Grand jury indicts a top LAUSD official

A grand jury has indicted a top Los Angeles Unified School District manager for allegedly funneling business from the district’s massive school-building effort to a company he co-owned, highlighting flaws in the way one of the nation’s largest public-works projects has been overseen.

The indictment charges Bassam Raslan with nine counts, accusing him of conflict of interest, but it also takes the school district to task for failing to prevent the alleged crime even though it knew of Raslan's interest in the company.

“LAUSD knew of this but did not direct Mr. Raslan’s supervisors to take action or implement specific policies to prevent” the conflict, the grand jury said.

The panel said that “LAUSD senior management did not implement any effective means of preventing conflict of interest other than relying on those committing the crime to self report.”

The indictment comes three years after a Times investigation raised questions about the ability of Raslan's company to win lucrative school district contracts while he was a high-level manager overseeing the construction program.

Details about the contracts -- including how much money was involved -- remained under seal on Thursday, and prosecutors said they could not provide more information about them because state law prevented them from discussing secret grand jury testimony.

Raslan’s attorney, Daniel V. Nixon, said his client was a vital member of the district’s construction team and that his supervisors were well aware of his ties to the consulting company TBI Associates. He said the law only applies to conflicts of interest involving employees or officers with a public agency -- not contractors -- and said Raslan would vigorously fight the charges.

“He is outraged at the fact that criminal charges have been brought against him,” Nixon said. “Mr. Raslan’s conduct at all times was in accord with district policy, was open and fully understood by people at the district.”

-- Andrew Blankstein and Jack Leonard

Photo: Students head to class at Felicitas and Gonzalo Mendez Learning Center in Boyle Heights on Nov. 5. The new high school was built to relieve Roosevelt High School in Boyle Heights of overcrowding. Some Mendez students are not fazed by the shift. They see the move as an opportunity to carve a new identity on the Eastside. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

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Comments

[ED]

It takes sitting in on only one LAUSD school board meeting to realize that this is not an isolated practice - attend two school board meetings, and it is clear the same faces (same players) are pocketing huge sums of education dollars.

[Robert NO longer in LA]

Incestuous Party, those Dems; how are they ANY different from Repub scoundrels and profiteers??????

[David]

It sounds like he's using the typical defense that public officials fall back on time and time again. Even though his behavior was wrong, there weren't any laws dealing with the "specifics" involved in the particular case so "technically" there wasn't any "wrong doing". People wonder why the government is so bloated and inefficient. Cases like this highlight why. There has to be a law that covers every specific case, and then checks and balances and audits to make sure that the laws are followed. Then procedures need to be developed to reflect the law, and old procedures need to be updated, etc.

If honesty and integrity weren't in such short supply then our government would be much more efficient.

[Andy Levinson]

He will probably end up suing the district....and win

[Bart A]

Unbelieveable...well, maybe not...I've come to the conclusion that the LAUSD is dysfunctional and corrupt to the point that I think the federal government needs to step in and take over. This must stop....the Obama administration should step in and throw these scum bags out. Nothing will change until that happens.

[Break up LAUSD]

Just another reason this behemouth, dysfunctional district should be broken up into smaller more manageable and responsive districts....

[Res Ipsa Loquitur]

One LAUSD bureaucrat down, hundreds to go.

[Eric Womack]

With all of the talk of eliminating ineffective teachers I hope the upper management responsible for this will be equally scrutinized and "eliminated".

[public employee]

this is ridiculous, first its the superintendent of schools Ramon Cortines and now this guy? if it was a lower paid employee we would have been fired long ago.

[School employee]

If corrupt people lead the education department or universities, the end result will be a generation of incompetent students. This person should be immeadiately arrested and all his assets frozen. The people who supervise his work in LAUSD might have also got a share and so he should be also arrested. Let them spend 10 years in LA jails. They will die in shame.

[bill]

The defense lr says it was perfectly in accord with LAUSD policy for an LAUSD official to refer work to a business he owns. If true, that ought to be a crime in itself. What is it about conflicts of interest the LAUSD cannot understand?

