Yesterday, The L.A. Times Reported That Tony Cárdenas Is Retiring But... They Forgot To Report Why

Corrupt San Fernando Valley career pol Tony Cárdenas is retiring just as the film about his child rape case is about to be released. That’s not exactly how the L.A. Times reported the news— which is why slime buckets like Cárdenas have such long and lucrative political careers. He started in the state Assembly in 1996, was elected to the L.A. City Council in 2003 and then to Congress in 2012. A big shot in the ‘hood Cárdenas, a pretty shady character to begin with, was credibly accused by golf star Angela Villela Chavez of drugging her and molesting her when she was 16. After a court couldn’t come to a decision, Pelosi (and McCarthy) decided to bury the case in the House.

Yesterday, Erin Logan reported that the 60 year old Cárdenas won’t be seeking reelection, but neglected to tie the decision to the impending release of the film, instead focussing on stuff like how Cárdenas “was the first Latino to represent the district.” After an interview last week, she quoted him saying “The truth of the matter is I thought I could do this just for a few years... I’m just at the age where I have enough energy and experience to maybe do something [different] and have another chapter of a career where I don’t have to go to Washington, D.C., 32 weeks out of the year.”

With a straight face and without mentioning corruption or bribery or Sam Bankman Fried or anything like that, Logan wrote that Iin DC, Cárdenas chaired BOLD PAC, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’ fundraising arm, and under his tenure, the committee’s coffers grew, as did the number of elected Latinos in Congress.”

He ran for DCCC chair and was an early favorite until— somehow— members started finding out about the rape case and the film being made about it. That was too much even for Hakeem Jeffries, who nixed the DCCC job.

The closest Logan came to explaining his announced retirement’s connection to the case was to note, deep into the puff piece that “In the wake of the #MeToo movement, a woman sued Cárdenas, saying that he had sexually assaulted her when she was a teenager. The woman later dropped her lawsuit, which Cárdenas’ lawyers characterized as a ‘total vindication.’” Cárdenas used a combination of bribery and threats to get her to drop the case and that was anything but any kind of vindication.

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, “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… 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… 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… 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 Whores— Cardenas and Padilla helped push through Handel’s real estate projects in their districts, even over local opposition.” Cárdenas was able to pull the right strings to get the movie trailer removed from YouTube but… here you go:

The district has a D+51 partisan lean, which means there will be a battle between Democrats to succeed Cárdenas. He’s backing Assemblywoman Luz Rivas, a machine candidate— mentioned by Logan, who seems to have forgotten to mention Angélica Dueñas, who ran against him last year and has been running against him again. That L.A. Times wasn’t always much a bundle of turds when it came to Cárdenas. In 2019, David Zahniser reported that the case being dropped was “an abrupt end to an incendiary case that, according to Chavez, was inspired in part by the #MeToo movement, which has surfaced incidents of sexual harassment and abuse by celebrities and politicians. The two sides reached their agreement two months after Chavez’s [shady] attorney, Lisa Bloom, said her firm needed to drop out of the case for unspecified reasons. Chavez, now 28, told The Times after Wednesday’s hearing that she never would have come forward with her allegations without her lawyer’s ‘confidence and backing. I regret my decision in choosing her as my attorney,’ said Chavez, who now lives in Lancaster.

Chavez had alleged in her lawsuit that Cárdenas had molested her in 2007, when she was a rising junior golf star, after she collapsed at a country club in Cheviot Hills. She said the incident occurred while Cardenas, then a councilman, was driving her to a hospital.

Chavez also claimed that Cárdenas had given her ice water with a peculiar taste shortly before she collapsed.

And a little something about Angélica Dueñas (and you can contribute to her campaign here.)