‘Member how she wore a wire due to her sense of patriotism?
If anyone could manage to sign a plea deal that did not require full cooperation in government investigations as a condition for staying out of prison, it would be Melahat Rafiei, who Voice of OC reported yesterday has signed a plea deal admitting a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 666, a federal law against bribery or theft concerning a program receiving federal funds. But I don’t think that Melahat — master of the less-than-half truth and smiling backstabbing double-dealer that she is — will have been able to pull off that feat. VOC quotes her lawyer as saying that the plea deal has no conditions as yet, and that conditions would be added at the time of Mehalat’s as-yet-unscheduled sentencing.
Great! That means that we’re in the middle of bargaining time! Let’s put out our own wish list!
Here’s what I think that the Feds should want from her: Give OC back its hidden history!
I don’t think anyone has been more patched-in behind the scenes than Melahat. Not Scott Baugh, who mostly had to keep various people happy; not Curt Pringle, whose influence was geographically limited; not all of the Democratic Party Chairs she served under (or, perhaps more accurately, over) combined. No one knows more about where the bodies are buried. Give her a maximum sentence, but also immunity for new information leading to convictions in other matters with which she had been involved.
When Melahat was arrested — not booked, as she and her “spokesperson” (and who else without office or industry has a spokeperson?) maintained — she came out willing to deal the moment she was touched. Why? Out of patriotic fervor, she said: because she really did want to make the world a better place! She was lying about that, no doubt, but let’s take her at her word: make her make Orange County (as well as Long Beach) a better place by tearing the lid off of its prior corruption.
What would I like to know about? Here’s a partial list, that will no doubt grow:
What Really Happened in the Santa Ana Pot Shop Lottery?
Before Melahat was an influential confidante of DPOC Chairs Henry Vandermeir, Fran Sdao, and Ada Briceno — with Henry being the only one who may have stood up to her, thinking himself her equal — she was the right-hand-woman of longtime DPOC Chair Frank Barbaro, now deceased. Frank was a shrewd lawyer and an amiably passionate pothead with an eye out for money-making propositions. Frank had long agitated for cannabis legalization — both medical and recreational — which is not a problem. What was a problem was that when Santa Ana had its lottery to grant its first dispensary licenses, Melahat acted on Frank’s behalf — and who knows who else Frank might have been fronting for — and, word was at the time, garnered the lion’s share of the licenses.
Our country is rife with stories of corruption in the allocation of the lucrative right to sell marijuana legally — this was in the news last year when New York granted preference to previous convicted marijuana dealers, overwhelmingly from the Black community, to receive these rights — but few are as bold as what allegedly happened in Santa Ana , which was run at this time as a virtual dictatorship under longtime Mayor Miguel Pulido (left).
I’ve never been able to get information about what happened — other than general agreement, always from people saying that they were speaking secondhand, that it did take place. My guess has been that Pulido would have had what records existed disposed of at the time — but Melahat is still around and would presumably have been in on planning and execution. A lot of injustice — some of it racial — would have attended any fixing of that lottery; Melahat should be impelled to testify as to the truth to the full extent she knows it. (Isn’t this charge about something about municipal cannabis policy? Santa Ana would have been where she got, or worked through, any ideas!) Statutes of limitation may not be expired (or may have been tolled — and it’s a great chance to get the now defanged Pulido on the record.
ANAHEIM – coming!
(Reading the Plea Agreement, it’s like an “OK, you got me, I’m a snitch now! Woo-hoo! Wire me up!”)
IRVINE – coming!
But for a refresher: OCPA-Melahat-Gate: the Treseder Letter and a Probolsky tale.
And for an update: Consultant’s Controversial Plea Deal Spurs Call For Irvine Probe, puts Spotlight on Mayor.
APPENDIX
What Party or Government Contact Helped Melahat Schedule Two DNC Nominating Executive Board Meetings in Her Home Turf?
This is both circumstantial and “inside baseball,” but it’s strong evidence that Melahat’s political clout has gone well beyond Orange County and Long Beach itself. Melahat ran for Democratic National Committee — the national counterpart to the Democratic State Central Committee and the Democratic Party of Orange County — at least twice, on the platform of being the first “red county” DNC member in at least some time. California’s DNC members are nominated at Executive Board Meetings of the DSCC (the gathering of delegates to the State Party.) One problem with these Board meetings (at least outside of Covid) is that voting has had to take place in person — and California is a big state. Northern Californians will be less likely to travel to Southern California meetings and vice-versa — and Central Californians (and those in the far north and east) even more so.
