L.A. Ethics Commission head fined $1,500

[Ron Burgundy]

AP - The City Ethics Commission's president was fined Tuesday for contributing $500 to his councilman son's re-election campaign.

Gil Garcetti agreed to a $1,500 fine under a written settlement in which he acknowledged inadvertently violating ethics commission rules that prohibit ethics commission members from contributing to candidates in city races.

Garcetti, a former Los Angeles County district attorney, told investigators his wife had filled out the check and asked him to sign it. He said he didn't notice it was for the re-election campaign of his son, Council President Eric Garcetti.

"It was the power of my wife saying 'Sign here,'" Garcetti said.

The ethics commission normally would have handled such a matter, but because of the conflict of interest, the city's Board of Referred Powers approved the penalty instead, said Deputy City Clerk Barbara Greaves.

"The respondent was a member of the very commission charged with enforcing campaign finance law and, as such, should have been particularly aware of the city law that prohibits ethics commissioners from making campaign donations to any person running for city public office," the commission's deputy executive director, David Tristan, wrote in the settlement agreement.

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Ethics Commission: Los Angeles City Ethics Commission