probed

Merrick Bobb, one of the godfathers of the modern police oversight movement in Los Angeles and beyond, has died. He was 79.

Bobb, whose health had deteriorated in recent years, died Thursday night at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in L.A., his two children, Matthew and Jonathan, confirmed Friday.

A Los Feliz resident for more than 40 years, Bobb had four grandchildren, was fluent in several languages and was respected as one of the earliest champions of civilian oversight of law enforcement.

He had a long career, shining a light on problems within major law enforcement agencies from L.A. to Seattle. And he accomplished his most significant work without the use of his hands or legs, which became effectively paralyzed after he contracted a rare and debilitating autoimmune condition called Guillain-Barré syndrome in 2003.

“He was always a person who was really engaged in the world,” Jonathan said in an interview with him and his brother. “I think that growing up in the 1950s and 1960s with the civil rights movement and other associated movements was very seminal for him in terms of instilling belief in justice [and] understanding the voices of traditionally underrepresented groups.”

For two decades beginning in 1993, Bobb served as special counsel to the L.A. County Board of Supervisors. In that position, he delivered semiannual reports that detailed pervasive issues within the department, from widespread violence in the county’s jails to excessive force, driving a number of reforms in the department.

In 2014, the board created the Office of Inspector General and dismissed Bobb from his role with the county. That decision came in the wake of criticism that he and Michael Gennaco, the then-head of the Office of Independent Review, had not done enough to stop the problems in the jails, which had become a major scandal.

Two years earlier, a federal judge had appointed Bobb to serve as independent monitor of the Seattle Police Department’s consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice. He held that position until 2020, when he resigned in protest of the department’s use of force and “powerful and injurious” crowd control weapons against protesters in the months following George Floyd’s killing by a white Minneapolis police officer.

In 2001, he founded the Police Assessment Resource Center, a nonprofit that provides “independent, evidence-based counsel on effective, respectful, and publicly accountable policing,” the center’s then-vice president Matthew Barge wrote in 2015.

Before that, Bobb served as deputy general counsel for the Christopher Commission, which examined use of force within the Los Angeles Police Department in the wake of the 1991 beating of Rodney King. The commission published a sweeping report that year that called on then-LAPD Chief Daryl Gates to step down and found the department had a persistent and pervasive problem with excessive use of force.

Bobb graduated from Dartmouth College in 1968, then received his law degree three years later from UC Berkeley, according to his curriculum vitae. He worked for private law firms between 1973 and 1996. Bobb was named one of the top 50 lawyers in L.A. by the Los Angeles Business Journal that year, when he left a major law firm to focus on his law enforcement oversight work.

But for many people he met, according to his sons, it was Bobb’s kindness that made the strongest impression.

“No matter who it was in his life he was engaging with at that point, he focused in on them and developed a personal connection,” Matthew said. “You never knew if he was going to be having lunch with the former chief of police or his former handyman who came by once a week, and everyone in between.”

Bobb is survived by his children and grandchildren, his ex-wife Aviva Koenigsberg Bobb — a former judge with whom he remained close — his sister Gloria Kern and his longtime assistant and caretaker, Jeffrey Yanson.

Bobb’s funeral will take place at 10 a.m. Sept. 5 at Mount Sinai Hollywood Hills, 5950 Forest Lawn Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90068.

Major power outage hits the prominent film festival on its closing day and impacts 160,000 homes in the area.

French police were investigating a possible arson attack as being the main cause for a power outage which hit the Alpes-Maritimes region in southern France, including Cannes which is hosting its world-famous annual film festival.

“We are looking into the likelihood of a fire being started deliberately,” a spokesperson for the French national gendarmerie said on Saturday, adding that no arrests had been made at this stage.

The local authority for the Alpes-Maritimes region had said earlier on Saturday that the western part of the area, which includes Cannes, was suffering from a major electricity outage and that grid operator RTE France was working on restoring power.

The outage, which affected 160,000 homes, according to RTE and regional officials, started shortly after 10am local time (08:00 GMT) on Saturday.

Police sources said the outage was caused by an overnight fire, probably an arson attack, at a high-voltage substation in the village of Tanneron.

Traffic lights were knocked out and businesses closed on the main shopping street of the Alpes-Maritimes holiday destination.

Separate power outages swept across the Iberian Peninsula and parts of southern France on Monday, disrupting critical infrastructure and airport operations. Officials denied foul play.

While Spain and Portugal suffered blackouts last month, the French Basque Country saw brief power outages with interruptions lasting only a few minutes, according to the French electricity transmission network.