Bear in mind that these are not the big State Conventions that make the news. Each year, DCP holds both the state convention and two or three Executive Committee meetings. Generally, cities and regions compete most over who has gets the State Convention. But Melahat cared when these humbler meetings that nominated DNC members too place — so that she could get disproportionate numbers of her own supporters to show up and support her.
In 2012 or so, I was still on good terms with CDP District Director John Smith and former Democrats of North Orange County leader Monika Broome. Smith held the same elected party position that Florice Hoffman has long held in central Orange County. They had two overriding priorities regarding who to support for party advancement: Melahat and Henry Vandermeir, who they wanted to become party chair. Smith was going to miss the Executive Board meeting and so asked me to be his designated proxy and cast his votes for on his behalf. His instructions were that I had to agree to vote for Melahat and Henry, and then I could vote for whoever else I wanted. (Thus did the record show that crusty labor centrist John Smith voted for Barbara Lee for DNC. Maybe Maxine Waters too. So I know from personal experience who the local party leaders’ priorities were that year.
That meeting took place in Anaheim. Melahat and Henry were the top female and vote-getters outside of the incumbents, who ran as a slate. That marked Melahat, at least, as an up-and-comer who just had to wait for a resignation. (Henry seemed to have less interest once he left the DPOC Chair position.)
Coincidence? One? cycle later, Melahat had set up her “Progressive Solutions” campaign business in Long Beach, which became her main official power center. That year, Melahat won — as did Ada Briceño, whom Melahat was advising. (A third candidate, Deborah Cunningham Skurnick, also ran and lost. Several South County DPOC women were sad about it.)
Of course, Melahat’s drive to “go national” derailed after her “not an arrest!” arrest in Anaheim, in which she immediately and covertly flipped on those around her that might get her leniency. That’s not the point here. The point is not simply that she was smarter than pretty much anyone else in state politics — landing these particular meetings where they could help her (specifically her) most was an “Obama destroying Hillary on Super Tuesday in 2008 because he had read the delegate allocation process rules” level move — but that, despite her being in a red county not well-connected to legislative and electoral power, she was incredibly well-connected to some people who make it rain for he.
I don’t think that she’s the only person who understood the advantage of a home-court advantage when it came to DNC elections, but other than anyone she carried along with her (like Ada), she was the only one who could manage to take advantage of it. Who was she working with — flattering, arm-twisting … or more? — to get onto the DNC, and open up huge new frontiers for her? Maybe this doesn’t belong in a plea deal — but the nature and full extent of her influence within the California Democratic Party remains for some investigator to explore. This just seems like a good place to mention it!
https://cadem.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/DNC1117-1.pdf Melahat newsletter
http://melahatfordnc.com/endorsements/ 2016
Interesting, and informative article. Thank you. Partial side bar, on the corruption issue: A few years back, Ida and I went to hear Voice of OC editor (and former UPI war correspondent) Tracy Wood speak. This was at the CSUF library.
In her opening remarks, she listed what she considered the top 5 most corrupt governments in the world. I forget the order, but the list included North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and–Surprise, Surprise!!– Orange County.
And as a sub-set to the OC designation, she listed some of the same names you mentioned.
Tracy Wood was very good. I used to go to the VOC holiday parties, when they had them, and enjoyed talking to her extensively each time.
I’m not sure that OC really belongs in that rarefied group — I’ve lived in many states and counties in each could claim to be contenders — but what is true is that we have a lot of money and a lot of influence, both of which invite craziness and corruption. If one of those science fiction force fields had gone up in OC in 1962 or so that no matter (except air and water) and energy (except sunlight) could pass through it, I wonder how different the country and the world would be. Not only no Nixon, but no Reagan (due to his financiers coming from here), no Birch Society, not as many media-savvy fleecers of religious followers. The world would miss the good parts of Disney, though, some occasionally good hockey and baseball, and of course the surfing.
[Edited to add: And, of course, the ozone layer would already be gone without the work of the great scientists of UCI. So there’s that.]
Some of those images above I can’t unsee.
What’s the saying:
show me who your friend are and I’ll tell you who you are.
We now know who a lot of folks are and I suspect we are going to learn about more folks in Melahat’s radiant circle in the near future.
Politicos in OC should be playing “who is the mole?” Or “which one is wearing the wire?”
Pretty certain more will be revealed now that Melahat rat has been run up the flagpole.
Really pretty much 90% of the Democrat Party was her friend. She did what she did well and most didn’t know what she was doing behind the scenes.
I knew her since the DFA (Democracy For America) which met every month at the South Coast Plaza Karl Strauss since 2004. I didn’t really get along with her, I think I was more progressive and more of a troublemaker than she liked. And I thought she was bossy and sketchy.
