Fact Checking the Rafiei Case

 

Now that former Democratic consultant Melahat Rafiei has entered into a plea agreement on a single count of attempted wire fraud, there’s a lot of piling on of falsehoods I have to weigh in on.  And this post isn’t going to win me many friends and please do disagree.  But back up your disagreement with actual evidence.

These claims are things I have seen on social media feeds – Twitter, Facebook, Blogs and Blog comments.  Bring your receipts please if you’re contesting.

Let’s begin:

Rafiei was instrumental into selecting Brian Probolsky at Orange County Power Authority Chair and was a consultant to the OCPA.

The city of Irvine engaged with a recruiter who submitted Probolsky’s name as the only candidate; former OCPA chair and Irvine council member Mike Carroll vouched for Probolsky and got his colleagues on the board to go along with it.  Rafiei never had OCPA as a client, she never billed them for work, and was never paid by OCPA.  Now that Irvine Vice Mayor Tammy Kim and new council member Dr. Kathleen Treseder are on the OCPA Board, they can certainly ask for an invoice – if one exists – or evidence of a payment.

The city also used a recruiter to attract current City Manager Oliver Chi to Irvine.  Rafiei has no connection to that recruiter. None.  The same placement agency that got Chi his gig in Huntington Beach placed him in Irvine.

Rafiei’s influence helped Farrah Khan vote to make Mike Carroll the appointed council replacement for Don Wagner; there’s a photo of them meeting, after all.

A special election would have cost Irvine taxpayers more than $1 million and the Republicans wanted the next highest vote getter in the 2018 election to get that nod. That was Carrie O’Malley, and not Lauren Johnson-Norris, who finished fourth. Carroll, at the time, was NPP, and represented a neutral choice.  The meeting, photographed by Johnson-Norris, was a coincidence.  Khan was meeting with Rafiei and Carroll was meeting his friend consultant Patrick Strader.  The meeting was in public and out in the open. Khan and Carroll were scheduled to meet about the appointment anyway; the coincidence made that task easier. It is Carroll, who re-registered as a Republican, who was most deceitful. And the one member of the Irvine City Council you can blame for the dumpster fire that is OCPA.  The City of Anaheim just appointed a replacement for Avelino Valencia, Norma Campos Kurtz, without drama cancelling the need for an expensive special election. She was appointed without a single “no” vote saving Anaheim a ton of cash by not holding a special election.

There’s an email from Mayor Farrah Khan’s city email address to Melahat and Julio Perez which means they were both working on Farrah’s campaign after June 1.

Yes. there is an email from Khan to Rafiei and errantly sent to Julio Perez. It’s a forwarded email about an Irvine Mayoral survey. Khan sent it to Rafiei asking if she knew about it and Rafiei replied “no.”  The message was mistakenly sent to Julio Perez, the disgraced former head of the OC Labor Federation whom we’ve written about before. Khan hit “J” on her email keyboard and Outlook fired up Julio Perez instead of Rafiei’s colleague Jennifer LAST NAME REDACTED.  I make this mistake about once a month and it is embarrassing. But it is not a smoking gun on an ongoing consultancy relationship between Khan, Rafiei or Khan and Julio Perez.  It’s a question and an answer.  Julio Perez’s sister is a campaign consultant; he is not part of her team because if he was working for his sister’s firm, it would kill her business. But go ahead and look at Farrah Khan’s form 460s for any payment to Rafiei’s firm after the final invoice was mailed to her clients in June 2022. All Khan did was ask a friend a question who might know the answer.

Vice Mayor Tammy Kim says Rafiei was one of her many consultants and she terminated her relationship with Rafiei once the FBI investigation was announced.

Kim is right that she has multiple consultants.  But almost all of the consultants she used were assembled through Rafiei’s firm and contacts.  Some were subcontractors to Kim’s 2020 council campaign.  Initially, Kim stood by Rafiei only to flip hours later to prove she has no spine.  Kim’s form 460 has payments to two consultants: Rafiei’s firm and former council member Beth Krom.  Rafiei actually dropped Kim before May 2022 as Rafiei’s staff hated working with Kim who garnered a reputation of not putting in the work the campaign required of her (I have spoken with several of them who can’t hear the name “Tammy Kim” without rolling their eyes).  And Kim fails to mention that all of the examples she provided of Rafiei helping Khan in meetings, Rafiei also helped Kim in the same manner…writing talking points, providing strategic counsel, attending meetings. Rafiei even drafted the job description for Kim’s Chief of Staff position.

Dr. Treseder’s “interview” with the FBI over an “investigation” into corruption in Irvine has nothing to do with what happened in 2018 or 2019.

Dr. Kathleen Treseder, Irvine’s newest council member, actively pursued Rafiei’s campaign consulting services from April 2021 through June 2021.  She expressed excitement at Rafiei’s team running her campaign, enthusiastically told Rafiei that she had voted for Rafiei in the CADEM elections, and reported to Rafiei about ongoing fundraising and endorsements.  The deal didn’t go through because Treseder expressed concerns about “corruption” in OCPA and would not follow the consulting team’s advice on other issues.  Rafiei withdrew the contract.

