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In a sworn affidavit, Schenter, who declined to comment to the Weekly, claimed the latter, and circumstantial evidence backs him up. Many of the beneficiaries of Schenter's reductions were close to Noguez, not to Schenter. They include the chief beneficiary: Ramin Salari, a preening, bullying, Ferrari-driving tax agent who until recently was Noguez's best friend.
The L.A. County District Attorney's Office is investigating. It has not taken Noguez up on his offer to be interviewed, which suggests it sees him as a target.
PHOTO BY SIMONE PAZ
Ramin Salari has been called "the Johnnie Cochran of tax appeals." He helped Noguez get started in politics with a $15,000 contribution in 2003.
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Since word of Schenter's actions leaked out in February, more than a year after the fact, the assessor's office has been struggling to limit the damage. In a March 1 letter to supporters, Noguez denied the existence of a " 'pay-to-play' atmosphere."
Yet every week seems to bring new allegations, and a new organization chart. Noguez's chief of staff resigned, reportedly over concerns about Noguez's relationships with Schenter and Salari. David Zoraster, a deputy who quit in protest of Salari's influence, told his story on the front page of the L.A. Times. With Noguez still reeling from that, the Board of Supervisors began hounding him last week about a sharp drop in the projected tax roll.
As part of the effort to respond to the allegations, Noguez granted a 90-minute interview to the Weekly on March 27. He was friendly, if not entirely forthcoming.
As he confirmed, he and Schenter were colleagues for 20 years. For much of that time, they sat in the same set of cubicles. When he learned what Schenter had done, Noguez claimed he felt "disbelief, surprised, dismayed."
In the interview, Noguez gave the impression that their relationship was like that of any two co-workers — it was "cordial." At most, they might see a movie together.
Yet their relationship seems to have been friendlier than that. In 2003, the Asian Journal noted their attendance at a concert at the Grand Olympic Auditorium in downtown L.A. The reporter wrote that Schenter and Noguez were "seen having an enjoyable time" with the president of a real estate investment firm.
In an email the Weekly obtained via the Public Records Act, Noguez jokingly described Schenter as "my slightly younger brother." In another email, Noguez called him "my brother Scott Schenter-Noguez."
In the second email, Noguez confirmed that he and Schenter would be attending a Super Bowl party hosted by Mark Weinstein, a property investor who was friends with Noguez. The party was held at Weinstein's condo on the Venice Boardwalk in 2007.
Over the years, Weinstein, his company and his wife have collectively given $5,500 to Noguez's campaign. And in late 2010, Schenter slashed the value of Weinstein's condo from $1.7 million to $950,000.
Schenter has claimed that he was following Noguez's instructions. But Noguez denies ever referring any appraisals to him.
In fact, he said, they only spoke once during Noguez's campaign. In September 2010, they were in the hallway outside the Assessment Appeals Board. Noguez said he relayed a message from two tax agents who wanted Schenter to know they had additional information on cases he was working on.
"I did not refer any properties in a formal way," Noguez said.
Once he became aware of Schenter's activities, Noguez said, he put him on leave. His office referred the case to the Office of County Investigations, and then, once the full scope was known, to the district attorney.
"We were en route to terminate" when Schenter resigned, Noguez said.
Noguez said he has not spoken to his longtime co-worker since the meeting in the hallway.
That leaves Salari, another friend who has also caused headaches. Asked about him, Noguez said they had a more recent falling-out. Why? Salari, Noguez said, was "maybe dropping my name too much."
The tax agent business is unregulated in California. What few rules there are, Ramin Salari probably has broken them. In the mid-1990s, in fact, his firm was caught representing clients who did not know they were being represented.
It was a boom time in the industry. Salari had switched from selling commercial real estate at just the right time — in 1992, as the market was softening. He and his partners cold-called their initial clients, relying on contacts from their days as real estate agents, according to Scott Brody, a former partner. If anyone had bought an office building in the previous five years, chances are they were in line for a property-tax reduction.
The son of Persian immigrants, raised in Utah, Salari spoke Farsi. That helped him win over Persian property owners.
"He's a tough Middle Eastern Persian dude," said a former colleague. "He's a grinder, and his clients are grinders."
Salari worked on contingency. If he won a reduction, he would keep half the proceeds. As the market dropped, there was increasing demand for his services.
"When we first started, it was like the Wild West," said Brody, his former partner. "What Ramin does extremely well is he's able to decipher really quickly the assessor's data and a lot of the time use their data against them. A lot of the people hired in the assessor's office really were not qualified. They were overwhelmed."
19 comments
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hello my name is tirso rodriguez i have a problem in 2007 i person led is on made me make plans he said we where going to build on our property 1810 -1804 s vermont los angeles ca 90006 so i added my brother on the title i purshased the property for 320000 .00 dollars my property taxes where loan fair now there is a power to sell my property iv been here for 17 years this was our dream for our family as a car dealer now i am loosing it because someone lied to us we never built i was cond for about ten thousand dollars please help me pay the right amount to clear this matter or lead me in the right dirrection
Wow, John Noguez and Ramin Salari are two more Frank McCourts, only in the L.A. Tax Accessor's office.
Wish you would investigate LA County Dept. of Public Works. Little fiefdom gives their division heads and officers FREE leased cars of their choice, which they drive to and from work in orange county and beyond, they also get FREE GAS, as well as FREE car cleaning and washes performed by county employees for their personal/public vehicles. Many of these division heads live in Orange County and the Valley. Why are public servants given free gas and cars to drive to and from work? That is something they do in fortune 500 companies, not public agencies. I guess when you have a billion dollar budget managers can give themselves raises and have their personal vehicles paid for with County taxes.