But I’ll always remember two good things about her: Loretta Sanchez hired me to play piano for her wedding and reception on her recommendation; and when I was fighting against toll lanes on the 405 Melahat told me I should research the company Cofiroute and all their contributions and lobbying, and I forgot all about that, and then their name came up in a Voice story recently and I was all damn that’s what Melahat was telling me about.
I apologize for the fact that I’ve spent the last two days unable to work on this story, but I will get back to it today.
One thing to know is that Melahat always, when it was possible, played both sides. I remember at least one occasion, and I think it was two, where she gave me fundraising contacts that I could use for my candidate against the candidate she was supporting/working for. I don’t remember how she justified it — “because the system is unfair” or something else — but it was really a matter of having a toehold with whichever candidate won. (I expect that they were lousy leads, which probably “made it ok.”) This is really sort of a genius move, but it colored my opinion of her permanently.
And I believe that every DPOC Chair and every CDP official she was involved with knew exactly who and what she was — and simply didn’t care. Well, they’re going to (pretend to) care now!
Melahatrat’s political career ended in fraud and no one should be surprised. Some should feel compromised. And others jeopardized. Drain the swamp.
https://www.fppc.ca.gov/content/dam/fppc/documents/enf_letter/08-25-14/ENF100.pdf
Oh, they won’t be pretending if unbeknownst to them, Melahatrat ensnared them in the gubernment’s trap.
But, what about Santos??? Lol!
And these same folks that were shamelessly in bed with a complete fraud want to tell you who to condemn or support and what is right or wrong or good or bad.
Winning elections is not leading and neither is taking advice from campaign advisors especially those who have no regard for the rules and engage in fraud.
Melahatrat and her acolytes like Khan and Kim believe they are exceptional so much so that the rules or mores don’t apply to them and they don’t have to follow them.
You want my lawyerly response to your “shamelessly in best with a complete fraud,” “not leading to take advice from campaign advisors … who have no regard for rules and engage in fraud,” and “believe they are so exceptional that rules or mores don’t apply to them” comment, Counselor?
Unless have reason to believe that you can prove fraud — not so easy — it’s not lawyerly. (Only one instance has been proven of what I suspect are many.) And of course having no regard for “mores” is not a legal matter if they don’t involve not just rules, but legal rules. Donald Trump taught us that — though he was not the first.
Opinions are like a-holes. Everyone has em. They can differ.
If you consider elected officials as fiduciaries, then they should not approach the appearance of impropriety.
Campaign advisors are not elected officials and have no duty to act in anyone’s best interest.
Melahatrat got dinged by FPPC like nine (9) years ago but rather than becoming undesirable in democratic party circles of influence she garnered more traction with local, state and national party leaders.
If every DPOC chair and CDP official knew who and what Melahatrat was, they have earned the tarnish. Voters are not electing campaign advisors.
Winning at all costs including your reputation is not winning.
You obviously have much lower standards than me oh myopic booby one and will associate with anyone you think will benefit you or merely give you the time of day.
The DPOC’s new motto:
WHEN THEY GO LOW, WE FOLLOW THEM TO THE BOTTOM
You idiot. I was Melahat’s main opponent in the party for most of the last decade, and have heard from credible sources that she hates me more than anyone else. She organized at least three of the four efforts to remove me from party positions — something visible in the fact that the people signing complaints about me were largely from Long Beach.
Your third to last paragraph about my having “much lower standards” than you would be defamatory if you had enough relevant knowledge and working brain cells to form a factual attack.
But, yeah: DPOC comes out looking very bad here, going back for a long time. I was fighting it. Where the hell were you, you dope? Worshipping Putin?
Dan is warming up his sputtering engines, determining how he’s going to defend Melahat this time .. and it’s not looking good.
Former HB Councilman Joe Shaw, with his own bad Melahat experiences, weighs in from his new home in Nebraska: “Melahat has never been an honest player,” and then immediately backs that up with sworn allegations from the FBI. Chumley smoothly retorts: “The same could be said of you Joe.” LOL! How can you even respond to that?
Fighting off SEVERAL Irvine citizens who fault Melahat for “subverting their democracy” when she attempted to bribe two councilmembers, Dan’s defense is
1) that the bribe was only attempted, not consummated – no harm no foul!;
2) that the Councilmembers were “co-conspirators” about whom people should also be bitching – forget that they rejected the bribes and went to law enforcement;
3) that these Councilmembers were ALREADY “pro-cannabis” so it wouldn’t make any sense for Melahat to bribe them – ignoring that it’s pretty much an uncontested legal fact now that she DID try to bribe them.
