Court trial of former LA official Raymond Chan postponed

Accused former Los Angeles Deputy Mayor Raymond Chan will get a spring break from his corruption trial while his attorney recovers in a hospital from an undisclosed illness.

U.S. District Judge John Walter learned that Chan’s lawyer, Harland Braun, was in a hospital after falling ill and has held the trial until March 27 while Braun recovers, City News Service reported in the Los Angeles Daily News. The trial began Feb. 21. 

Braun, 80, is among the city’s best known criminal defense attorneys, with clients that have included Roman Polanski, Roseanne Barr, John Landis, Gary Busey and Chris Farley. 

Chan is facing a dozen criminal counts, including racketeering, conspiracy, bribery, honest services fraud and lying to federal agents for his alleged role in a complex pay-to-play scheme that prosecutors say soaked developers for millions of dollars in exchange for getting their building projects approved at City Hall.

Chan, 66, of Monterey Park, is accused of being key to what prosecutors have dubbed the Council District 14 enterprise – a conspiracy led by former Los Angeles City Councilman José Huizar, who unlawfully used his office to give favorable treatment to real estate developers who financed and facilitated bribes and other illicit benefits.

Huizar pleaded guilty in January to felony charges for using his powerful position at City Hall to enrich himself and his associates, and for cheating on his taxes. He faces years behind bars at a sentencing on April 3.

Chan, a deputy mayor who oversaw economic development for ex-Mayor Eric Garcetti in 2016 and 2017, is charged with allegedly arranging indirect bribe payments to city officials by lining up employment contracts for the officials’ relatives.

In his opening statement, Braun said his client was an innocent public servant who got swept up in the case by overly ambitious federal prosecutors. He promised that Chan would take the stand to refute all allegations.

Chan worked for the city for almost three dozen years, serving at one point as the top executive overseeing the Department of Building and Safety, which reviews building plans and inspects construction projects.

Before Huizar signed his plea deal, he and Chan were scheduled to go on trial together. Two previous trials arising out of the 2020 indictment against Huizar, Chan and various associates have ended in convictions.

In the first Huizar-related trial, a federal jury found Bel-Air real estate developer David Lee and 940 Hill LLC, a Lee-controlled company, guilty of felony charges that included fraud and bribery, for providing $500,000 in cash to Huizar and his special assistant in exchange for their help resolving a labor organization’s appeal of their downtown development project.

In the second trial, real estate development company Shen Zhen New World I LLC was found guilty of paying Huizar $1 million in bribes to obtain city approval to build a 77-story skyscraper.

During the Shen Zhen trial, Huizar’s 83-year-old mother, his older brother and his wife RIchelle Rios testified for the prosecution.

Federal prosecutors have convicted nine defendants and obtained more than $3 million in criminal penalties to resolve the federal probe into two other major real estate development companies, as a result of operation “Casino Loyale,” the investigation into City Hall corruption conducted by the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Huizar’s older brother, Salvador Huizar, 57, of Boyle Heights, pleaded guilty last year to lying to FBI agents about receiving envelopes of cash from his brother. He is set to be sentenced in May.

— Dana Bartholomew