How about reporting it to the LA County fraud hotline? I'm a LA County employee and I drive my own vehicle for County business. Managers make it difficult to get A county vehicle. It's not fair division heads to take cars home with free gas and free cleaning. THE ABUSE MUST STOP!
Wow seems like the Assessor's office is not the only entity who is greedy. The news sources here are acting like desperate children needing attention. OK so some attribution should have been forthcoming, but perhaps in an attempt to protect your identity you were LEFT OUT. Why not publish a breaking story on your own? How about looking into a corrupt judicial system here? I for one have had been victimized by judicial lying and file tampering. Our court system is likely in really bad shape in terms of corruption. Los Angeles has always been known as tops for cutthroat scaming. I suggest we worry about all the trees that have been cut down. Who profited from that? We have no shade and no oxygen.
County Fraud is ramped: Supervisor / DA/ DPW/ DRP/ CAL BAR it's all exposed here. West Hollywood mayor they are all bought out... this guy forgot to blow somebody before the left in the morning with his boy friend caught driving his car.
That mark schenter seems like a real charlatan ! I wouldn't be surprised if he were taking kickbacks on his own accord!!! Cancer research??? Come on ! How low can you get????
I wonder what retired Los Angeles County Assessor Rick Auerbach thinks about his endorsement of Current Assessor John Noguez as his replacement.
- TK
The corruption of the Assessment Appeals process in L.A. County was well under way on Rick Auerbach's watch. It was only EXPOSED after Noguez took office after the 2010 election.
Great story. No political or economic system can survive rampant corruption. While this article deals with the County Assessor's Office, similar corruption plagues all of Los Angeles, especially the Los Angeles City Council. LA Weekly has already done some of the work in this area, but a lot more needs to be done.
Even in yesterday's State of the City speech, we see the Mayor trying to find ways to funnel millions of tax dollars to his political cronies under one scam or another. It seems that the major distinction between this penny ante corruption in the Assessor's Office and City Hall's mega corruption is that there is dissent within the Assessor's office while the corrupt City Council votes together more than 99.3% of the time. Just the unspoken City Council rule that all members will retaliate against any councilmember who does not support the corruption in another district is a serious breach of the public trust. The 99.3% statistic alone was enough for the DA to launch a RICO investigation, but let's be real -- Cooley care about corruption? Ha!
Bad as the Assessor's corruption may be, it comes not enter into the truly vile realm of the deliberate falsification of fire response times so that the City Council could cut $200 M from the LAFD budget while continuing to give millions of dollars to Eli Broad, CIM Group and other developers. The LA City Council willingly traded lives for dollars.
give it rest Hews. so annoying. We all know you broke the story...woopee...now i never want to read LCCN or anything by randy economy cuz you sound so desperate...i hope you go bankrupt... and, i'm actually on your side on this story. maybe if someone gives you a trophy you'll calm down?
Nice job Gene, you think you could have attributed Los Cerritos Community Newspaper since we first gave you the lead in February that the DA was investigating Noguez? You would not even have known about all this if it was for LCCN and Randy Economy.
I always thought it was fishy that both Hiward Jarvis and the unions were endorsing Noguez. Now I know why. While you can be collaborative ultimately the tax agent has to prove their case. Instead of spending time doing their homework they pay off the Assessor and go to parties instead.
GOOD!!! Thank you LA WEEKLY!!!I just want to add few comments, guys like Mark McNeil, Andrew Stephens, Eric Haagenson, Carlos, and JOHN NOGUEZ should be in jail for stealing public money.From my understanding son of the LA County Supervisor Knabe was running Noguez Assessor's campaign. Four members of the LA County Board of Supervisors Molina, Yaroslavsky, and others (not Antonovich) were endorsing John Noguez.Having so many FACTS it is surprise Board of Supervisors didn't ask John Noguez to RESIGN and PUNISH OTHERS. WHY???They are still FREE. What about DISTRICT ATTORNEY OFFICE? They should take action!!!
Sad to say, in Los Angeles County, the role of the District Attorney is to look the other way no matter how blatant the corruption. Councilmember Tom LaBonge ran the worldwide fraudulent SAVE the SIGN campaign to raise millions to give to a developer for the virtually worthless Cahuenga Peak. It has nothing to do with the Hollywood Sign.
When it was clear that no one would give the millions of dollars that Football Tommy wanted to shovel into Fox River Financials' pockets for Cahuenga Peak, TPL and CD 4 devised the fraudulent scam that the Hollywood Sign on Mt. Lee was in danger. Even their post victory video falsely states that "Cahuenga Peak is the home of the Hollywood Sign!"
Fraud has become a way of life and Angelenos do not blink an eye. LaBonge involved Hollywood school children in his worldwide Bait and Switch scam and no parent complained that his/her child was being taught how to be a criminal. The students in Hollywood know that the H Sign is on Mt Lee and not on Cahuenga Peak. Thus, they learned that if you want $, it is OK to lie. "Our teachers and councilman told us it was OK to lie to get money."
We saw this dishonesty on display again at the City PLUM on Tuesday 4-17-12 when Huizar did not like a citizen's poster of the Millennium Tower next to Capitol Records, and he asked Kevin Keller to say that the picture was "misleading." Kevin Keller told the TRUTH and said it was not misleading. Thereupon, Councilmember Reyes says to Mr. Keller, "So you're saying that this picture is misleading," trying to lead the truthful Keller into providing false testimony. The entire audience caught his dishonest ploy -- as did Mr. Keller who stuck to the truth!!!
Angelenos do not understand that corruption is virtually ubiquitous among Los Angeles elected officials and department heads, yet the DA never notices anything.
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