4) And duh. She wasn’t planning to bribe them to switch from being “anti-cannabis” to “pro-cannabis”, she was planning to bribe them to put forward a specific ordinance that would have favored her cannabis client.
5) “What vote was changed?” No vote was changed, jackass, these people rejected Melahat’s bribe.
Can’t wait till Dan tries to weave an essay out of these mental mooncalves.
https://theliberaloc.com/2023/01/19/statement-from-melahat-rafiei-on-plea-agreement/comment-page-1/#comment-283897
Nobody cares what Chemicalewinski babbles about. I keep warning you not to touch the pink toad. Speaking of turd bowls I’m told Jerb’s last post was 5 weeks ago and his commenters are robo-spam from Asia.
And you heard right.
Your point raise the question of whether Chumley is being paid (and if so, how much and by whom) for this characteristically impressive PR job, or whether he has other reasons for going down with the ship — such as a fear that if he doesn’t continue gilding the cow patty Melahat may implicate him with evidence that he has reason to expect exists?
He has been this stupid before — but this is uncommonly florid.
A huge part of that blockhead is the inability to ever admit he was wrong about anything.
Strong take Vern. If Chubby was not compromised before, he certainly is now. Isolated in thought and following. Truly irreverent. Thanks for the color re Joe Shaw.
I’m sure you meant to type “irrelevant.” It’s WE who are irreverent.
Doug Elliott of Irvine Watchdog reports Irvine places Melahatgate on agenda for special meeting tomorrow at 3:00 p.m.
https://irvinewatchdog.org/city-hall/city-council/irvine-city-council-to-discuss-melahat-rafieis-felony-plea-agreement-at-special-meeting-on-tuesday-at-300/
Fox, Lalloway, Wagner.
Duck. Duck. Goose.
There is only one safe chair.
https://voiceofoc.org/2023/01/questions-swirl-over-former-irvine-city-councilmembers-discussing-accepting-bribes-with-cannabis-lobbyist/
Highlight: Larry Agran concedes Irvine is under FBI investigation and encourages council members and staff to fully cooperate with them during tonight’s city council meeting in opposition to Councilmember Treseder’s proposed municipal investigation. Points to failed Irvine investigation of Great Park Board in support of his opposition.
Did Melissa fox term out of Irvine city council ? When did she and melahat have their falling out? It’s looking more like Lalloway and fox were the two council
Members as time goes by.
Yes it’s looking that way. They are both pro cannabis which Wagner is not. It’s confusing whether they were complicit or not.
Lalloway elected official 1, about to leave office, cost 200k (according to Melahat.). Melissa eo 2, slated to introduce ordinance, cost 25k (according to Melahat.)
The Foxes uncharacteristically are not responding to me.
Don’t take it personally: as possible witnesses (or targets, though I doubt that) they may have been asked or advised not to comment.
MelKEST (Melahat Kills Everything She Touches.)
Just got Melissa’s statement… But am away from computer on lunch break at some mock trial thingy I’m getting paid for. Lemme see how much I can do on releasing it from here on my phone…
Well, somebody blew the whistle, and it wasn’t the Melahat creature.
David,
The cannabis entrepreneurs Melahatrat met with were on the G-man team, at least one of the unidentified council members met with Melahatrat and these entrepreneurs.
Tammy Kim and Farrahkhan both went on and on about how they were just one of at least a hundred of Melahtrat’s clients, they both had other consultants besides Melahatrat and neither of them were employing Melahatrat’s services insider or outside the halls of Irvine city council after May 2022.
Do their political filings identify other political consultants?
Do political consultants with Melahatrat acolytes on the payroll count as “political consulatants other than Melahatrat”?
If neither of them were using Melahtrat’s services after May 2022, why did she appear to be a fixture at Irvine City Hall until recently?
Tammy and Farrah ought to lawyer up and keep their mouth shut.
But…But… what about Melahatrat’s other clients?? You know Aitken and Amezcua whom Khan made sure to identify last night as Melahatrat clients by city not name.
If you think you’re so clever, why would you come up with the clunky sobriquet of “Melahatrat” rather than the simple and euphonious “Melarat”?
Or Ratfiei as other Democrat wags had it.
That’s right I think most of her critics have always been other Democrats.
Roger Bloom answered the consultant question.
https://irvinecommunitynewsandviews.org/irvine-rocked-by-news-of-ongoing-fbi-investigation-connected-to-attempted-bribery-of-irvine-city-councilmembers/
And, Tammy threw he hat in the ring mega early Trump ditching indictment style.
https://twitter.com/tammykimOC/status/1621258156746883072