The latest outage came just hours before the 78th Cannes Film Festival is due to close on Saturday evening with an award ceremony at the Palais des Festivals.

Despite the power cut, festival organisers said switching to an alternative electricity power supply enabled them to “maintain the events and screenings planned for today in normal conditions, including the closing ceremony”.

After a politically charged two weeks, a jury led by French actor Juliette Binoche is expected to announce the winners among 22 films competing for the Palme d’Or for best film.

This year, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the genocide in Gaza and United States President Donald Trump were the biggest talking points at the festival. More than 900 actors and filmmakers signed an open letter denouncing the genocide in Gaza, according to the organisers.

WASHINGTON — An alleged coast-to-coast criminal conspiracy that has defrauded the employee benefit plans of major labor unions is being investigated by a joint task force of FBI and Labor Department agents, The Times learned Tuesday.

The alleged fraud involves hundreds of thousands of dollars in health insurance payments by members of labor unions in the last few years.

Search warrants filed in federal court in San Francisco, Chicago, Baltimore and other cities show that the investigation centers on Angelo T. Commito, a reputed associate of organized crime figures.

Sources said companies linked to Commito are suspected of using kickbacks and extortion tactics to obtain contracts for prepaid health care plans from labor unions.

Indictments May Be Near

At least half a dozen federal grand juries have been investigating the case for months, and indictments may be sought within several days, authorities said.

These sources, who declined to be named, said the broad investigation was hinted at in April when FBI Director William S. Sessions testified about the government’s continuing crackdown on organized crime before the permanent investigations subcommittee of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee.

Although Sessions did not specifically mention employee benefit plans, he said the bureau was maintaining vigilance over “criminal organizations that deal in various criminal activities for profit,” including some in the field of labor racketeering.

Sessions noted that in the last two years, in addition to the convictions of Mafia members and associates, 43 officials or members of labor unions were convicted of racketeering charges.

The current investigation reportedly involves labor officials or employees with the Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union, the Teamsters Union, the United Food and Commercial Workers and others. Names of those suspected of criminal conduct could not be learned.

‘New Generation of Racketeer’

Raymond Maria, chief of the Labor Department’s office of labor racketeering, refused in an interview to disclose the names of those targeted. But he said federal investigators are focusing on “a new generation of racketeer” in the labor field.

“This new generation includes bankers, attorneys, accountants and administrators of employee benefit plans who, in many cases, deal with members of organized crime,” he said.

He said the people suspected of wrongdoing in the labor conspiracy allegedly “sought to establish a nationwide criminal monopoly in the delivery of services to employee benefit plans–insurance, health care, vision care, legal services and various types of rehabilitative counseling.”

Kickbacks were “the basic sales tool,” he said, in which union officials or benefit plan trustees received payoffs to award service contracts. The alleged offenses occurred within the last six years.

Maria complained that “the large number of employee benefit plans in the country dwarfs the minuscule number of government agents assigned to investigate instances of fraud. So the situation provides a tremendous incentive to steal and to cheat.”

Hope to Curb Abuses

Federal officials said they hope that the current inquiry cracks down on such abuses.

Commito, who reportedly maintains homes in San Francisco, Palm Springs and Chicago, could not be reached for comment Tuesday. Efforts to obtain comment from his lawyer, former U.S. Atty. Dan K. Webb of Chicago, also were unsuccessful.

Commito’s principal company is Chicago-based Labor Health Plans Inc., but he also owns firms named Labor Health and Benefits Plan and Dental Health Care Alternatives, according to FBI search warrants on file in Chicago.

Active for years in the prepaid health care industry, Commito’s firms usually receive monthly fees from labor unions of $5 to $15 per worker covered, authorities said.

In warrants it has filed, the FBI sought information about alleged payments or gifts from Commito’s firms to a former official of the United Auto Workers who died in December. Agents also sought documents that they believed would show contacts between Commito’s companies and organized crime figures in New York and Chicago, according to court files.

Identified as Mob Associate

The Pennsylvania Crime Commission identified Commito in 1982 as an associate of several Philadelphia-area mobsters, including John James Allu, who was convicted of three perjury counts for his testimony at hearings into New York City Teamsters corruption.

A former Teamster official told The Times that Commito also had been close to Vito Mango, a convicted felon who formerly ran Teamsters Local 413 in Columbus, Ohio, with which Commito had a contract to provide health services.

Court officials in Huntington Beach, Calif., confirmed that a search warrant was served earlier this year on Contact Corp., a prepaid health care company headed by Mark Kusel, in connection with the inquiry. Kusel declined comment on the matter two months ago. A reporter who attempted to call him Tuesday found that the company’s phone had been disconnected.