dramatically reduce greenhouse emissions — and reaching carbon neutrality by 2045.
After the 1994 Northridge earthquake, the state did more than set a goal. It passed a law requiring hospitals to upgrade seismic safety by 2030.
Los Angeles, under Garcetti, championed Vision Zero in 2015. The goal? Eliminate traffic deaths by 2025. Not reduce, but eliminate.
Steve Lopez
Steve Lopez is a California native who has been a Los Angeles Times columnist since 2001. He has won more than a dozen national journalism awards and is a four-time Pulitzer finalist.
In 2020, the city embraced SmartLA 2028, a plan to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and gas-powered vehicles and build “a data-driven connected city, which addresses the digital divide and brings fresh ideas, including tele-health, clean tech and a switch to mass transit.”
In 2021, the California Master Plan for Aging set “five bold goals” to increase affordable housing and improve health, caregiving and economic security for older adults and those with disabilities by 2030.
In anticipation of L.A.’s hosting of the 2028 Summer Olympics and Paralympics, Metro introduced its “Twenty-eight by ‘28” initiative in 2018, outlining more than two dozen transit objectives.
The DTLA 2040 plan, adopted by the city in 2023, would add 70,000 housing units and 55,000 jobs over the next 15 years.
So how’s it all going?
The good news: There’s been a lot of progress.
The bad news: Where to begin?
Surely you’ll fall over backward when I tell you that funding shortages, politics, evolving priorities, lack of coordination, haphazard and disjointed planning, and less than stellar leadership have stymied progress on many fronts.
On homelessness, thousands have been housed and helped thanks to big initiatives and voter-approved resources. But as an observer once described it, we’ve been managing rather than solving the crisis and essentially bailing a leaky boat with a teaspoon. And now the agency at the helm is in disarray.
People experiencing homelessness pack their tents and belongings during the cleanup of an encampment on Wilshire Boulevard in downtown Los Angeles.
(Etienne Laurent / For The Times)
On climate change, California deserves a big pat on the back for at least acknowledging the crisis and responding with big ideas. But the Trump administration, which is likely to hold steady up to and beyond the point at which Mar-a-Lago is underwater, has all but declared war on the Golden State’s good intentions, eliminating funding for key projects and challenging the state’s authority.
The U.S. Supreme Court has sided with Trump, Congress and fossil fuel companies in opposing the state’s ambitions. Meanwhile, a grim analysis last year, which can’t be blamed on Trump, said the state would have to triple the pace of progress to reach its 2030 greenhouse gas reduction target.
As for the law requiring seismic upgrades of hospitals by 2030, as of 2023, nearly two-thirds had yet to complete the required improvements and many had asked for amendments and extensions.
L.A.’s Vision Zero, meanwhile, which promised the redesign of high-accident locations and multiple other safety upgrades for pedestrians, cyclists and motorists, has been a singular embarrassment.
Rather than an elimination of traffic deaths, the number has surged, and an audit released earlier this year serves as an indictment of local leadership. It cited lack of accountability along with “conflicts of personality, lack of total buy-in for implementation, disagreements over how the program should be administered.”
“Incredibly disappointing,” said Michael Manville, a UCLA professor of urban planning. “The city remains incredibly dangerous for cyclists and pedestrians.”
Manville didn’t have very high grades, either, for Metro’s 28×28 foray.
“It’s a joke at this point,” he said, although even though he noted that some progress is undeniable, citing in particular the expected completion of the Purple Line extension to the Westside in time for the Olympics.
One morning in June, I stood on Van Nuys Boulevard in Pacoima with L.A. City Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez. She was looking to the north, in the direction of an empty promise.
“This is the home of the future San Fernando Valley Light Rail,” Rodriguez said. “It was supposed to be one of the 28 by 28, and we’re now looking at probably 2031 to 2032 for its completion … in a community that has a majority dependence … on public transit.”
We also visited the site of a proposed Sylmar fire station for which there was a groundbreaking ceremony about two decades ago. Rodriguez said with the adjacent hills turning brown as fire season approaches, Sylmar is long overdue for the station, but the city is hobbled by a massive budget deficit.
“Now I’ve just got to get the money to build it,” Rodriguez said.
An image from video shows the aftermath of a traffic collision involving three vehicles on the southbound lanes of the 405 Freeway near Wilshire Boulevard. Former Mayor Eric Garcetti championed Vision Zero in 2015. The goal? Eliminate traffic deaths by 2025.
(KTLA)
Sometimes it seems as if the big goals are designed to redirect our attention from the failures of daily governance. Sure, there’s a 10-year wait to get your ruptured sidewalk fixed, but flying taxis are in the works for the Olympics.
And one convenient feature of long-term goals is that when 2035 or 2045 rolls around, few may remember who made the promises, or even recall what was promised.
