top of page
Search
Writer's pictureHowie Klein

The Tony Cárdenas Scandal Is Just Starting, As Feckless House Dems Prepare To Make Him DCCC Chair


Someone forgot FTX

House Democrats are about to elect one of their most contemptuous and vile members, Tony Cárdenas (New Dem-CA), chair of the DCCC. Most of the members are doing this with at least some knowledge that Cárdenas is an even worse child groomer/molester than Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who Democrats have been clamoring to see prosecuted by the Department of Justice. Cárdenas, though, they want to elevate to the DCCC, as though criminality is an essential requirement of DCCC leaders.


If you read DWT with any regularity, you’ve already seen this trailer from the film upcoming documentary Pariah. Cárdenas has told his colleagues in the House that the trailer was invented by his primary opponent, San Fernando progressive activist Angelica Dueñas, who he buried in an avalanche of corporate cash— and beat 69,671 (58.6%) to 49,320 (41.4%). Cárdenas spent $1,519,303— even more than he raised this cycle (and includes tainted money from Sam Bankman-Fried)— to Dueñas’ $98,157. (She spent $1.99 per vote. The highly unpopular Cárdenas spent an astronomical $21.80 per vote.)



Earlier today, the Daily Beast published a report by William Bredderman that puts the lie to Cárdenas’ talltale to his colleagues about Dueñas making that trailer. It also makes you wonder how Gavin Newsom's ability to find the right people to appoint to top level jobs. More on that below.


The documentary is not primarily about Cárdenas, but about his crony and campaign donor, L.A.-area real estate magnate and hardcore porn producer Mark Handel, brother of KFI’s notoriously far right hate talk radio host Bill Handel, (another longtime Cárdenas supporter and campaign donor). The scandalously corrupt Handel, wrote Bredderman “was once able to get state legislation specially drafted to suit his developments, persuade the city council to give his projects an interest-free six-figure loan, and to cultivate ties with men who would later represent the region in the House of Representatives and U.S. Senate. But according to materials from a forthcoming documentary— which the Daily Beast corroborated through public records research and conversations with San Fernando Valley insiders— Handel, now facing federal fraud and money-laundering charges, maintained a parallel career as one of the most notorious and misogynistic figures in hardcore porn: Khan Tusion.”


Lucas Heyne and Sara Gardephe, the film’s directors, told Bredderman that, L.A.’s most brutal and vicious porn-maker has studiously “labored to conceal his identity. Besides the pseudonym, Khan Tusion used a voice distorter on film and never let himself be photographed or shown above the shoulders at industry events. In the 2001 British documentary Hardcore, the director forced the filmmaker to keep the camera pointed at his torso, as he insisted he had a ‘different life’ as a ‘pillar of the community’ that he needed to preserve. He claimed he made the videos not for money but to attain a high he described as ‘better than drugs.’ But Heyne and Gardephe discovered it was an open secret that Khan Tusion was in truth the politically-wired property developer Mark Handel, the brother of popular but controversial radio host Bill Handel.”


