Case Update: Inglewood mayor’s sexual harassment lawsuit

Inglewood residents are being asked to sign a petition demanding that Inglewood Mayor James Butts pay his own legal fees related to a sexual harassment/wrongful termination lawsuit brought by his former executive assistant Melanie McDade.

A months long investigation has revealed that certain Inglewood vendors were coerced into including McDade into their bid for work related to SoFi Stadium and the Clippers arena.

“If you refused to give McDade $10,000, then you wouldn’t get the contract,” said one vendor who demanded anonymity from this author.  “We all knew who the money was for.”

Related: Inglewood mayor’s home purchase from city consultant raises questions

The claims sound eerily similar to what local trash haulers told investigators about their submitting bids for Inglewood’s trash contract

“I don’t remember the exact language, but the context was, ‘It would be favorable for you if you could find my brother a job,’” Gary Clifford, executive vice president at Athens Services, the low bidder, said in an interview to the Los Angeles Times.

“Put it this way,” Clifford said. “We didn’t hire his brother, and we didn’t get the contract. The company that hired his brother got the contract. And they were $10 million more than us.”

Butts’ profited personally from the trash contract awarded to Consolidated/Republic Services as his brother was paying him rent at the time.

Related: Inglewood mayor profited from brother’s job with city trash hauler, records show

Councilman Eloy Morales benefitted too as he was awarded a consulting contract with a subsidiary of Consolidated.

Related: Inglewood councilman’s clients include companies he’s supported with his votes

Allegations of financial mismanagement of taxpayer funds have become a resounding theme by Treasurer Wanda Brown.  She has consistently reported on the mayor’s absolute control over city hall department heads and by default the city’s finances.

Butts has banished Brown from speaking publicly from the dais with the full support of the voting body of the city council.  She has since begun reporting during public comment from Community Room A, on the 1st floor of City Hall, but Butts has now shut down the public and Brown from speaking from there as well.

Brown has called for investigations from local, state and federal authorities.  Many institutions around Los Angeles County have zero confidence in D.A. Jackie Lacey investigating Black elected officials and are bypassing her office all together and going straight to the feds.

Related: USC Calls For Federal Investigation After Hiring, Firing Former Assemblyman Sebastian Ridley-Thomas

The feds don’t normally publicly comment on ongoing investigations, however, Mayor Butts’ actions are definitely appearing as though he has something to hide and doesn’t need the longest serving elected official in Inglewood, who is over the city’s finances, continuing to point out the financial irregularities of taxpayers money.