In Professor Bremner’s vision of a rosier L.A. future, there would be more buses and trains on the lines that serve the Cal State L.A. transit station. She told me she talks to her students about the relationship between climate change and the car culture, and then watches them hustle after night classes to catch a bus that runs on 30-minute intervals or a train that rolls in once an hour.
As for the other big promises I mentioned, SmartLA 2028 lays out dozens of laudable but perhaps overly ambitious goals — “Los Angeles residents will experience an improved quality of life by leveraging technology to meet urban challenges. No longer the ‘car capital of the world’, residents will choose how they wish to get around LA, using a single, digital payment platform, with choices like renovated Metro rail and bus systems or micro transit choices, such as on-demand LANow shuttles or dockless bicycles.” But in the 50-page strategy document, the word “challenges” is mentioned quite a bit, and I worry that this particular reference could be the kiss of death:
“City of Los Angeles departments have varying funding sources, missions, and directives, which can inhibit unified, citywide Smart City technology initiatives.”
It’s a little too soon to know whether the DTLA 2040 goals will rank as vision or hallucination, but downtown is the logical place for high-density residential development and construction cranes are already on the job. As for the Master Plan for Aging, there’s been progress but also uncertainty about steady funding streams, particularly given current state budget miseries, and there’s no guarantee the plan will be prioritized by future governors.
“Goals are critical,” said Mark Gold, director of water scarcity solutions at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “But they need to be followed up with implementation plans, with budgets, funding mechanisms, milestones and metrics.”
“That is nowhere close,” said Gold, but two other goals might be within reach. One is to have 70% of L.A.’s water locally sourced by 2035, the other is for 80% of county water to be local by 2045, using increased stormwater capture, recycled wastewater, groundwater remediation and conservation.
When he ran Heal the Bay, Gold implemented an annual report card for ocean water quality at various beaches. Maybe we ought to use the same system every time a politician takes a bow for introducing a bold, far-reaching goal.
Without the measuring stick, Gold said, “you end up looking back and saying, ‘remember when we were going to do this and that and it never happened?’ You have to continuously revisit and grade yourself on how you’re doing.”
Plans for the 2028 Olympics and Paralympics are linked to a fleet of buses to transport people to and from venues like SoFi Stadium to avoid a traffic meltdown. The plan includes a $2-billion ask of the Trump administration to lease 2,700 buses to join Metro’s fleet of about 2,400.
(Deborah Netburn / Los Angeles Times)
While it’s true, Manville said, that “L.A. seems to be better at kicking off grand plans than seeing them through, that’s not unique to Los Angeles.”
He cited “Abundance” as one of several recent books making the case that “lots of cities in blue states can’t seem to get out of their own way.”
The failures of virtuous Democrats are indeed on full display in California and beyond. But the other side of the aisle is not without its own sins, beginning with cult-like denial of climate change and, speaking of empty promises, undying devotion to a man who said he would end the war in Ukraine before he took office and bring down grocery prices on Day One.
Would you rather live in a state crazy enough to still think it can build a bullet train and outlaw carbon, or in one of the many hurricane-battered states crazy enough to think this is a swell time to get rid of FEMA?
If you’re reaching for the stars, making it to the moon isn’t a bad start.
Melbourne’s Metro Tunnel is expected to open in late 2025. Described as the most significant overhaul of the city’s transport network since the City Loop opened in the 1980s, the tunnel has been taking shape beneath the city for the past eight years – with the bill ballooning to $14bn. With an eye on the 2026 state election, the long-serving Victorian Labor government – with its soaring debt of nearly $200bn – is banking on the project to turn its fortunes around. Guardian Australia’s Victoria state correspondent, Benita Kolovos, gets a look at the city’s newest train stations
In a sprawling county where transit lines are sometimes miles apart, transit leaders’ plans for the 2028 Olympics and Paralympics rely on a robust fleet of buses to get people to and from venues and avoid a traffic meltdown.
The plan hinges on a $2-billion ask of the Trump administration to lease 2,700 buses to join Metro’s fleet of roughly 2,400, traveling on a network of designated lanes to get from venue to venue. But with roughly three years to go until opening day, the plan faces several challenges over funding and time.
The federal government has yet to respond to the city’s request. And Metro’s commitment to lease clean energy buses could pose supply problems and challenges around charging infrastructure. Operators would also need to be trained under state regulations and provided housing through the Games.
“Three years might seem like a lot of time to many of us, but in municipal time, three years is like the blink of an eye. That’s our greatest challenge.” said Daniel Rodman, a member of the city of L.A.’s office of major events, at a recent UCLA transit forum. “Father Time is coming.”
