LOS ANGELES (KNX) — A former general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power agreed to plead guilty to a bribery charge, prosecutors said Monday.
David H. Wright, 62, of Riverside admitted to accepting bribes from a lawyer in exchange for advancing a $30 million no-bid contract with the utility.
Paul Paradis, an attorney whose company received the contract, agreed last week to plead guilty to bribery in connection with the receipt of a $2.2 million kickback from another attorney.
Wright was selected to head-up DWP in 2016, during which time he developed a working relationship with Paradis, according to prosecutors. Paradis, a New York lawyer, had been hired by the city attorney’s office to sue PricewaterhouseCoopers, a consultancy that worked on implementing a new billing system for DWP. (That system ultimately overcharged hundreds of thousands of customers, resulting in the lawsuit.)
According to Wright’s plea agreement, the pair met in February 2017 at a restaurant in Riverside and discussed Paradis’ plan to found a company — Aventador Utility Solutions LLC. He reportedly told Wright he sought to obtain a contract with DWP.
Wright told Paradis he would ensure the DWP Board of Commissioners would award Aventador the contract without a competitive bidding process. In exchange, Paradis would name WRight CEO of Aventador following his retirement from DWP, with a salary of $1 million.
“Wright and Paradis further discussed the need to keep their agreement confidential, because they knew it was illegal,” Wright’s plea agreement said.
Wright collaborated with Paradis to draft a letter urging the Board of Commissioners to approve the contract, but did not disclose to board members his plans to work at Aventador upon retiring.
In 2019, Wright learned that Paradis was forced to resign from his position representing the city in the PricewaterhouseCoopers case after it came to light that he had a conflict of interest. He also represented the lead plaintiff in the class-action suit brought against DWP over the billing discrepancies.
At this time, the board canceled the $30 million contract.
Later that year, Wright told Paradis that he “feared that their relationship and their corrupt plans for Aventador would be discovered,” prosecutors alleged. He then directed Paradis to destroy text messages and emails between them along with other “incriminating evidence.”
Unbeknownst to Wright, Paradis was already cooperating with an FBI investigation at the time.
In April 2019, Wright also urged the DWP board to award a new, $10 million contract to Aventador’s successor company, Ardent. Once against, Wright did not disclose a conflict of interest to the board — namely, that awarding the contract to Ardent would “benefit him financially,” according to the plea agreement.
From April to May 2019, Wright requested that Paradis pay him a “substantial sign-on” bonus of $600,000 and an increase in his interest in Ardent.
Wright was removed from his position as top executive with DWP in 2019, after the FBI raided headquarters and the city attorney’s office. In his plea agreement, Wright admitted he participated in a conspiracy to commit bribery and wire fraud, solicited bribes, destroyed evidence, and made false statements to federal officers.
Wright faces up to 10 years in prison.
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