Mitchell Englander, Obstruction of Justice, California 2024

LOS ANGELES – A former Los Angeles city councilman has surrendered to FBI agents to face federal charges that he obstructed an investigation into him accepting cash, female escort services, hotel rooms, and expensive meals from a businessman during trips to Las Vegas and Palm Springs, and later lied to the FBI about his conduct.

Mitchell Englander, 49, of Santa Monica, was taken into custody after being named in a seven-count indictment returned by a federal grand jury on January 16. Englander is expected to be arraigned this afternoon at 2:00 in the Roybal Federal Building and Courthouse.

The indictment charges Englander with one count of participating in a scheme to falsify material facts, three counts of making false statements, and three counts of witness tampering.

Englander represented Los Angeles Council District 12 in the San Fernando Valley from July 2011 until he abruptly resigned on December 31, 2018, when he had almost two years left on his term. Among his other duties, Englander served as the Council President Pro-Tempore and was on the Planning and Land Use Management (PLUM) Committee, which oversees many of the most significant commercial and residential development projects in the City of Los Angeles.

The indictment alleges that he schemed to cover up his acceptance of cash payments, expensive meals, and escort services from a businessman – identified in the indictment as Businessperson A – who operated companies in Los Angeles relating to major development projects and sought to increase his business opportunities in the city.

According to the indictment, from August 2017 through December 2018, Englander knowingly and willfully falsified and concealed material facts pertaining to this federal public corruption investigation. Specifically, Englander covered up facts that he had accepted items of value during June 2017 trips to Las Vegas and Palm Springs, the indictment alleges.

On that trip, when he was accompanied by two city staffers, a lobbyist, and a real estate developer, Englander accepted from Businessperson A an envelope with $10,000 in cash, services from a female escort, hotel rooms, $1,000 in casino gambling chips, $34,000 in bottle service at a nightclub, and a $2,481 dinner at a restaurant, according to the indictment. Later, at a golf tournament in Palm Springs on June 12, 2017, Businessperson A allegedly gave Englander an envelope containing $5,000 in cash. Shortly after the trips, Englander arranged for Businessperson A to pitch his business to a friend of Englander’s who was a developer.

The indictment alleges that, on at least three occasions, Englander attempted to corruptly persuade Businessperson A to provide false and misleading information, and omit relevant information from the FBI and federal prosecutors conducting the public corruption investigation.

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