Dennis RomeroLos Angeles was at no loss, as usual, for douche bags last year.
We had a former City Councilman, Richard Alarcon, who lied about where he lived in order to represent his district. Justin Bieber seemed to terrorize his L.A.-area neighbors wherever he (frequently) moved. New Angeleno Kanye West appears to believe that photographers are punching bags.
For this list, we tried to boil down the essence of the L.A. douche. And we left the douchettes and celebrities out of it to come up with this ranking of the 5 Biggest Douches of the Year. Enjoy.
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5. Sen. Rod Wright lied about where he lived, supposedly in a rental complex he owns in Inglewood, in order to run for that district's state Senate seat in 2008, a judge found in sentencing the politician to three months behind bars in September. Not only that but the court found that Wright was arrogant in insisting that he rented a bedroom from a tenant when in fact he was still getting cozy in much nicer digs in tony Baldwin Hills.
Credit: Calderon's office
4. Sen. Ron Calderon. We once called him the “worst legislator in California,” and maybe the FBI agreed. The state senator was accused of soliciting and taking $100,000 in bribes. He also agreed to push a California law to create tax credits for small films in exchange for jobs for his son and daughter, authorities alleged. Unfortunately for him, feds said, the person offering that deal wasn't a small-time Hollywood executive. He was an undercover agent.
3. Noe Iniguez. The 36-year-old posted a topless photo of his ex-girlfriend on her employer's Facebook page. His accompanying message called her “drunk” and a “slut,” and he urged her firing. Instead, Iniguez was sentenced to a year behind bars under California's pioneering anti–revenge porn law.
Credit: Julien Blanc via julienfreetour/YouTube
2. Julien Blanc. The ugly sport of pick-up artistry finally got its day in the court of public opinion in 2014, and you could say that the verdict was not so pretty for L.A.-based Julien Blanc. He's affiliated with the West Hollywood pick-up school called Real Social Dynamics. And his tweets, such as, “Dear girls, could you please save me the effort and roofie your own drink? #JustKidding,” got him banned from Australia and the United Kingdom. Unfortunately, we're stuck with him.
And L.A.'s douche of the year is …
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Credit: dovcharney/Flickr
1. Dov Charney. The man who made a lifestyle of photographing his young, female employees in bikinis, panties and hosiery was last month officially kicked out of the company, American Apparel, he founded as a T-shirt concern decades ago. We found it hard to shed a tear after hearing so many sexual-harassment allegations, including a lawsuit that said he held a teenage employee hostage as a “sex slave.” The suit was thrown out, and Charney has denied all such allegations. Someone leaked nude photos of the teen after the case was tossed, by the way. The T-shirt peddler has vowed to challenge his termination by the American Apparel board. For now, we'll enjoy an L.A. fashion scene that's at least temporarily devoid of a guy who looks (and allegedly acts) like a '70s smut agent.
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