Conflict Of Interest

A former Cruttenden & Co. stockbroker pleaded guilty Wednesday to receiving gifts, including a $50,000 Jaguar luxury car, from Spectrum Information Technologies in return for helping the wireless data company manipulate its stock price. Federal prosecutors said Reagan Richmond, 34, of Tustin, conspired to manipulate Spectrum stock between 1992 and 1994 while working as a broker at Irvine-based Cruttenden, now known as Cruttenden Roth, and at Regency Capital Group Inc. in Glendale.

A company headed by cellphone pioneer Craig O. McCaw asked the California Supreme Court to reinstate a $603-million fraud and breach-of-contract verdict against Boeing Co., alleging that two appellate justices had conflicts of interest. ICO Global Communications, a subsidiary of Pendrell Corp., said in its appeal filed Wednesday that two state 2nd District Court of Appeal judges considered Boeing's petition to toss out the trial court verdict even though they owned stock in Boeing.

James D. Gunderson, the target of a State Bar investigation for allegedly making himself the beneficiary of millions of dollars in bequests from the estates of his elderly Leisure World clients, has surrendered his license to practice law, authorities said Monday. State Bar prosecutors said Gunderson agreed to resign after they told him that they were prepared to file conflict-of-interest charges against him that could have led to his disbarment.

Citing a state investigation of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum's top executive, City Councilman and stadium Commissioner Bernard C. Parks demanded Friday that a Monday vote on surrendering stewardship of the venue to USC be canceled. Parks also asked the Los Angeles County district attorney's office to investigate Coliseum Interim General Manager John Sandbrook, who recently became the subject of an inquiry by state ethics officials. They are looking into allegations that the executive illegally sought a job with USC while he was representing the public interest in lease negotiations with the private university.

CONTENTS: PREFACE: A Business Deal Done--A Controversy Born CHAPTER 1: The Deal CHAPTER 2: The Debate CHAPTER 3: The Meeting CHAPTER 4: The Decision CHAPTER 5: The Hard Sell CHAPTER 6: The Prelude CHAPTER 7: The Visitor CHAPTER 8: The Press CHAPTER 9: The Wall CHAPTER 10: Otis CHAPTER 11: The Aftermath Journalism Is A Very Different Business--Here's Why [see sidebar] Another Staples-Like Proposal Was Made to Times [see sidebar] * PREFACE / A Business Deal Done -- A Controversy Born The newsroom

Three senior researchers at the center of a controversy at the National Institutes of Health over moonlighting for the pharmaceutical industry are leaving the government, officials said. The departures come at a time when the NIH is implementing tougher conflict-of-interest rules that prohibit all agency employees from accepting consulting fees, stock options or any compensation from the industry. The three departing researchers are: Dr. H. Bryan Brewer Jr.

Hugh Caperton, owner of a small coal mine from Slab Fork, W.Va., was driven into bankruptcy after he ran up against the huge A.T. Massey Coal Co., but got a measure of revenge when a jury awarded him $50 million in damages. But when Massey appealed to the West Virginia Supreme Court, Caperton thought it might mean trouble. Massey Chief Executive Don Blankenship had spent $3 million of his own money to help elect a new justice. "The deck was stacked against us," Caperton said.

Key recommendations of the high-level committee appointed by Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Arthur Levitt Jr. to change the way securities brokers are compensated: * Eliminate higher commissions for in-house "proprietary" products. These include a brokerage firm's own family of mutual funds. At some firms, brokers get bigger commissions for selling shares in these funds, even though the funds' performance may be lackluster.

In a letter that harks to an earlier conflict-of-interest case involving Los Angeles' wealthy mayor, the Los Angeles city attorney's office said Mayor Richard Riordan is disqualified from acting on several matters that involve a firm that is a tenant in a downtown office building of which Riordan is part owner. The opinion, issued at the mayor's request and dated Wednesday, advises Riordan that he may not act on any of the steps taken by the City Council on Oct.

