U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

John Farahi, Los Angeles KIRN-AM Radio Host, Sentenced to 10 Years for Ponzi Scheme

Los Angeles radio personality John Farahi won't be advising listeners on investment matters any time soon. On Monday, Farahi, who hosted the popular financial talk show "Economy Today" on Persian-language KIRN-AM radio, was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for running a Ponzi scheme that ta ... More >>

Eric Garcetti Owned Clear Channel Stock When He Voted For Digital Billboard Giveaway

Councilman Eric Garcetti long ago conceded that he made a mistake when he voted for a legal settlement that allowed Clear Channel Outdoor and CBS Outdoor to erect 420 digital billboards apiece across the city.The vote was one of the bigger debacles of Garcetti's reign as city council president. Resi ... More >>

Bomb Scare at 94.7 the Wave Empties Headquarters of KNX, KFWB and the SEC

Updated at bottom. Originally posted at 10:30am. Confused commuters were listening to San Francisco Bay Area traffic and weather this morning because of a bomb scare at the headquarters of KNX 1070 Newsradio. The station has been broadcasting the stream of their sister station, San Francsico's KCBS, ... More >>

John Farahi: Iranian Bernie Madoff? Feds Say $20 Million of L.A. Persian Jews' Money Lost

yunguyen666​A Bel Air Estates man whose investment fraud allegedly cost $20 million in losses was indicted by a federal grand jury this week. And since these alleged, mini-Madoffs are getting titles in the news based on ethnicity, we'll call this suspect a potential Iranian Bernie Madoff. Ind ... More >>

Soul Daddy: Why It Failed

Guzzle & NoshSoul Daddy in Los Angeles at the Hollywood & Highland mall.​ Soul Daddy arrived on the American fast casual dining scene the same way the reality show responsible for its existence arrived on television: haltingly, half-heartedly, with no panache and no clear vision. Soul Daddy, ... More >>

Dodger Divorce: Developer Stanley Stalford Preps Public Bid For Dodgers

Stanley Stalford wants to take the Dodgers public​Stanley Stalford has always dreamed of being president of the Dodgers. He's a lifelong Angeleno and a real estate developer. But he's also a mere millionaire -- not a billionaire -- so he couldn't afford the team even if it were on the market.But m ... More >>

Jeffrey Tidus: Another Homicide In An Exclusive L.A. Community Vexes Authorities

Jeffrey Tidus.​The murder of Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen isn't the only homicide that took place in a ritzy L.A.-area community with the fingerprints of a possibly professional hit on it. One year ago Tuesday prominent attorney Jeffrey Tidus was gunned down outside his Rolling Hills Esta ... More >>

LETTERS: MINKOW STINKOW

Inside Job: Greed, Interrupted

Part meltdown memoir, part essential finger-pointing, Charles Ferguson's latest will make you seethe

Barry Minkow 2.0

L.A.'s fraud king is back — and taking the media for another ride

Shareholders' Group Sues American Apparel As Hipster Clothing Company's Financial Woes Mount

americanapparel.net​A group of shareholders filed suit against American Apparel CEO Dov Charney and seven of the hipster clothing companies directors for allegedly mismanaging the company and damaging its image as its shares have dropped more than 80 percent in the last few years and the downt ... More >>

American Apparel In Stormy Financial Waters: Some Investors Launch Investigation

americanapparel.net​Updated after the jump with a U.S. Attorney's subpoena and a filing indicating trouble making the terms of a loan. Originally posted at 5:07 a.m. American Apparel, the maker of the American hipster uniform, appeared to be in dire financial straights this week as the public ... More >>

KB Home CEO Convicted In Stock-Option Cover-Up

KB Home headquarters in L.A.​The former CEO of Los Angeles-based mega-home-builder KB Home was convicted Wednesday in conneciton with covering up a stock-option backdating scheme that resulted in millions of dollars in extra earnings for himself and fellow company executives, federal authoriti ... More >>

Prominent Attorney Was Murdered, Authorities Say

Jeffrey A. Tidus.​Sheriff's officials on Thursday said the shooting death of prominent attorney Jeffrey A. Tidus was a homicide, putting to rest, at least for now, the possibility that the high-profile litigator killed himself. Sheriff's Sgt. David Infante said "detectives have determined tha ... More >>

Associate of Bush, Villaraigosa Pleads Guilty In Kickback Scheme (Felony Charge Of Helping To Make Crap Movie Pending)

Kickback money can be bad for the enviroment.​Holmby Hills' Elliott Broidy has been called "the mystery man of the Israeli economy," but he's had more friends than Tila Tequila, including President George W. Bush (whom he's hosted at his Westside home) and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigos ... More >>

