Since when did Tony Rackauckas decide to get raid-y all of a sudden? He let political corruption fester for most of his tenure (read: Mike Carona) until last week, when he decided to go Eliot Ness on two cases representing different ends of the political spectrum.
The first case is the one with bigger local political ramifications: a Thursday raid at the Upland offices of Lackie, Dammeier, McGill N Ethir, the former law firm currently getting sued by Costa Mesa Mayor Jim Righeimer for a set-up gone horribly wrong.
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As reported by the San Bernardino Sentinel, OC DA investigators hauled off boxes of files in what's believed to be an ongoing criminal investigation into the firm (Riggy's suit is in civil court). The firm, of course, was known for its hard-fisted (and ham-) efforts to protect dirty cops across the state at all times.
The other Rackauckas raid is a bit stranger and reeks more of the traditional partisan politics practiced by the OC DA's office throughout the decades: an investigation into Landmark Medical Management, an Ontario company run by mega-Obama-and-Democrats donor Kareem Ahmed. What Ahmed has to do with a criminal investigation in OC at this time remains unknown, but Talking Points Memo (which broke the news of the Ahmed raid) exposed Landmark Medical Management last year as exploiter's of a worker's compensation. As far as we know, though, the OC DA's office has never done much research into worker's comp fraud–and if they're suddenly interested, why go all the way to Ontario? Hell, scratch the GOP surface here in OC, and you'll find reams of it–ah, but that would mean investigating Republican corruption in OC, and Tony Rack don't do that.
The best quotes in both stories, of course, go to OC DA spokesperson Susan Kang Schroeder, who is such an awesome ice queen even when she has not comment. To TPM, she said, “I'm not going to confirm or deny” whether her office raided Ahmed's business; to the Sentinel, she said, “We are not confirming that activity took place or that we are involved in it.” BURN…
Email: ga*******@oc******.com. Twitter: @gustavoarellano.
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