PROGRAM # 396
GUEST: David Cartwright
TITLE: LAUSD Outside Counsel - O'Melveny & Myers

Taped: 4-30-04

DAVID CARTWRIGHT, serving as the "Chief outside real estate counsel" to the LAUSD while working with the politically powerful law firm of O'Melveny & Myers, describes how he charted the course as "part of a project team that was specifically created to start knocking down the barriers to school construction." He states emphatically, "And when I say 'knocking down,' I'm very serious about that. It was not to get around them or to go under them. It was to KNOCK THEM DOWN...". In fact, he helped write new state legislation to permit the eye-brow raising and controversial Joint Ventures concept which former prosecutors and other critics say led to the $175 million fraud known as Belmont.

PART 2 - LAUSD LAWYER BLAMES INSPECTOR GENERAL FOR BELMONT CLOSURE.

In addition to the Inspector General, DAVID CARTWRIGHT, LAUSD outside counsel blamed school board member David Tokofsky and legal counselors to LAUSD Inspector General for shutting down Belmont construction. Cartwright claimed they didn't "have a clue about school construction or oil and gas." Describing them as having "...a fairly scandalous role in the Belmont project..." "...who have quite reprehensible conduct in this whole affair."