The Los Angeles deputy mayor whose job overseeing the fire department was left empty prior to the deadly Palisades wildfire — because he’d been suspended for calling in a phony bomb threat — was sentenced this week to only a year’s probation and a $5000 fine.
Former Deputy Mayor Brian K. Williams, who oversaw both the fire and police departments for the city, was sentenced on Monday after pleading guilty in June to faking an anti-Israel bomb threat on City Hall last October.
Federal prosecutors, citing Williams’ lack of a criminal record and years of public service, had recommended two years of probation, saying the deputy mayor made the threat because he was “overwhelmed with stress and anxiety and desperate to get out of an ongoing meeting.”
Williams’ lawyer Dmitry Gorin, in his client’s defense, also cited “undiagnosed mental health challenges,” for which he said Williams has undergone ten months of treatment.
Williams’ guilty plea to one felony count of making “threats regarding fire and explosives” could have cost him 10 years in prison.
While the false bomb threat cost Williams, 61, his job with the city, his absence from his role of overseeing both the city’s public safety departments may have contributed to the lack of preparation for and a coordinated response to the devastating wildfire.
In the three weeks prior to the red flag warnings and fire outbreak, Williams was on paid administrative leave from his $181,000 job after the FBI raided his Pasadena home on December 17 on the bomb threat investigation.
Mayor Karen Bass, meanwhile, also was not in City Hall days before the fire. She left for Ghana, Africa, on January 4 to attend the presidential inauguration of John Dramani Mahama.
This apparently left no oversight or city hall coordination in the preparation for a severe Santa Ana windstorm forecasters expected, which ultimately amplified the Palisades fire. That fire took 12 lives and destroyed 6800 homes.
Mayor Bass, who was later criticized for leaving before the wind event, returned on January 8 — after the firestorm was well underway.
This week, a former Palisades resident, Jonathan Rinderknecht, 29, was accused of igniting a fire on Jan. 1 in the Pacific Palisades that is believed to have smoldered underground and ultimately erupted into the Palisades Fire six days later.
However, several investigations have reported that the city was not prepared for the red flag days expected in that first week of January.
In particular, the city failed to “pre-deploy” fire engines to the Palisades ahead of the fire, as had been done in the past, and had understaffed its available engines, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Also, an internal report by the Los Angeles Fire Department released this week also criticized evacuation procedures and lack of coordination with police for traffic control. The result was traffic jams and abandoned vehicles that blocked fire department routes to the fire.
Breitbart News asked the mayor’s office to whom fire officials reported in City Hall during the January fires — given that Williams was suspended and Mayor Bass out of the country — but received no response.
At the time of his expected plea Breitbart News reported that federal authorities were highly critical of the deputy mayor.
“Mr. Williams…not only betrayed the residents of Los Angeles, but responding officers, and the integrity of the office itself, by fabricating a bomb threat,” said Akil Davis, the Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office. “Government officials are held to a heightened standard as we rely on them to safeguard the city.”
Williams held a variety of government positions spanning more than three decades, including assistant city attorney. Mayor Bass appointed him deputy mayor of public safety in 2023.
Williams was allowed to quietly retire from the city in April, according to Los Angeles Magazine.
He is still eligible to collect a city pension despite being a federal felon, the magazine also reported.
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of the Los Angeles crime novel Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
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