Those listening to Treseder’s commentary on the special City Council meeting to discuss the Rafiei plea deal, it’s obvious Treseder’s FBI interview from 2022 had nothing to do with the current Irvine City Council bribery case. And Treseder herself seems to be framing any “current investigation” as an issue of a lack of FBI resources. “They don’t have unlimited agents,” she said. That’s wrong. They do have unlimited resources to pursue corruption. What they don’t have is a federal crime that Treseder used to claim of being a witness to a investigation during her candidacy.  Can someone please tell me what federal crime occurred in Irvine in 2021 that warrants an FBI investigation?  I have asked repeatedly and no one can say for sure.  For a person who frequently stresses she makes decisions based on facts, Dr. Treseder spends considerable time in the Rumor Mill.

On to Melissa Fox’s Statement: “In 2018, Rafiei was employed by Patrick Strader and the developer FivePoint as a political consultant for the purpose of gaining Democratic approval for the “Strawberry Fields” option for an OC Veterans Cemetery, which I supported as a member of the Irvine City Council.”

I’m no fan of FivePoint or Patrick Strader and that is well-documented. In 2018, Strader threatened to sue me for publishing a voice mail he left for then Council member Lynn Schott about their working relationship that the city gave me as a public record. Fox was my business lawyer then and I called her about it. What I didn’t realize was this was shortly after she received a $10,000 contribution from a PAC that was managed by Rafiei that had received a $12,000 infusion of cash from Strader that was given to Fox’s campaign for the DPOC Central Committee which has no restrictions on the amount of donations one can receive. It led to me seeking new legal counsel for my business. Now all of this was and still is legal.  I tried to pass a resolution and rule change that would prevent this but was thwarted by a Resolutions chair who was Fox’s consultant and a Bylaws chair who was a Fox ally.  Shirley Grindle noted at the time Fox was the first Democrat to raise funds in this manner joining OCDA (then Supervisor) Todd Spitzer and Supervisor Andrew Do.

Strader had contributed to this PAC back when Frank Barbaro managed it to support other Irvine city council and mayoral candidates.  Contributors to said PAC cannot direct nor “earmark” contributions to a general-purpose PAC, but I’m told Fox had solicited the PAC from Rafiei to support her efforts through Fox’s Central Committee Account.

Back to the Fox statement:

While Rafiei and I have been superficially friendly over the years, I believed she was often working surreptitiously against my political goals and beliefs, especially following her involvement in the political career of Farrah Khan. At no time during my career have I or any of my campaigns employed Rafiei or any of her companies, nor has she employed me for my legal services.

These two were so superficially friendly that the pair used to hit a spa together and have seen each other naked in the locker room (I was told this part years ago).  And that’s exactly the sort of thing all superficial friends do.  So superficially friendly were they that $10,000 made its way into Fox’s campaign coffers for an office no one in the Democratic party raises money for (other than Andrew Do and Todd Spitzer), because superficial friends are always good for a $10,000 political contribution especially when they are working against your political goals and beliefs.

Not said in the statement – how much Melissa and Michael Fox loathe Farrah Khan – one of Rafiei’s clients and a close friend.  Michael Fox tweeted on January 19, 2023 that Khan should resign without saying why.  There’s a perception that Melissa Fox never writes her blog posts, press releases, social media posts or statements like the one she offered the press; that her husband Michael writes them.  I will leave that for readers to decide.

More on Fox’s statement: At no time during my career have I or any of my campaigns employed Rafiei or any of her companies, nor has she employed me for my legal services.

One the first part, that’s correct. Rafiei has never represented Fox even though the PAC Strader contributed to was administered by Rafiei which added $10,000 to a DPOC Central Committee campaign account benefiting Fox (and again, Strader cannot direct how funds are spent and cannot earmark where they go, but most of that contribution went to Fox’s DPOC campaign).  And yet, Fox writes:

Several weeks before and independent of that meeting, Rafiei had asked me to perform legal work for her consulting firm. I informed her that under a city ordinance I was not legally permitted to represent any client before a governmental body anywhere in Orange County. Rafiei agreed that I would do no work impacting Irvine, and I quoted her my regular hourly fee and my regular retainer, and thereafter sent her a proposed retainer agreement. I never heard back from her regarding this proposed retainer agreement (which I kept on file and later provided to the FBI.)  So there was an intent to work together?

I write proposals on a regular basis for clients; each one is customized to the client based on their budget, goals, and at their invitation.  Quoting an hourly rate or guidance on a monthly retainer does not require it to be in writing. So, with the caveats in place to spell out what Fox could and couldn’t do, why send a retainer agreement?

Rafiei’s charges were dismissed with prejudice in 2019. She is criticized for pursuing positions within the State and National party between then and May 2022.  But Fox was aware of a possible bribery charge then as well and still ran for State Assembly.  Why isn’t her candidacy being held to that same standard?  Perhaps Eugene Fields would have performed better as the Assembly candidate in 2020?

And lastly, On Thursday January 19, 2023, I was happy to read the FBI’s announcement that Rafiei had agreed to plead guilty to a felony charge for attempting to defraud one of her political constituency firm’s clients and admitted in court documents that she tried to bribe two Irvine council members on cannabis-related matters. Later that evening I received a telephone call from the lead FBI agent in the case, thanking me for helping bring Rafiei to justice.

I reached out to the FBI’s office to confirm this telephone call, which, if made likely came from FBI agent Joe Nieblas.  The FBI has refused to confirm if the call happened.  My friends in law enforcement tell me making a “thank you” call to a witness is considered bad form so excuse me for not believing Fox’s statement here on the basis of holes in her statement described above.