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In our monthly newsletter, we provide important information about the work of the Oakland City Attorney's Office -- plus updates on legal issues and matters that impact Oakland residents and businesses.
This month: Update on antitrust lawsuit against major banks; status report on illegal dumping enforcement; major cases and legal matters; and as always, the City Attorney in the Community.
As always, I look forward to your comments, thoughts and questions about how we are conducting the City's business.
Very truly yours,
Barbara J. Parker
Oakland City Attorney
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City Continues Prosecution of Banks for Antitrust Violations
Lawsuit charges banks and financial institutions with conspiring to overcharge cities, including Oakland
I am pleased to provide an update on the federal antitrust lawsuit Oakland and other cities filed against some of the nation's largest and most powerful financial firms (City of Oakland v. AIG Financial Products Corp., United States District Court Case No. C 08-2116 MMC).
The lawsuit charges some of the world's largest financial institutions with conspiring to gouge Oakland taxpayers and residents and other American cities by price fixing and bid rigging in the municipal bond market. Defendants include AIG, Bank of America, Bear Stearns, JPMorgan Chase, Wachovia Bank and others.
This month, the City finalized a settlement with defendant GE Funding Capital Market Services and its subsidiaries. The agreement will bring in $281,750 for the City. Last year, we secured an additional $200,000 settlement from Wachovia. The City continues to pursue the other financial companies and brokers who brazenly conspired to provide cities like Oakland with artificially low bids for Guaranteed Investment Contracts ("GICs"). Cities use GICs to earn interest on municipal bond funds. By colluding to avoid competitive bidding, these financial companies provided Oakland and other cities artificially low interest earnings, thereby cheating residents and taxpayers out of a legitimate rate of return on their money.
This collusion among competitors is a clear and flagrant violation of federal and state antitrust laws, which prohibit any agreement by companies to fix prices, rig bids and/or allocate specific customers.
To date, the settlement amounts are not large considering these entities' earnings. However, the lawsuit sends a message to these companies that Oakland and other municipalities will not tolerate predatory schemes, and we will invoke the legal avenues available to us to assure these institutions are held accountable.
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Illegal Dumping Enforcement Update
We are continuing to make cracking down on illegal dumping a top priority. As we reported last month, we use photos and other evidence from the public to bring illegal dumpers to justice. With the help of photos from members of the public, the Neighborhood Law Corps unit in my Office is building cases against illegal dumpers, and the City is issuing major fines. Some of the cases are forwarded to the District Attorney's Office to consider criminal charges. The DA's office recently filed criminal charges in two of those cases. In one case, a Hayward resident was photographed throwing bags of household garbage from his truck onto the sidewalk and street in the Elmhurst neighborhood. The DA charged him with three misdemeanors and a probation violation. In the second case, featured in the story Oakland City Attorney Takes Note of Dumpers Behaving Badly on KRON 4 news, the DA charged an Oakland resident with three misdemeanors for dumping fencing and construction materials on the street in West Oakland. Below we update information regarding the results of my Office's partnership with the City Administrator's Office and the Public Works Department to enforce illegal dumping laws and hold violators accountable. Results so far: - Total number of citations: 70
- Total number of warning letters issued: 66
- Total amount collected in fines: $16,315.50
To report incidents of illegal dumping, go to the Public Works Agency's on line service request page, or go to
Photos of the license plate numbers of vehicles used for illegal dumping are ideal. If a photo is not available, write down the license plate number, and please avoid confrontation when documenting illegal dumping incidents. |
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City Attorney in the Community
Sun Reporter 70th Anniversary Gala
Seventy years ago, The Reporter newspaper launched to document and give voice to African Americans who came to work in the wartime shipyards of the Bay Area. The Reporter later merged with The Sun newspaper to become the Sun-Reporter.
On June 7, more than 800 people turned out for the 70th Anniversary Gala of the newspaper at the San Francisco Marriott. Luminaries who spoke at the event included California Attorney General Kamala Harris, former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, Dezie Woods-Jones, president of Black Women Organized for Political Action, and Revered Amos Brown. The keynote speaker was Frederick Haynes III, pastor of the Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas, who praised the newspaper for its coverage of Black leaders and politicians in a stirring and mesmerizing speech.
This event celebrated a venerable Bay Area institution that has provided a voice for African Americans by covering important events that were not reported in other newspapers and helping to empower and launch the careers of numerous African American leaders.
