Former Los Angeles City Councilman Mitch Englander has been ordered by the city Ethics Commission to pay $79,830.50 in penalties for failing to disclose money he took in gifts in 2017. He took more than $20,000 during trips to Vegas and Palm Springs. The penalty was based on two counts of accepting excessive gifts, a count of misuse of a city position and two counts of failing to disclose gifts including casino chips, travel expenses and cash. The Ethics Commission’s Enforcement Director, Kenneth Hardy, said Englander was also being penalized for misusing his position for his private benefit when he used his city council position as “a vehicle to obtain gifts which he was not entitled to.” Englander served time in a federal prison in Tucson, then was transferred to a Long Beach re-entry facility in 2021, and was released from federal custody this past February.
