Behind the Curtain: Larry Agran and Sandeep Baweja
Larry “Boss Hogg” Agran has a bad habit of surrounding himself with shifty characters. Now, one by one, they are being revealed as criminals.
Meet Sandeep Baweja, an Indian lawyer who was deeply connected behind the scenes in Irvine. He even served on the Irvine Public Schools Foundation, one of the largest education non-profits in California. Earlier this year, he admitted to burning through 2.7 million dollars that was supposed to be safe in his trust account. The money was intended to be paid out to the plaintiffs of a class action suit. How hard is it for one guy to spend $2,700,000??? Actually pretty easy, he blew it all on an online stock trading account. He claims it was a big mistake, but he shows no remorse. He just blamed the market crash, like he was some innocent victim.
The money was stashed in the Union Bank of California, the same branch that I bike past every day. Baweja told his co-counsel that the interest was not paying enough and that “he could get a better return elsewhere” Right, like $27,000 per year isn’t enough. Even if he did get a “better return” from the stock market, I would bet a million dollars that none of the profit was going to be shared with the class action plantiffs(The only ones that actually had a right to the money).
Here is what our dear Mayor had to say, “He was a pretty nice guy, a good person committed to education and community service. Personally I found him to be a good civic leader”. Honestly, I don’t know what Sukhee Kang is smoking, but “good civic leaders” don’t blow $2.7 million of other people’s money. Here’s the killer: Baweja is registered as the Treasurer for Kang, Krom, and Agran’s pet ballot measure committees(Yes on Measure S, Yes on Measure R).
Throughout the entire election cycle, Larry Agran shamelessly promoted Measures R and S, and his slate mailers churned out propaganda in support. All this with Baweja behind the wheel. However, Todd Gallinger claims that his actions had any impact on their election campaign(For some reason that I still can’t imagine, the Register asked Todd Gallinger what he thought). He claims that they hired a professional treasurer involved with the ballot committees. However, as Treasurer, it escapes me that they chose Baweja for the job, when their professional treasurer is listed for every one of their other groups. Don’t the Agranistas realize that a professional treausurer is irrelevant if they aren’t the legal Treasurer? That means Baweja, as the legal Treasurer, could do as he pleased with the campaign funds, since only his signature is required. It probably helps that their filings are nowhere to be found on the Secretary of State’s campaign finance records.
There needs to be an investigation into “Yes on Measure R” and “Yes on Measure S” pronto!