Stanley Chais, Local Madoff Helper, Faces Lawsuit

Beverly Hills money manager Stanley Chais has to be looking over his shoulder this morning Wall Street JournalStanley Chaisto Bernard Madoff's prison sentence. Chais is at the Roybal Federal Building facing accusations by TV host Daphne Brogdon and others of acting as a local "feeder" to bogus inves ... More >>

Morning Sixpack: A News Roundup

He-e-e-r-re's Eddie! Ed McMahon, the sidekick's sidekick, who for 30 years suffered and shone as Johnny Carson's foil, straight man and MC, has died of undisclosed causes at the age of 86. L.A. TimesSheriff Stops DNA Search Blaming budget woes, L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca has halted his department' ... More >>

Survivor, Hollywood-Style

MGM Tells Fiscal Truths, William Morris Lays Off, Chris Hemsworth Lands Thor

NBC's Bad Sitcom, Lionsgate's Badass Battle and IATSE's Badly Handled Contract

Morning Sixpack: A News Roundup

Brave New Archive UCLA will get the correspondence, speeches, papers and audio recordings of 20th-century author, seeker and drug experimenter Aldous Huxley. L.A. TimesSlay Case Man Still Missing Nearly nine months after the gruesome killings of four people in a Quartz Hill house, a fifth presumed v ... More >>

Ticketmaster LiveNation: Take the #4 Bus from HQ to HQ

View Larger Map Well, it makes sense on a practical level. All you have to do is zip down San Vincente from Ticketmaster's WeHo HQ on Sunset, hang a right on Santa Monica and bingo, a few blocks past the Troubadour is LiveNation's Beverly Hills HQ. Or, in these lean times, executives can just catch ... More >>

American Apparel Responds to SEC Story

A spokesman for American Apparel took issue with yesterday's New York Post article that claimed AA was being investigated by the Securities Exchange Commission. "American Apparel is a good L.A. company," Ryan Holiday wrote in an email to the L.A. Weekly. "It's nowhere near bankruptcy, it would be he ... More >>

SEC Investigating American Apparel?

UPDATE: See American Apparel's response to story.A New York Post item claims that the Securities and Exchange Commission is reviewing a trove of emails that were pilfered December 24 when American Apparel's computers were accessed by an unidentified hacker. One of the messages is purportedly from AA ... More >>

Jordan Belfort: The Wounded Wolf of Wall Street

Still howling

Wall Street Crisis Begins to Hurt Media Moguls

Be afraid. Be very afraid

Hollywood: Damaged on Wall Street, Weak in Prime Time and Ignoring Tina Brown

A world of hurt

Ninth Circuit Court Retreats to Idaho

Legal insiders point everywhere but at themselves during a sun-filled non-examination

Meruelo Maddux’s Missing Asbestos

A company chaired by Villaraigosa’s biggest fat-cat contributor refuses to say where all that asbestos went

Slammed for Secret Asbestos Removal

A company chaired by Villaraigosa’s biggest fat-cat contributor refuses to say where all that asbestos went. Originally published April 5 – updated April 11

The Defiant Tenant

Richard Meruelo runs into trouble over a Skid Row warehouse

Scandalous! A Year of Republican Treachery

New Theater Reviews

For the week of February 24 - March 2

Scandalous! A Year of Republican Treachery

Damn, Not Another Election

Sitting this one out could be bad news

Echo Park Is All Right With Me

The Smart Guy

Cox in charge of Wall Street? Dumb.

Really Big Packages

Forget what EW says, it’s the moguls’ perks that are out of control, not the stars’

Bush’s Watergate

If it happens, keep your eye on Texas

6 Bush Scandals To Come

When Might Turns Right

Golly GE, why Big Media is pro-Bush

The Cheney Connection

Tracing the Halliburton money trail to Nigeria

Disney Goes to the Dark Side

The Battle for the Mouse’s heart and soul reaches epic proportions

As Luck Would Have It . . .

A 9/11 victim testifies that the carnage could have been averted

Salesmanship or Snake Oil?

Punitive dreaming, post-Enron

Hollywood's Dude

Keeping an eye on the ball

Color Davis’ Energy Policy Green

Green as in high-cost power, not clean energy

Kicking Assets

Crisis catches state utilities counting cash

Sweating It Out

UC’s ban on sweatshop products may be hard to enforce

Dial ''F'' for ''Fraud''

Getting hooked on wire fraud

Circumstantial Evidence

Larry Atlas' new play about moral eclipse