By MAGNOLIA LAFLEUR | Reporter
Real estate developer Arman Gabaee—also known as Arman Gabay—has pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges of bribery for offering to buy a million-dollar home for a Los Angeles county public official in exchange for solidifying a $45 million county lease for him.
Gabaee entered his guilty plea on Monday, May 2, before the United States District Judge George H. Wu. He will have to pay a minimum fine of $1,149,000, as well as any restitution ordered by the court.
Co-founder and co-managing partner of the Hollywood-based residential and commercial firm, Charles Company, Gabaee was found guilty of bribing Thomas M. Shepos, a county official who—at the time—worked in the real estate division. Shepos was the main figure involved in awarding contracts to real estate developers and contractors.
Gabaee began paying Shepos $1,000 per month, starting in 2011 through April 2017, in exchange for county leases, non-public information, exclusive contract terms and other desired benefits, according to a Department of Justice press release. Shepos received a total of $6,000 in cash bribes from December 2016 to April 2017 and was secretly recording the transaction per the direction of the FBI. He was also offered a Northern California residence worth over $1 million dollars, if Shepos could aid in securing a county lease that Gabaee owned and was redeveloping in the Hawthorne Mall.
Gabaee wanted to build a five-story apartment complex at 17000 Sunset Blvd.—a project that was approved by city officials and championed the town’s Save the Bluffs efforts. Sarah Conner, board chair of the Pacific Palisades Residents Association, said she started the movement.
“I can’t speak to the merits of Gabaee’s guilty plea on a different development project,” Conner told the Palisadian-Post. “But I can say Pacific Palisades is thankful we fought off Gabaee’s project at 17000 Sunset. That Gabaee project was approved by the city even though the site has poor hydrology and geology, and would have been a danger to the hundreds of people living beneath it. Fortunately, the West LA Area Planning Commission realized the project and the site were completely inappropriate for development and conclusively rejected it.”
Larry Larson—a general partner of Pacific Investment Co. and owner of Pacific Gardens Apartments—along with his neighbors, were successful appellants in the case against Gabaee.
“I was involved in an appeal to the Los Angeles Planning Commission several years ago on a massive apartment complex that [Gabaee] wanted to develop on a garbage dump on Sunset near Marquez Place in Pacific Palisades,” Larson told the Post. “That project was wisely rejected by all of the planning commissioners.”
Shepos pleaded guilty in November 2018 and is scheduled to be sentenced on June 27.
“I believe that corruption and bribes by wealthy corrupt developers to city and county officials have been commonplace and must end,” Larson said.
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