This story broke in the LA Times just minutes ago.
“Los Angeles Unified School Board President Ref Rodriguez was charged on Wednesday with three felony counts of conspiracy, perjury, and procuring and offering a false or forged instrument, among other charges, the result of a months-long investigation by local authorities into donations to his successful first-time run for office in 2015.
“The charges against Rodriguez, 46, who represents District 5, which stretches from Los Feliz to South Gate, were detailed in a news release from Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.
“Prosecutors accuse Rodriguez of giving more than $24,000 to his own campaign, while illegally representing that the donations had been made by more than two dozen other contributors.
“The allegations come at a high point in Rodriguez’s political career. Elected board president in July, he currently presides over the first L.A. Unified school board majority dominated by members who were, like him, elected with major financial support from charter school advocates.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Pull the thread of the money.
Follow it. This is quite a story that will get deeper because of how the back room conversations and machinations of how “regular” contributions and the Dark Money find its way into the coffers of the Corporate Reform Candidates.
There are people in the know of how this sort of money works that grease the entire operation from high above that filters down to the level of a measly school board candidate. These interests have huge stakes in the outcome far beyond the rhetoric that is mouthed by the candidate to the voters.
The candidates say its about “education”.
The Power Brokers know it’s really about power, influence and money.
This is just the opening sentence to a much longer novel.
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Campaign finance violations in Mass. unmasked “Families for Excellent Schools.” Now this.
The part I don’t understand is why it is unethical to spend your own money on your campaign.
If only the Ethics board would go after the Big Fish.
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“The part I don’t understand is why it is unethical to spend your own money on your campaign.”
An intriguing question, Diane. And, while I find questions more important than answers, I suspect the answer (the real one anyway), lies in the direction of “because then you’re not beholden to the right people”.
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It’s unethical to misrepresent where the money came from because your ability to attract campaign contributions may influence whether or not big money supports the candidacy.
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First of all, hooray! Now, if what Rodriguez was doing was ethical, why did he go to such lengths to hide where the money was coming from? There were a lot of second and third parties involved in this act of defrauding the voter. The Board should have censured him months ago. And, I cannot believe I am writing this after election saturation earlier this year, but I can’t wait for another special election! Woohoo! More California charter scam chickens come home to roost.
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I take back the part about censuring him months ago as I just read in the NPR report they didn’t know about the criminal charges until yesterday.
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And, dear Lefite,everyone here with the exception of those of us in LA, seem to either forget or do not understand that multi millions of dollars were poured into Rodriguez’s election a couple of years ago, as they were in this last LAUSD BoE election ($17M all told for a lousy school board election). Why? Only about 15 years ago, a candidate could run for BoE on about $15K. What changed this game?
The dazzling FREE MARKET of public education, folks !!! Just ask Rupert Murdoch, Tillson, Broad, on and on, the toadies of Wall Street.
The billionaires from out of state, like Bloomberg and the Waltons fed the coffers in LA once again to elect charterizers whom they could manage, Monica Garcia, Medvoin, and Gonez, to join Rodriguez who they pushed into power two elections past. As Geronimo says, follow the money.
This “mere” $24K that is NOT RR’s own money, Diane and Dienne, but rather ill gotten gains borrowed from relatives and friends which he then paid them back with DONOR money, and this is only the tip of this illegal ice berg. He bought his win with lies and manipulation…and cheating…breaking the law.
Monica Garcia, who is the most egregious liar and devious cheat who has been on the BoE for way too many years, would have probably lost if only Lisa Alva had run against her…but the illogical rationale that two candidates running against her would split her vote, gave her the seat yet again, and she continues to follow her boss, Eli, and smear real teachers in real public schools. Also, the WLA billionaires who want this investment opportunity saw to it that she had plenty of cash to spread around in her district. And UTLA did not give her opponents a penny. A very stupid decision. Now that there are only 3 left to fight these 4 privatizers, Schmerelson, Vladovic, and McKenna, LAUSD is doomed.
I was approached yesterday to speak at a public conference on Sept. 30 on this horrendous issue of what happens if LAUSD goes bankrupt? Some of us have seen this coming for at least the last 5 years. Broad and his buddies stand to make another fortune buying up all the LAUSD assets for pennies on the dollar. As I keep saying, read The Shock Doctrine.
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An earthquake or financial bubble would be the end of us.
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Not at all surprised at this turn of events. Refugio Rodriguez ran one of the dirtiest campaigns in LA history, and his TV spots denigrated in the most disgusting fashion, the incumbent, Bennett Kayser.
Rodriguez and his supporters implied that longtime teacher,Kayser, was a racist, and that he was too ill to even hold a cup of coffee without spilling it. I wrote about this at great length on this site at the time of the election. Unfortunately, Zimmer did not speak out until it was too late.
Also, Rodriguez, whose 16 PUC Charter schools were/are under investigation by the District and by the State for financial irregularities and non payment of bills, was helped to win the fraudulent election by the ILLEGAL “Voteria” process…which I wrote about at length, and is also in the archives here. A long article in LA Progressive archives also pillories Rodriguez for his past.
This man does not belong in any elected office. Hope he goes to jail, and that his supporters, Eli Broad and Anthony Villaraigosa, are also investigated for their parts in this scheme. The LA Times keeps publishing nonsense about former Mayor Villaraigosa and talking him up in his race to be California’s next Governor…and that is also shameful. He is in Broad’s pocket and always has been, and he and Deasy, the Charter twins (along with the infamous Ben Austin), did much damage to LAUSD public schools.
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Ellen,
I miss you. And, agree, agree, agree! (as usual)
Love,
LCT
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Methinks Mr. Rodriguez fell afoul of the wrong individuals and had to have an unfortunate accident. I mean, not that I’m not happy to see corruption rooted out wherever it appears, but $24,000 seems like such a paltry sum. And if this was his first successful run for office, I’m guessing he didn’t deliver for whoever brung him to the dance and he won’t be invited to any more dances.
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http://4lakidsnews.blogspot.com/2015/05/lausd-charter-group-gave-food-contract.html
Ref was in trouble for conflicts of interest relating to an employee and food services. LAUSD was supposed to do a investigation. We never heard the result. Now is the time to demand a response.
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Good point. Thank you.
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Not an employee, but a member of his PUC board got him to use her own catering service to feed the students at all his schools…a big conflict of interest from he too profited. The guy is notorious for these kinds of shenanigans. Jerry Brown however appointed him to a state ed committee some years back, when this stuff was going on. doesn’t speak well of Jerry.
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typo…from WHICH he too seems to have profited
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Oh, and in L.A., this happened too:
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-edu-rafe-esquith-settlement-20170912-story.html
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It doesn’t sound like he got much for what he was put through.
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Now this is big news…although Rafe did not get a huge amount money to settle this case, he is vindicated. Now what happens to the great number of teachers who were joined in the class action?
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They get dropped like lausd dropped them. I say, no justice, no peace, ever!
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Paula…glad to hear from you. Hope you are ok. Great LAUSD teachers have suffered, and continue to suffer. Thanks for hanging in.
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A related question for LA/Southland readers/commentators, has there been any recent news about the Deasy investigation?
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Deasy who? New board.
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Yes, I know, but wasn’t there a criminal investigation into the I-Pad scandal that he was behind?
Every time one of these fraudsters is indicted, it undermines the so-called reform narrative.
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when they take control, the scandals miraculously disappear
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When the FBI exonerated the Board, Deasy was left out. To this day, they never said he was innocent. Like Diane said, he, his crimes, and all the boxes of evidence miraculously disappeared.
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No surprise there, though one can always hope. Thanks for the update.
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