[Alan]

This is the same LAUSD that wants more money from the taxpayers come Novemeber.

[Steve]

This is what people mad at lausd should be mad about. This is only a drop in the bucket. And why did lausd not do anything, someone was getting a cut of the money. This has been going on for decades. The lausd system is corrupt and has had an appalling affect over the teachers who work for this district. Please remember, the teachers are not part of this the people downtown are. They continue and rarely get in trouble. Remember Belmont, the future showcase of lausd. Well it was well known that the land there was contaminated. Did it stop them from buying it for millions of our tax money. There is also the building that the district is using as their headquarters. It was a white elephant for years, then the district buys knowing it had a lot of problems. After they bought it, they had to spend 90+ million retro-fitting it. People are getting rich working for the district and it isn't us teachers.

[Grant Beachley]

Tip of the iceberg!!!!! It wouldn't surprise me if 50% to 60% of the "managers" in LAUSD are profiting form their position with these conflicts of interest. The Superintendent got caught doing it and he wasn't arrested though. Hmmmmmmm

[Joel Rivas]

This is no surprise to many school district employees. I have been working for L.A.U.S.D. for over 20 years. When I was a teacher assistant, I was in charge of ordering school supplies. When I informed the vice-principal that you could get things cheaper at Sav-on,as opposed to the school district warehouses, his reply was "Don't worry about it, it's not our money." That is the way most people seem to handle tax dollars. L.A.U.S.D. blatantly mismanages tax dollars.

[Eve]

Thief...LAUSD's top heavy bureaucracy must be weakened. Why does each high school need 1 principal and 4 assistant principals when 1 principal & 1 AP was the norm when I was at school? Squeeze more out of the administrators like they're doing with teachers. These administrators make $100,000+ easy minimum. That would pay for 2 teacher's salaries. They have cushy jobs with absolutely no accountability. I don't get why people at district headquarters make so much. Taxpayers should be outraged!

[roy rogers]

corrupt official???

anybody surpried??/

[Richard]

And this is supposed to surprise people? If the people of this city knew what corruption exists at LAUSD, the whole lot of them would be indicted. So much waste, so much pocket lining and all they want to do is get rid of teachers and cut their salaries. (Smaller salaries and spending cuts for children mean more in their corrupt pockets.) Cut spending on children's education seems to be the norm for the LAUSD. I am so happy to not be working for them anymore. I am so much more happy teaching where I am appreciated. I hope the people in LA rise up and recall the lot of them (corrupt board members and that stupid superintendent).

[What a shame]

And we wonder why the lausd is in such a mess. The times discovered what the people who make hundreds of thousands a year in downtown couldn't figure out for themselves. Thats not including the assistants who also make around $150,00 year. I guess its the same master minds that allowed Cortines to get hired even thou he was making $250,000 as an advisor(cough bs) for scholastic books. The possibility of the lausd losing millions of dollars on these construction deals is not far fetched.

Teachers are losing there jobs while the MORONS downtown still haven't figured out how to dial 1-800 DIAL A CLUE!!! to straighten out the mess they created.

Mr. Cortines issued a statement yesterday in regards to the death of "TEACHING LEGEND" Mr. Jaime Escalante in which he said " Today they(escalantes students) are living testaments to a teacher who demonstrated how high expectations, coupled with constant support, can overcome obstacles to a quality eduction" Isn't it a shame that the Obstacles that todays students have to overcome are almost the same obstacles that Mr. Escalante's kids did years ago. People who are suppose to look out for them aren't. The mayor summoned it up pretty well when he said this about Mr. Escalante "Jaime Escalante showed that one man could make a difference, take on a a broken education system and win." 20-30 years later No Man/Woman has stood up to make the differnce downtown that Mr. Escalante did in a classroom, and as a result of that, the students of the lausd are LOSING!!!!

[Mike]

LAUSD has been paying out too much in consulting fees, and that is a waste of tax payers funds to get the so called best people for the job. It is only getting the best people to steal. This is one of the reasons why there are job cuts, and services being cut. LAUSD management is just too inept to continue wasting money as it does. Cortines, want a $ 100.00 parcel tax only to continue wasting the home owners' money. It is time for the State Board of Education to do an audit before LAUSD gets any more money to waste. The State Board needs to take over LAUSD, and fire the board.