A former Redondo Beach official and an ex-computer maintenance contractor have been charged with nine felony counts centering on theft and conflict-of-interest allegations, according to court records made public Wednesday. Rick Garcia, 35, the city's former director of information services, appeared Wednesday in Los Angeles Municipal Court and was released on his own recognizance. Arraignment was set for Monday.

SANFORD, Fla. — As George Zimmerman's attorney filed a motion for the judge in the Trayvon Martin murder case to step aside, several media outlets sought Monday to unseal court documents. Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer, is charged with second-degree murder in the shooting death of the unarmed African American teenager on Feb. 26 in Sanford. The case has sparked national demonstrations and raised questions about race and gun control. Zimmerman, who is white and Latino, says he acted in self-defense.

The Los Angeles Community College District Board of Trustees announced Wednesday that it has reached a settlement with a Pasadena firm, Gateway Science & Engineering, over alleged billing improprieties. The company will continue to supervise the $450-million building program at Los Angeles Mission College. The district had alleged that Gateway approved payments to the construction company FTR International for work it had not performed at a 90,000-square-foot fitness center on the campus The project was plagued by delays and allegations of faulty workmanship, which were detailed in a Times series last year on the community college district's $6-billion campus reconstruction program.

A congressional committee has launched a wide-ranging examination of the California high-speed rail project, including possible conflicts of interest and how the agency overseeing it plans to spend billions of dollars in federal assistance. The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), notified the California High-Speed Authority about the review Monday and ordered the agency to preserve its documents and records of past communications.

Local elected officials can vote to appoint themselves to paid positions on government boards, the state ethics watchdog panel decided Thursday, changing a rule that addresses conflict-of-interest accusations against dozens of city council members in Orange County. The state Fair Political Practices Commission voted 3 to 2 to exempt local elected officials from conflict rules that prevented them from voting on their own paid appointments and instead required that information about the boards be posted on the Internet, including the amount members are paid.

A 2010 outing to a Washington state horse ranch owned by former Bell City Administrator Robert Rizzo is being investigated by a state agency that suspects the onetime city leader and a pair of council members may have broken conflict-of-interest and gift-giving laws. The allegations against Rizzo and the two part-time city politicians stem from May 2010 airline flights to Washington state, where Rizzo owns a horse farm. Rizzo paid $1,299 to buy tickets for then-Mayor Oscar Hernandez, his live-in girlfriend and her three children.

Panning for gold in the local cesspool is always lucrative, but it's been one fat nugget after another lately. We've got Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa marketing himself for his next job before he finishes this one; City Atty. Carmen Trutanich insisting he's not the liar he appears to be; auto painters at the DWP making $109,192 a year while the agency guns for a rate hike; and Los Angeles County Assessor John Noguez under investigation for an alleged scandal involving tax breaks for clients represented by his friend.

A new appeal in a conflict-of-interest controversy involving the Food and Drug Administration's handling of the deadly heparin contamination crisis of 2008 has shed more light on the convoluted and costly maneuvering that can break out when billions of dollars in profits are at stake. The latest round began last week when Amphastar Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Rancho Cucamonga said it would appeal the FDA's rejection of a complaint. The privately held drug maker alleged that Janet Woodcock, director of FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, had a conflict of interest.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina expressed concerns Tuesday that campaign contributions to sheriff's brass by department employees created potential conflicts of interest in personnel decisions. The board approved a motion by Molina to ask the county's attorneys to gauge the legality of banning county managers from soliciting such donations within their departments, though employees would still be able to contribute on their own. Sheriff Lee Baca and Undersheriff Paul Tanaka, who is also mayor of Gardena, have over the years accepted thousands of dollars in contributions from department employees.

The secret to Silicon Valley's success, we've been told, is its ecosystem: Where else in the world can you find such a large, symbiotic collection of expert visionaries, engineers, marketers, financiers? How about influence peddlers? Technology news bloggers' curious habit of accepting investments from the very people they're presumed to be covering objectively blew up last week over what might be termed the Path Affair. Path, a San Francisco social networking company, got caught downloading users' address books from their iPhones without their permission.