Free Republic

An appointee of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa voted two years ago to direct millions in public pension dollars to a company that invested in his own private equity fund, according to documents obtained by The Times. Elliott Broidy, chairman of Markstone Capital Partners, served until May on the Fire and Police Pensions board, which provides benefits to the city's retired police officers and firefighters. Real estate company CIM Group invested $500,000 in Markstone's private equity fund in 2004, according to an e-mail to the city's pension agency. Three years later, Broidy voted with his colleagues on the pension board...

Two of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's appointees to a city pension board resigned today, one month after receiving a letter from the Securities and Exchange Commission asking them to identify income they had received from companies doing business with their agency. Sean Harrigan and Elliott Broidy, two members of the Los Angeles Fire and Police Pensions board, were asked to provide information to the SEC, which is investigating allegations of kickbacks at a New York state pension fund. Appearing at today's board meeting, Harrigan said the inquiry had created "a frenzy of media activity" that had placed him in...

Democratic lawmakers have denied David Crane, one of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's friends and economic advisers, a seat on the California State Teachers' Retirement System board. The Senate Rules Committee voted 3-2 along party lines Wednesday to reject the Republican governor's appointment of Crane to the board. Democrats said they were concerned he would not protect teachers' pensions. Schwarzenegger last year was forced to withdraw an attempt to alter public employee pensions after police and firefighters launched an ad campaign against it. The governor wanted to shift retirement plans for teachers and other public employees to a defined-contribution system - one...

Private attorneys hired by San Diego's pension system determined that the pension board violated the trust of current and future retirees by allowing the City Council to continue delaying full payment of money it owed the fund. The attorneys, in a March 5, 2003, legal opinion made public yesterday, said pension board members placed their needs above those of the retirement fund and its beneficiaries when they agreed to a 2002 city proposal to underfund the pension system by temporarily reducing the annual payment into it. The arrangement, which also cleared the way for the city to increase employee pension...

SAN DIEGO (AP) - Mayor Dick Murphy pleaded Friday with trustees of the city's beleaguered pension fund to release documents requested by federal investigators. Murphy, who is resigning July 15 amid a pension-fund scandal, appeared before trustees at their monthly meeting in the hopes of ending an impasse with the city's outside auditors, the U.S. Justice Department and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. "I think the only way to get this problem behind us is to turn over every document," Murphy told reporters outside the meeting room. "If there are problems tell us what they are." The 13-member board...