Taxable Talk

John Noguez, Los Angeles County Assessor, Ramin Salari, a property tax consultant, and Mark McNeil, an aide to Mr. Noguez, were all arrested on charges of conspiracy and misappropriation of public funds. The allegation is that Mr. Salari paid (bribed) Mr. Noguez to reduce assessments on properties owned by his clients. Mr. McNeil is the chief appraiser in the office according to this AP story.

The Los Angeles Times reports that,

The scandal came to light earlier this year when prosecutors acknowledged that they were looking into complaints from assessor’s office employees who said they were under pressure to lower property taxes for clients of prominent Noguez contributors, including Salari.

This isn’t the first inkling of trouble in the assessor’s office. Back in May, Scott Schenter, a former appraiser, was arrested and charged with more than 60 felonies. Mr. Schenter alleges that Mr. Noguez asked him to assist contributors to his campaign (including Mr. Salari).

Needless to say, it’s a mess. All four of the accused individuals are looking at lengthy terms in state prison if found guilty of the charges.

Tags: Los.Angeles

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 18th, 2012 at 7:04 pm and is filed under California. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.