The Games will be scattered in places across the region including Alamitos Beach in Long Beach, the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, the L.A. Coliseum and Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles and outside the county in Anaheim and all the way to northern San Diego County. Official watch parties and fan gatherings will also occur throughout the metropolis. Since these and many of the venues aren’t directly accessible by rail, the bus system will be key to the city’s push for “transit first” — a motto that city leaders have adopted since Mayor Karen Bass’ previous messaging around a “car-free Olympics.”
The bus system will be key to the city’s push for “transit first.”
(Gabriella Angotti-Jones / Los Angeles Times)
Outside the bus system, several transit projects in the works are expected to ease some of the traffic burden, including the extension for the Metro D Line, also known as the Purple Line, which Metro has slated for completion before the Olympics, and the opening of the automated people mover train at Los Angeles International Airport, which will offer an alternative to driving to the airport. There are also proposals for water taxi use from San Pedro to Long Beach, where multiple events will be held, to offer an alternative to the Vincent Thomas and Long Beach International Gateway bridges.
The big question is whether enough people in a famously auto-bound city will be willing to take public transit. Leaders believe that tourists are likely to take advantage of the system, and hope more Angelenos will too.
“All of our international visitors know how to ride public transportation — it’s second nature for our people coming from other countries,” county Supervisor and Metro board Chair Janice Hahn said at a recent UCLA forum, pointing to the Paris Olympics and the city’s long use of public transit. “It’s the Angelenos that we’re still trying to attract. So I’m thinking the legacy will be a good experience on a bus or a train that could translate after the Olympics to people riding Metro.”
Los Angeles leaders warned of major traffic jams ahead of the 1984 Olympics. Then-Councilmember Pat Russell advised residents to leave the city and take a vacation, and many Angelenos rented out their homes to visitors. Fears loomed that if the city couldn’t nail down a transit plan, the experience would be a disaster and spectators would encounter a fate similar to the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y., where thousands of people were stranded in below-freezing temperatures after the shuttle bus system became overloaded, according to Times archival reports.
“Of all the problems we’re faced with these Olympics Games, transportation is the surest and most inevitable mess unless we get the cooperation and support of people to adjust their use of their personal vehicles,” Capt. Ken Rude, the head of California Highway Patrol’s Olympic planning unit, told The Times a year before the 1984 Games. Months earlier, he warned that traffic jams could be so bad that people would be forced to abandon their cars on freeways.
Traffic on the 110 Freeway in downtown Los Angeles during the 1984 Summer Olympics.
(Michael Montfort / Michael Ochs Archives via Getty Images)
In the end, catastrophe was avoided. The plan 40 years ago was similar to today’s — build a robust bus system to shuttle Olympics fans, athletes and leaders throughout the county.
Traffic was manageable, whether due to transit plans that relied on an additional 550 buses to assist a fleet of 2,200, temporarily turned some streets one-way and limited deliveries to certain hours, or an exodus of residents as people left the area ahead of the Games, in part due to the dire predictions of complete gridlock.
But fast-forward, Los Angeles’ population has grown from nearly 8 million in 1984 to 9.7 million today, and the region is expecting millions more spectators than it did during the last Games. Estimates for the overall number of expected visitors are still vague, but planners have anticipated as many as 9 million more ticket holders than in the 1984 Olympics.
“There’s a mountain to be moved and if you move it one year, it’s a lot harder than in three years,” said Juane Matute, deputy director of UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies. “The buses are hard enough to get, but all of these policy and regulatory changes may be hard as well.”
Metro has received leasing commitments for roughly 650 buses so far. Vehicles aside, it will take time to get bus operators properly trained, tested and certified to operate public transit in the state, Matute said. An estimated 6,000 additional bus operators would be needed to drive people throughout the Games. Metro has said that those operators are expected to be provided through transit agencies loaning the buses.
In the latest state budget proposal, $17.6 million from the state’s highway fund would go toward Olympics and Paralympics planning, including Metro’s Games Route Network, which would designate a series of roads for travel by athletes, media members, officials, the International Olympics Committee, spectators and workers. But city and Metro leaders have continued to raise concerns over the funding gap, especially since the additional buses and priority lanes network in 2028 won’t be a permanent fixture to Los Angeles, and as the agency grapples with budget challenges as it faces a $2.3-billion deficit by 2030.
A cycle rickshaw driver, of Deke’s Muscled Cabs, transports a passenger, possibly an athlete, during the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
(Michael Montfort / Michael Ochs Archives via Getty Images)
Olympics planners, on the other hand, are confident that transportation will be successful.
“L.A. has invested unto itself a lot in infrastructure here and transportation infrastructure — far more than it did in ‘84,” LA28 Chair Casey Wasserman said after a three-day visit from the International Olympic Committee.
“We feel very confident that it’ll be a different version of the success we had in ‘84 in terms of ingress and egress and access and experience when it comes to transportation.”
Times staff writer Thuc Nhi Nguyen contributed to this report.
