LOS ANGELES, July 22, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Consumer  Watchdog responded to news that the FBI had served search warrants on the City Attorney and DWP by saying that it was critical that evidence was being preserved in what is likely a case of conspiracy to defraud the courts and the ratepayers.  However, the nonprofit group expressed remorse about how LA leaders handled the crisis it has exposed over the last three and one half years.

"It shouldn't take the FBI serving search warrants to get to the bottom billing problems at the DWP.  If there is any greater indictment of the failure of the City to protect ratepayers rather than City Hall insiders I don't know what it might be," said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog. "Shame on the Mayor's Office and City Council for allowing it to come to this. They should have cleaned house at DWP long ago."

To learn more about the case read Consumer Watchdog's previous letters and watch an explanatory press conference at: https://www.consumerwatchdog.org/energy/ag-xavier-becerra-should-take-over-public-corruption-probe-city-attorneys-office-about-dwp

"When City Hall and the City Attorney cannot clean up their own DWP mess, this is what happens, the FBI has to do it. These raids are almost certainly related to what appears to be a fraud on the court and ratepayers in the DWP billing error case that led to  tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer money spent on contracts to a company controlled by the city's outside attorney in the case who has already taken the Fifth Amendment.

"The court documents have already proven with witnesses under oath that there was fraud on the ratepayers and the Court, the only question is how high the fraud goes and how much it costs.  The FBI warrants will protect evidence and make sure that prosecutors know if the head of the DWP Commission Mel Levine and City Attorney Mike Feuer, both of whom were fingered in depositions on being in on fraud, were in fact aware of the conspiracy to defraud the court and the DWP ratepayers.

"These warrants are the result of the Mayor and City Council turning a blind eye to corruption at DWP and in the City Attorney's office that has been well documented over the last few months in sworn testimony in the Superior Court of Los Angeles."

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SOURCE Consumer Watchdog