Federal records show that the now-defunct trademarks for Khan Tusion’s signature properties, from his production house Pariah Pictures down to titles such as Frank Wank and Piss Mops, all belonged to a company called MNP Enterprises LLC. California incorporation records show that not only did Handel register this entity in his own name, but even used the name and Calabasas address of his real estate firm, MWH Development, on the filing.
Insiders, most of whom requested anonymity to speak freely, described the San Fernando Valley as both the epicenter of the American porn industry and a locus of political power in Southern California. But the two circles rarely overlap, they said, as elected officials find the refracted glare of the set lights unflattering for their public image.
Campaign finance records show Handel poured thousands upon thousands of dollars into the electoral efforts of local politicians— most notably, now-Rep. Tony Cárdenas (D-CA) and Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA), whom Handel has backed since their days on the Los Angeles City Council. Tight local laws capped donations, but sources told the Daily Beast that Handel served as a liaison for Cardenas to the larger Los Angeles real estate community— allowing him to garner donations from an array of developers.
Handel’s 2020 federal indictment, for allegedly concealing income and business dealings amid bankruptcy proceedings, also asserts he engaged in this kind of activity, though it makes no reference to Cárdenas or any other specific official.
“Defendant Handel also solicited large amounts of donations from his business associates and others to be paid to politicians, which defendant Handel described as being a ‘bundler’,” reads the charging document, which could net the mogul a prison sentence of up to 120 years. “Handel did this, at least in part, to benefit his real estate projects by gaining access to and having influence over politicians.”
Public records also show that Handel formed multiple corporate ventures with one of the San Fernando Valley’s most important power brokers— James Acevedo, regarded as the political godfather to both Cardenas and Padilla. Handel’s firm, MWH, would later employ a top aide of Padilla’s from his time as city council president. And Padilla’s protégé, former Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes, was the legislator who penned the state bill to allow an embattled MWH project to proceed. Fuentes did not answer requests for comment.
On the city council in the mid-2000s— around the same time as Khan Tusion was cranking out series like Hellfire Sex and Butt-Licking Anal WhoresCardenas and Padilla helped push through Handel’s real estate projects in their districts, even over local opposition.
Cárdenas declined to comment for this story. Padilla and Acevedo did not respond to repeated outreach from the Daily Beast. It is thus impossible to ascertain whether they knew about Handel’s alter ego.
What is certain is that they accepted his support in spite of his highly publicized 1996 arrest in an underage prostitution sting, in which he and another of his business partners— a then-L.A. Building and Safety Commissioner— allegedly paid for oral sex from a 17-year-old girl. Handel was initially found guilty and was sentenced to jail time and probation, although he later got the conviction reversed on appeal.
Another beneficiary of Handel’s political and personal largesse, former city and state lawmaker Richard Alarcon— an ally-turned-enemy of the Acevedo-Cárdenas-Padilla organization— maintained he was unaware of Handel’s dual identity until quite recently.
“I had no idea whatsoever, and you know, we worked on housing projects,” Alarcon told the Daily Beast, adding that he regarded the team of lobbyists Handel worked with to advance his developments as “very respectable.”
Alarcon found himself entangled in the most recent, and perhaps most sordid, chapter of Handel’s story, which played out in 2018 and 2019 and which forms a central episode in Pariah.
By then, Cárdenas was in the House, Padilla was California’s Secretary of State, and Handel was enmeshed in the bankruptcy case that would ultimately culminate in his arrest. “Khan Tusion,” meanwhile, had mysteriously vanished from the porn world following the 2010 release of Midnight Prowl 17— coinciding with the steep decline of the San Fernando Valley scene during the internet era but also, Heyne noted, with the increasing accessibility of public records online.
But it was at this moment that the sleazy underside of Handel’s life came closest to exposure.
In April 2018, an anonymous plaintiff filed a civil suit in Los Angeles Superior Court alleging an unnamed local official had groomed and then groped her as a teenage girl. The complaint was lodged against a “John Doe,” but Cárdenas quickly came forward to identify himself as the accused and to deny the allegations. His attorney characterized the claimant as “the daughter of a disgruntled former employee” and a potential “victim of manipulation.”
The case started to fall apart after Alarcon, who had challenged Cárdenas for his seat in 2016, revealed that a man he believed to be the father of the accuser had approached him offering dirt on the incumbent in exchange for a job. The plaintiff’s attorney dropped the case in 2019, and she ultimately withdrew the claim. The judge dismissed it with prejudice, meaning it can never be refiled, and Cárdenas cheered his “total vindication.”
But there was one detail in the suit that appears to have never been contested, and which Cárdenas’ team explicitly declined to address when questioned by the Daily Beast— the accuser asserted that Cárdenas had arranged with Handel for her family to relocate from a trailer park to a four-bedroom house the developer owned completely free of charge.
Handel even seemed to confirm the claim to the Los Angeles Times, though he maintained he had put the family in the home to keep it free of squatters ahead of its planned demolition.
The developer’s “nom-de-porn” even featured in a letter the accuser’s attorney penned to the Office of Congressional Ethics.
“Mr. Handel was allegedly also known as ‘Khan Tusion,’ a hardcore porn producer,” the missive reads.
Luckily for Handel, this assertion seemed to get lost in the welter of scandal around the case, and he kept himself out of the headlines until his arrest last year.
He is due to appear in federal court in Los Angeles the morning of February 21, 2023.
But Heyne and Gardephe said they found that the infamy of Khan Tusion’s name, and the aura of fear surrounding it, still lingers in the seamier corners of the Valley.
“People honestly were scared to talk to us. It took a lot of time,” said Gardephe. “Their impression of him was that he was a powerful man, that he had a lot of politicians as friends.”

How excited is the NRCC that the House Democrats are likely to elect Cárdenas to head the DCCC? I asked the ones over there who I know. None would comment on the record. One told me it will be the beginning of a great 2024 election cycle— for them. Another told me they’re just sitting quietly biding their time.

505 views

1 Comment


dcrapguy
dcrapguy
Nov 26, 2022

well, when you need to replace someone as pathetic as spm (with someone even worse), you really need to dig deep... dontcha?


yet still no epiphany!!!


there has been something terribly wrong with all americans (non-nazi category) to keep supporting a party that gets evil enough to even ponder nom'ing, much less ELECTING, a pos like this to a position of power.

Like
bottom of page