Former Los Angeles Councilmember Kevin de León is facing an $18,750 ethics fine for voting on city council decisions in which he had a financial interest and for failing to disclose income.
De León has admitted to four counts of “making or participating in a decision in which a financial interest is held” and one count of failing to disclose income, according to a report prepared by the enforcement arm of the L.A. City Ethics Commission.
The ethics report says that in 2020-21 De León voted on three city council issues that benefited the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and one that helped USC — all decisions that were made less than a year after he received more than $500 income from each. According to state law, elected officials must disclose each source of gross income of $500 or more received in the 12 months before taking office.
Less than 12 months after receiving income from AIDS Healthcare Foundation, De León participated in three separate city decisions that affected the foundation in which he knew or had reason to know he had a financial interest, the ethics commission report said. But according to the ethics commission report, De León failed to disclose $109,231 in income he had received from the foundation before he took office.
On Nov. 25, 2020, he voted for the foundation’s application for historical designation of the foundation-owned King Edward Hotel. On April 22, 2021, he voted for an item regarding a city lease of the foundation-owned Retan Hotel. On May 4, 2021, he voted again for a city lease of the Retan Hotel.
De León’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but The Times received a statement from a spokesperson for De León: “This matter centers on disclosure — not personal gain. The items in question provided homeless housing during a pandemic and health services to vulnerable Angelenos,” the statement said. “They passed unanimously, and had Councilmember De León been advised that he should recuse himself, he would have done so without hesitation — the outcomes would have been the same.”
USC paid him $155,000 as an independent contractor from July 2019 to June 2020.
Less than 12 months later, De León participated in a city decision that benefited USC, according to the ethics commission. In June 2021, De León voted to approve the Housing and Community Development Consolidated Plan proposed budget, which included a $1-million allocation to the USC Keck School of Medicine.
In March 2020, De León was elected to represent Council District 14 on the L.A. City Council. In May 2020, while still a council member-elect, De León entered into a consulting agreement with the Healthy Housing Foundation, a division of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and began providing services as a strategic policy advisor.
The agreement said that De León was to “advise and strengthen strategy regarding partnerships and policy insights on behalf of HHF’s programs and portfolio,” and “[e]ngage with policymakers and regulators on all areas related to overall strategic goals of HHF,” according to the ethics commission.
De León took office in October 2020. He filed a financial disclosure form the next month, but did not disclose the AIDS Healthcare Foundation or its Healthy Housing Foundation as sources of income. In December 2020, he filed an amended financial form but did not disclose income from the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which was “the true source of the income that he received under the consulting agreement,” according to the ethics commission report.
In determining the fine amount, the ethics commission said that De León cooperated with staff and that he has no prior enforcement history. However, the ethics commission noted the violations in this case are serious and that “the violations appear to indicate a pattern of conduct.”
Similar issues were highlighted in a 2023 Times story that found De León helped organized a meeting in summer 2020 with a group of city department heads and high-ranking mayoral staffers to address issues facing the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. At the time, De León had been elected but not yet taken office.
In the months before the meeting, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation was pursuing a lawsuit alleging the city illegally denied funding for an affordable housing project that the foundation was proposing. An email from the mayor’s then-deputy chief of staff to colleagues said De León “wants to engage and come up with a solution.”
Five city officials who attended the briefing or were involved in organizing it told The Times in 2023 they were unaware that De León was employed as a consultant for the foundation at the time — or of the more than $100,000 it was paying him in the six months before his taking office.
Political ethics experts, meanwhile, told The Times that De León’s relationship with the foundation and failure to disclose his financial ties raised a potential conflict-of-interest concern. They believed his actions could have left city staffers with uncertainty about whose interests he was serving — the city’s or his then-employer’s.
