Free Republic

This report refers to Shannon Watts as one in a group of “regular people” who began advocating for stricter gun control measures in recent years. After the December 2012 shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., she created the “One Million Moms for Gun Control” Facebook page. It later became “Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.” We should have noted that Watts has a background in corporate communications. From 1998 to mid-2012, she was a corporate communications executive or consultant at such companies as Monsanto and FleishmanHillard. Before that, Watts had what she says was a...

The City Ethics Commission has violated the law for a decade by failing to notify city agencies of sanctions against dozens of people who money-laundered tens of thousands of dollars to political candidates, the Daily News has learned. The notification failure means leaders of city agencies - who award millions of dollars in contracts - may have been unaware that some bidders who laundered campaign funds should be ineligible for city business under the four-year-ban rule. As investigations of possible City Hall corruption continue, the breach in ethics enforcement rules raises new questions about whether effective measures are in place....

Capping a five-week trial that grew out of a sweeping investigation into City Hall corruption, a federal jury on Tuesday found two former Fleishman-Hillard executives guilty of padding bills to the DWP by more than $300,000. Doug Dowie, a power broker who headed the Los Angeles office of the prestigious public relations firm, and John Stodder, his right-hand man, showed little emotion as the verdicts were read by U.S. District Judge Gary Allen Feess. The jury deliberated 51/2 days before finding Dowie, 58, and Stodder, 50, guilty of conspiracy and wire fraud charges. Dowie faces up to 240 years in...

The former head of Fleishman-Hillard's Los Angeles public relations office who got millions of dollars in city contracts while providing free services to Mayor James Hahn's administration was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury on 16 counts of fraud and conspiracy. In the latest development in the investigation of City Hall corruption, Douglas R. Dowie, 57, of West Hills was accused in a 14-page indictment of bilking the city Department of Water and Power out of at least $300,000 over a four-year period. The firm held a $3 million-a-year contract with the DWP as well as public relations contracts...

The politically well-connected public relations firm accused of overbilling Los Angeles taxpayers agreed today to settle a lawsuit by paying $5.74 million to city agencies. The case against Fleishman-Hillard, an international public relations firm, was filed after city auditors alleged that the firm charged millions of dollars to the Department of Water in "unsubstantiated, unsupported and questionable" billings. Fleishman-Hillard, based in St. Louis, has been closely associated with many city politicians and Mayor James K. Hahn, as political contributor, a source of executive talent, and a provider of millions of dollars in public relations services. The deal was finalized today...

The federal investigation of City Hall corruption will lead to a second indictment soon in connection with alleged overbilling of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power by the Fleishman-Hillard public-relations firm, Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam D. Kamenstein disclosed in court Monday. Kamenstein told U.S. District Court Judge Gary Feess that there would be a superseding indictment, which would add one other individual as a defendant, in the 11-count wire-fraud case against John Stodder, a former senior vice president at Fleishman-Hillard. Kamenstein offered no other details beyond indicating that the indictment could come down before the May 17 runoff...

Public relations bills submitted to the Port of Los Angeles by a Fleishman-Hillard executive who is now Mayor James Hahn's press secretary were marked up by more than $1,700 in 2003 without documentation that extra work was done, according to records and interviews. Shannon Murphy, who left the firm less than two months later to replace Matt Middlebrook, who joined Fleishman-Hillard, declined to be interviewed but said in a statement that the handwritten additions to her billing statements were "outrageous." A company official said the "write-ups" lacked supporting documentation that the extra work was ever performed. The paperwork appears to...

According to James Hahn's spokesman, the mayor was "outraged" -- outraged, mind you -- that the public relations firm he was channeling millions of dollars to stands accused of stealing from the taxpayers. The federal grand jury indictment last week of recently discharged Fleishman-Hillard executive John Stodder on 11 counts of defrauding the Department of Water and Power, the Port of Los Angeles and two private clients seems to have surprised no one but Hahn. Federal and district attorney investigators have been tearing apart the Hahn administration's "pay-to-play" contracting practices for more than a year, while City Controller Laura Chick's...

A Los Angeles federal grand jury today indicted a former high-ranking executive of the Fleishman-Hillard public relations firm for his part in a scheme that defrauded the Dept. of Water and Power of at least $250,000 and cheated private clients by lesser amounts. The indictment alleges that John Stodder, Jr., a one-time partner and senior vice president who ran the firm's local public affairs practice, participated with "others known and unknown" to routinely submit inflated billings to the DWP, the Port of Los Angeles, the World Wide Church of God and the firm of world-renown architect Frank Gehry. Law enforcement...

In the first charges growing out of City Hall corruption investigations, a former top executive with the Fleishman-Hillard public relations firm was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury on 11 felony counts of fraud. The indictment of John Stodder, 49, a senior vice president who left the firm last week, centers on charges that he participated in a scheme over a two-year period to defraud the Department of Water and Power out of $250,000. He also is accused of overbilling the Port of Los Angeles, architect Frank Gehry's firm and the World Wide Church of God. Stodder, who faces...