California State Bar Suspends License of Former City Attorney, Robert Tafoya for Federal Bribery and Tax Evasion Convictions

 

On April 14, 2025 - Office of Chief Trial Counsel for the State Bar of California suspended Robert Nacionales-Tafoya's bar license after receiving his conviction of bribery and tax evasion.

Tafoya pled guilty to bribing current State Senator Susan Rubio with marijuana kickbacks. According to Tafoya, in turn, Rubio would vote to grant those who gave her bribes, a marijuana business license. Rubio apparently amassed around $230,000 in this scheme. Also, in exchange, Tafoya would keep his job as city attorney and receive additional work, if Rubio became State Senator, which happened. Rubio allegedly used her marijuana slush funds to finance her campaign race.

Around 2014, General counsel of Legal Lens, filed a bar complaint against Robert Tafoya when he misrepresented his signature in a court filing, amounting to forgery. It's similar to the same type of forgery that Cristeta Paguirigan-Summers, who was the consultant for marijuana licenses in Baldwin Park, committed and was disbarred for. (Legal Lens suspects that Cristeta was Tafoya's legal mentor.) Despite the clear and convincing evidence, the State Bar dropped the complaint against Tafoya.

The State Bar should make available all complaints that have been filed against Robert Tafoya in light of the Tom Girdardi scandal. Girardi embezzled more than $15 million. Over 40 years, the public filed more than 200 complaints against Girardi, but the bar failed to discipline Girardi over any of them. Had it done so, it's probable that victims would not have been so injured.

Hence, the public should also know how many complaints were filed against Tafoya, and in fact, all attorney complaints should be made available as a public record that could be requested by anyone.

City of Los Angeles Illegally Fines People for Parking for $93; Mayor Karen Bass, Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, and Ken Husting to Blame.

Ken Husting, 
Principal Transportation Engineer for
LADOT's Bureau of Parking Management

 To be heard on June 20th, this year, I filed a challenge to a parking ticket I illegally received for $93 from the City of Los Angeles. The problem with the ticket is that I was fined for parking in a red fire zone, when the curb is painted a dark blue grey and not red. See picture below. 

I complained to Mayor Karen Bass; Council Member Eunisses Hernandez (who is in charge of that district), and Ken Husting, the Principal Transportation Engineer for LADOT's Bureau of Parking Management. I filed two agency challenges to the ticket, but both of them said that the ticket was valid, even though the color of the paint is not red. There are no other parking signs to give notice to motorists this is an illegal area to park in.

On February 3, 2025, Husting emailed, "in my opinion there is enough to see a red curb." Clearly, this is contradicted by the picture below.

According to NBC last month, the city of Los Angeles wants to more aggressively enforce parking citations as a way to raise revenue for the City. By aggressive enforcement, it also intends to cite motorists who are not illegally parked, which is the equivalent of stealing their money.

Crosstown stated that the parking enforcement staff costs are actually costing the City more money than parking citations actually bring in. Ken Husting's salary alone, according to Transparent California, with benefits, is $308, 128.29.

The solution to this is to hold Mayor Karen Bass, who a number of people have claimed in incompetent, because she was partying in Ghana, while Los Angeles burned; along with Hernandez accountable. Currently, to pay for just the gross amount of Husting's salary, the City needs to issue 3313 tickets per year. The City needs to rethink through its parking scheme and enforcement.