VOTE NO ON THE PARCEL TAX until LAUSD gets it house in order. The money that has been wasted on consulting fees could have saved services. Asking the State to pay money to keep the restrooms clean was just stupid. It is already built into the plant managers' job with their staff. Cortines, and the board really thought we were stupid, and that we have gotten who cleans the restrooms. We have not been out of school that long to know who job it is.

[from a Board Employee]

Bassam is not a board employee. He is a Contract Professional a.k.a. Consultant hired by LAUSD management to manage the construction of new schools in the Valley Region. The Bond Oversight Committee (BOC) is to be blame for this, they are clueless as to what is going on with taxpayers' money. As to the former Chief Facilities Executive (you know who), LAUSD Directors, and Deputy Directors who kept mum about Bassam's business, they should be fired! Throw out the panel members who hired Bassam's underlings. Kick them out of LAUSD now!!!

[What a shame]

I agree with some of the posters.
CAN SOMEONE PLEASE CALL IN THE FEDS TO CLEAN UP THE LAUSD.
ITS TIME HAND DOWNTOWN PINK SLIPS, THE VERY PINK SLIPS THEY LIKE HANDING OUT TO TEACHERS, THE VERY TEACHERS WHO ARE TRYING TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN A CHILDS LIFE!!!

ITS TIME TO GET RID OF THE OL BOYS CLUB!! The 25 consultants in this whole deal where paid $500,000 for one months pay. Yes I did say one month. What they wated in one month could have gone to pay at least 10 teachers salary for one year.

I do hope the la times can lead the way to help the kids now and in the future to a quality education in the lausd system.

THANK YOU!!!! LA TIMES FOR EXPOSING THE CORRUPTION IN THE LAUSD.

[Sue]

Please notice, Raslan doesn't claim he didn't do it, just that LAUSD knew about it and either ignored it or even okayed these actions. This is why conflict of interest laws must be beefed up and prosecuted. Mr. Cortines got away with it, and the public was infuriated. Assemblywoman Julia Brownley has sponsored AB 572, a conflict of interest bill targeting charter schools and the potential for those involved to be involved to greatly financially profit from them. This bill must pass, or we will see more of the same. Please contact Assembly president Darrell Steinberg and the governor to show your support. Also, contact your state senator to voice your concern over the governor's nomination of two charter supporters, Austin and Arkatov, to the state board of education. The board is already top heavy with charter people. Where is the balance here and who will speak out for the interests of the 95.5% of California students who are NOT in charters? Any doubt there is a conflict of interest problem here? Oh, of course, they could recuse themselves if needed. But why should people who have to recuse themselves from their responsibilities be considered for these jobs in the first place?

[Ocaptainmycaptain]

Okay, this was a big one and everyone who is outside of LAUSD is shocked. Those of us inside are not. When independent audits of school budgets are called for, oddly enough the results get swept under the rug. Every once in a while someone asks, "Hey, where did that money go? Why isn't there money for a field trip or even clean restrooms" Money in a school budget has very specific intended destinations, such as targeting "student improvement." I wonder how many "professional developments" end up being held at hotels instead of the offices at Beaudry or at the local districts--even though the practice was to be stopped? I wonder just how many lapstops and other tools get purchased under "Misc." and then end up no where near a student?

When will independent audits become authentic rather than showpieces?

[DavidH]

What people don't understand is that the LAUSD school construction bond program is different from the LAUSD Board issues with teachers and salaries. The bond program is one of the most successful in the country. And while this case may illustrate the "tip of the iceberg" there is not rampant corruption on the jobsites. What nobody cares to consider is that each of these new school projects is in and of themselves a "economic stimulus package" for the county and local community. And the monies from the bonds can only be used for construction costs, not teachers or administrators salaries.

Now, can someone tell me how they're going to staff the 2 dozen or so new schools that are supposed to open this coming fall? They're in the middle of cutting staff and reducing school days, so how does this work?