Misrepresentation

Los Angeles City Council members, fresh from a campaign in which they were accused of dirty tricks and now fighting off a hotel-backed initiative to overturn an extension of the city's "living wage" law, accused petition circulators Friday of trying to deceive voters into overturning it. Later, the head of that effort acknowledged that two signature gatherers were indeed found to have been misrepresenting the city law and said both had been fired.

An Orange County businessman and political ally of Sheriff Michael S. Carona allegedly misrepresented himself as a deputy sheriff to an airline employee during a dispute that began after he returned from a hunting trip and found his baggage -- including his guns and game meat -- were missing.

A drug industry-supported campaign, which has been criticized for giving money to people who endorsed its ballot measure, is now under fire for misrepresenting the positions of black politicians. A mailer paid for by the campaign and headlined "The Black Woman's Guide to California Politics" urges voters to support Proposition 78. The measure would allow drug companies to voluntarily cap prices and avert mandatory caps.

Like millions of America's self-employed workers, Doug Christensen found himself on his own when it came to health insurance. Christensen, who lost his corporate benefits when he started his own business making boat parts, thought his search was over when a representative of the nonprofit National Assn. for the Self-Employed offered a policy to cover him and his wife, Dana, a court reporter. The association referred them to Mega Life & Health Insurance Co.

Launching a sting operation against the growing crime of immigration fraud, City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo announced Tuesday that he has filed criminal cases against 18 immigration consultants for crimes including misrepresenting themselves as attorneys. During its initial five-month investigation the immigration fraud strike force targeted consultants in Pico-Union who specialize in assisting people from Spanish-speaking countries, including Mexico and El Salvador.

State Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer filed lawsuits Wednesday against three Los Angeles area immigration consultant companies for allegedly falsely portraying themselves as lawyers, false advertising and taking advantage of immigrant clients. Although these are not criminal charges, which are typically filed by county prosecutors, a Lockyer aide said the fines in the Los Angeles Superior Court cases could total as much as $1 million because of multiple counts, each carrying penalties of $2,500.

The article about my Atlantic Monthly essay "A Reader's Manifesto" ("For Prose Warrior, Lit'rature Is the Enemy," July 16) describes me as rising to the challenge of a "rather testy" Rene Montaigne. Ms. Montaigne had me babbling like a ninny in response to several other questions, but she and NPR were kind enough to leave only my more articulate responses in the edited version of the interview. Neither of us saw the discussion as a debate, but if it was one, Ms. Montaigne won it hands down.

Accounting giant Arthur Andersen agreed to pay $7 million to settle charges it filed false and misleading audit reports of Waste Management Inc. in which the No. 1 U.S. trash-hauler overstated income by more than $1 billion, federal regulators said Tuesday. The fine was the largest-ever civil penalty against a Big 5 accounting firm, said the Securities and Exchange Commission in announcing the settlement against Arthur Andersen and four of its current or former partners.

A week after a high-profile study cast a negative light on child care, researchers--including the study's lead statistician--are sharply questioning whether their controversial work has been misrepresented. As reported last week, the study showed that the more time preschoolers spend in child care, the more likely their teachers were to report behavior problems such as aggression and defiance in kindergarten.

Officials with the Long Beach Area Convention and Visitors Bureau acknowledged Friday that sales staff falsified records of hotel bookings and, as a result, received $20,000 in unmerited bonuses. At a news conference at the bureau's headquarters, Chairman Chris Pook said the executives accused of encouraging staff to add as many as 47,000 questionable bookings to last year's total have been ordered to repay the $20,000.