Freddy Escobar stood on the sidewalk outside his former workplace waving a green thumb drive and a stack of papers that he said would clear his name.
The suspended president of the United Firefighters of Los Angeles City said he couldn’t get into the office where he’s worked since 2018. He said the union’s parent organization had changed the locks to the building and the gate code to the parking garage.
He rang the doorbell to deliver his evidence, including photos of receipts, to counter allegations that he hadn’t documented many of his credit card purchases. But there was no answer.
“Wow,” he said. As he turned to face news cameras, Escobar closed his eyes for a moment. “An organization that I would have died for is not giving me an opportunity now to present to them what they’ve been looking for.”
The dramatic scene unfolded Friday morning outside the union’s office in Historic Filipinotown, four days after the International Assn. of Fire Fighters suspended Escobar and two other union officers over financial improprieties, including “serious problems” with missing receipts.
The IAFF also placed UFLAC under conservatorship, a first for any of the local firefighter unions overseen by the Washington, D.C.-based organization, a spokesperson said. The unprecedented move followed Times reports about the IAFF’s financial audit as well as massive overtime payments to Escobar and other union officials.
IAFF General President Edward Kelly disclosed the audit’s findings in a letter to UFLAC members Monday.
From July 2018 through November 2024, Escobar initiated 1,957 transactions on his UFLAC credit card, totaling $311,498, the letter said. More than 70% of those transactions — amounting to $230,466 — had no supporting documentation.
“The auditors could not ascertain the purpose of these transactions,” Kelly wrote in the letter. He added that an additional 157 transactions — amounting to $35,397 — were only partially supported by required documentation.
“This means there is no way to determine whether $265,862.34 in dues money spent by President Escobar without documentation was for legitimate union expenditures,” the letter said.
The audit found that two other UFLAC officials — former Secretary Adam Walker and former Treasurer Domingo Albarran Jr. — together had more than $530,000 in credit card transactions with no receipts or partial documentation. Walker did not respond to a request for comment, and Albarran declined to comment.
In all, about $800,000 in credit card purchases were not properly documented, the letter said.
Vice Presidents Chuong Ho and Doug Coates were suspended and accused of breaching their fiduciary duties in “failing to enforce UFLAC policy.” Neither responded to a request for comment.
Escobar arrived at the union office Friday morning to speak to reporters at a press conference he had called to refute the allegations. He said he was unaware he was being audited and was never asked to provide his receipts.
Under UFLAC policy, receipts are required for all credit card expenditures, along with an explanation of the expense, including the names of those present and the business reason for the expenditure.
Escobar said the records he was holding included everything the IAFF said was missing. But he also said he did not tally up the totals and did not know how much money he was accounting for. All the receipts he was providing, he said, had already been uploaded into the union’s expense system.
“Whatever they say I don’t have, I have,” he said.
He said he compiled years of documentation, including more than 1,500 receipts, meeting minutes and explanations for his expenses, which included transactions for gas, food, hotels and Uber rides. He said none were personal expenses.
Asked why he expensed Uber rides when he had a take-home car provided by the union, he said the rides were for members doing union business.
Accounting problems had been flagged earlier by auditors for UFLAC, who in March 2024 highlighted “significant deficiencies” because officers were failing to properly document their expenditures.
Despite that warning, Escobar made 339 transactions in 2024 using his UFLAC credit card — for a total of $71,671 — without submitting a single receipt, Kelly wrote.
Escobar said the auditors never spoke to him.
“What’s a warning? It was an audit that said that we could always do better and that always occurs — we could always do better,” he said.
Asked what could have been improved, since he said he had all his receipts, he replied: “Probably more detail. … Explanations, fine tuning.”
He called on the IAFF “do the right thing” and reinstate him as president. In the meantime, he said he will go back to work as an LAFD captain at a fire station in Boyle Heights.
In a statement Friday, IAFF spokesperson Ryan Heffernan said that since March 2024 and as recently as last month, Escobar was “repeatedly urged — in written communication and face-to-face meetings — to fulfill his fiduciary duties to the members of Local 112 and submit proper documentation for all expenditures.”
“Despite this, the forensic audit, issued in May 2025, confirmed serious deficiencies in Mr. Escobar’s expense reconciliation and record-keeping practices between 2018-2024,” the statement said.
Last month, a Times investigation found that Escobar and other top union officers have for years been padding their paychecks with overtime while also collecting five- to six-figure union stipends.
Escobar made about $540,000 in 2022, the most recent year for which records of both his city and union earnings are available. He more than doubled his base salary of $184,034 with overtime payouts that year, earning more than $424,500 from the city in pay and benefits, payroll data show.
He collected an additional $115,962 stipend from the union, according to its most recent federal tax filing. He reported working 48 hours a week on union and related duties, while records provided by the city for that year show he picked up an average of roughly 30 hours of overtime a week on firefighting shifts — a total of about 78 hours of work each week.
On Friday, he disputed his total earnings, saying “it’s a lot less than that,” though he did not provide evidence.