MISSSEY 3rd Annual Inspire Change Gala
On June 21, representatives from my Office attended the "Inspire Change" Gala to support MISSSEY, a dedicated organization that fights the commercial sexual exploitation of children.
The tragic fact is that human trafficking and the sexual exploitation of minors are a cancer that is destroying the lives of many children and teens in Oakland. It is a crisis and an outrage that girls, and some boys, are bought and sold, beaten and raped in our community.
As you may recall, in 2012 I made the decision to go to trial to shut down two hotels that were operating as hubs of prostitution and the exploitation of minors in Oakland. We shut down both hotels for a year, the maximum time allowed by state law. One of the hotels went out of business permanently. The other has reopened under a new name and with strict operating conditions, and we have had no new reports of prostitution activity there.
I am continuing to use the resources of my Office to stop this abuse of women and girls in our community. MISSSEY, which stands for Motivating, Inspiring, Supporting and Serving Sexually Exploited Youth, is one of the leaders in this fight. MISSSEY's services include healing and recovery for survivors of human trafficking. At the gala on June 21, a survivor named Cody Foute spoke powerfully about her experiences as a minor trapped in a life of exploitation and abuse, and how organizations like MISSSEY helped her to escape from her former life. Thank you to the organizers of the event and to hosts Cynthia Lee and Sarai Smith for their incredible work.
I urge you to support this worthy organization. For more information, go to www.misssey.org.
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Updates on Legal Cases & Matters
1. State Court of Appeal decision in The People v. Manzo, et al., Superior Court Case No. RG10541141
This month, the California Court of Appeal upheld and affirmed the trial court's order of a preliminary injunction against 40 individual members of the Norteños street gang in Oakland's Fruitvale neighborhood.
Within a specific area in the Fruitvale neighborhood, enjoined defendants are prohibited from carrying guns, intimidating witnesses, and with certain exceptions, from associating with each other in public or being on the street during late night hours. All defendants can "opt out" of the injunction if they are no longer involved in the gang.
Defendants' counsel asked the appellate court to reverse the trial court's order on the grounds that City allegedly presented insufficient evidence to support the preliminary injunction. In its opinion, the appellate court rejected that argument and noted that the defendants failed to meet the most basic requirements of appellate briefs.
The Alameda Count Superior Court ordered Oakland's first gang injunction against 15 members of the North Side Oakland gang in 2010. In 2012, the trial court issued a second injunction against 40 members of the Norteños who were named as defendants in the City's lawsuit.
In 2011, the City Council directed the City Attorney's Office to pursue the two injunctions, and ruled that no additional injunction lawsuits could be filed absent an independent study to determine the effectiveness of the existing measures. In keeping with the Council's policy decision, this Office has continued the preliminary injunctions against small groups of defendants in the North Side Oakland and Norteños gangs. To our knowledge, no defendant has been arrested for violating the court's order. However, the District Attorney has charged at least two defendants with criminal contempt for violating the order while committing other crimes.
Read the Court of Appeal decision
2. Price v. City of Oakland, et al., Superior Court Case No. RG12639537
Plaintiff Price dismissed the City from this lawsuit after we produced evidence showing that the City was not liable for the plaintiff's injuries.
Unfortunately, the plaintiff in this case, Mr. Price, suffered serious injuries when he was hit by a van as he crossed International Boulevard near 80th Avenue. The cost to taxpayers and residents would have been major given the injuries if the court found the City was at fault.
Evidence we prepared showed the following: (1) the State of California owns the areas of International Boulevard where the accident occurred, (2) the City's role in designing and maintaining the roadway was not a basis to hold the City liable, (3) the intersection was not dangerous and (4) the conditions the plaintiff said made the intersection dangerous did not actually contribute to the accident.
3. Brooks v. City of Oakland, Superior Court Case No. RG13674292
This is another case that we successfully resolved with no payment of taxpayer money. The plaintiff, Mr. Brooks, sued the City in 2013, asserting that he fell while stepping out of the elevator in the Clay Street garage and suffered a significant knee injury. Plaintiff sued the garage operator, Douglas Parking, which then filed a cross-complaint against the City for indemnity and attorney's fees. After discussions with Douglas Parking regarding the evidence and applicable law, the company agreed to compensate Mr. Brooks and dismiss the City.
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