Convicted Former PR Exec Says He Was Fall Guy
Breaking his two-year silence, former Fleishman-Hillard public relations executive Doug Dowie says he’s a fall guy in an investigation of Los Angeles City Hall corruption that failed to net a single public official, the Los Angeles Daily News reports. Dowie, a key adviser and insider in Mayor James Hahn’s administration, was convicted May 16 by a federal court jury on 15 counts of conspiracy and wire fraud in a scheme that involved overbilling the Department of Water and Power, the Port of Los Angeles, the Worldwide Church of God and architect Frank Gehry’s firm for his services. The interview with the Daily News, where he was once editor, was conducted at the Pacific Dining Car in downtown Los Angeles, a favorite haunt of Dowie’s, and one that is a regular meeting place for the city’s political elite.
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Temple of Talent Casts for a Tenant
A Beverly Hills building, long the seat of Creative Artists Agency’s power, may draw a record rent, the Los Angeles Times reports. To people in the entertainment industry, 9830 Wilshire has always been more than just a place to work. Completed in 1989, it was the pet project of then-CAA Chairman Michael Ovitz, who at the time was routinely called the most powerful executive in Hollywood. Perched at the intersection of Wilshire and Santa Monica boulevards, it has been a place where a sitting president, a parade of corporate titans and the world’s biggest stars all have come to pay homage. It comes with a kitchen designed by celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck, a 100-seat screening room and a 27-foot-tall Roy Lichtenstein mural too big to be removed from the atrium. Added bonus: chi circulation courtesy of an international feng shui expert. In recent weeks, Southern California’s elite real estate brokers have been quietly circling. They hope to land the tenant willing to pay about $6 million a year , at $5 a square foot per month, an apparent Beverly Hills record , to rent the I.M. Pei-designed building.
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New Development Has Helped Tinseltown to Shine
Hollywood’s best days were behind her. Now Hollywood is a place to be rather than flee, with more than 3,500 residential units in the works, the Associated Press reports in the Daily Breeze. More than $1 billion in residential development is slated for a few blocks surrounding Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street — an unprecedented buildup designed to bring the “It” factor back to a place that once was the epicenter of cool. The turnaround began in the mid-1980s when the city created a redevelopment area in Hollywood. Subway stops were later added, and a group of merchants banded together a decade ago to form a business improvement district and step up security patrols. All this prompted developers to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to revitalize the area’s entertainment core, anchored by the Hollywood & Highland Center, home of the Kodak Theatre and the Academy Awards.
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Woman Has Had a Medley of Scams
Now awaiting trial in a Rancho Cucamonga jail, Laura Lee Medley has spent most of her adult life concocting and carrying out a series of outrageous scams against individuals, businesses and cities throughout the Western United States, the Long Beach Press Telegram reports. Medley, 36, was arrested in Las Vegas after being accused of fraudulently suing several Southern California cities including Long Beach over alleged violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act. When police arrived to arrest her, she leapt from her wheelchair and ran. In Arizona, she once was accused of impersonating a county prosecutor, manufacturing a rape charge in an attempt to extort her freedom from jail officials, and swindling $20,000 from a waiter and father of four whom she had befriended in her early 20s. In Oregon, she tried to obtain a $608,000 home loan in someone else’s name. In California, she succeeded in getting the cities of Alhambra and South Pasadena to pay her a total of more than $13,000 in damages for alleged ADA violations.
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Hollywood Wants No Part in SEC Plan
A plan to force companies to disclose salaries of high-paid employees who are not corporate officers is in jeopardy after a backlash from Hollywood, where film and TV stars often get bigger paychecks than executives, the Los Angeles Times reports. Opponents claim the measure could put media companies at a competitive disadvantage by forcing them to disclose detailed compensation packages for luminaries such as “Tonight Show” host Jay Leno, film director Steven Spielberg and “Today” anchor Katie Couric. The new rule was proposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission this year as a means to ensure that top corporate policymakers cannot evade disclosure rules. But officials acknowledge that it could potentially expose the salaries of actors and athletes as well. Among those objecting to the SEC proposal are DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc., CBS Corp., Walt Disney Co., the NBC Universal unit of General Electric Co., News Corp. and Viacom Inc.
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