Before the Palisades Fire, One Consultant Warned LADWP's Procurement Fraud Would Kill People. The Ninth Circuit Will Decide if He Was Right.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tuesday, March 31, 2026 - Chapter One of Nine

Embargoed Until: 9:00 AM Eastern / 6:00 AM Pacific

Before the Palisades Fire, One Consultant Warned LADWP's Procurement Fraud Would Kill People. The Ninth Circuit Will Decide if He Was Right.

The Human Cost of Bid Rigging and Procurement Fraud - Ten Years. Three Rigged Bids. 1,600 Layoffs. Rate Increases. A Father and Daughter Killed by Faulty Power Lines. Twelve Dead in the Palisades Fire. Court Clerks in Two Courts Protecting the Scheme. A Federal Filing That Predicted All of It Dismissed Through a False Court Order. The Defendants Disputed None of the Facts.

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LOS ANGELES, CA - In two documented bids alone, with a combined projected maximum budget of $8,000,000, LADWP's procurement fraud scheme nearly cost their ratepayers over $21,000,000. The scheme operating inside the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power eliminates qualified bidders in favor of a pre-selected vendor based on relationships with city insiders. That effort was foiled by a competing bidder who identified the irregularities in the bid process, filed protests, and later filed a lawsuit to bring these problems to the attention of the city executives and the Mayor a decade ago. In this case, the firm eliminated was Maverick Consulting Group LLC - and the one consultant who has been fighting for a decade to prevent it is Marvin Brown - founder of Maverick Consulting Group LLC. Brown holds several degrees including a Bachelor of Science in Business Economics and Management Information Systems from California State University Fullerton, and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Phoenix. Brown applied the analytical precision of his education and profession to identify and document one of the most sophisticated procurement fraud schemes in Los Angeles history. For his trouble he was labeled a serial complainant and restrained from contract awards on bids he clearly won - facts acknowledged by the federal district court in its November 27, 2024 order: "Plaintiff's bid had the highest score of all submitted proposals. By its own rules and regulations, LADWP is supposed to award the contract to the proposal with the highest score. Analysis of records released in December 2022 revealed they had been modified to conceal the fact that Pandora's proposal earned a low score. Pandora's overall scores were over 100 points higher on all three scoresheets." - Dkt. 48, November 27, 2024. Facts overlooked by three judges. Now before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Maverick's complaints documented a chain of infrastructure failures stretching across ten years, failures that have led to the untimely deaths of citizens and damages calculated in billions. Maverick consultants implement processes, policies, controls and procedures to improve business processes and prevent catastrophic failures - of the kind that killed twelve people in the Palisades Fire in January 2025. This is the story of what happens when qualified firms are excluded from the bid process. It costs jobs. It costs dollars. And it costs the one thing that can never be replaced, human life.

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I. The Math - Two Bids. Multiply by Hundreds Per Year.

In 2022, Maverick Consulting Group LLC submitted a proposal for RFP 90654 - a $6,000,000 maximum budget Business Process Improvement contract. Maverick's bid: $5,000,000. Score: 248.45. Highest scoring. Lowest cost. Most responsive. The competing firm, Pandora Consulting Associates LLC, submitted a bid totaling $7,483,000 - $1,483,000 over the maximum budget. Pandora's proposal contained no fixed bid price, no all-inclusive cost proposal, and none of seven mandatory compliance appendices. The Procurement Evaluation Committee scored Pandora 192 - a failing score. Under any legitimate procurement process Pandora should have been disqualified and Maverick should have been awarded the contract in March 2022. Instead LADWP attempted to award an unlawful contract three months later. Pandora was recommended for contract award. Maverick's request for bid results and scoresheets to conduct a compliance and responsiveness check was denied. A protest was filed. A request for records pursuant to the California Public Records Act was also denied. Brown petitioned the state court for a Writ of Mandamus in July 2022. That case is now before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit - scheduled for oral argument July 2026. A case that could have been resolved in 90 days - delayed four years by obstruction caused by officers of the court. The first bid was submitted in 2015. RFP 90289 was also delayed and rebid after a protest was filed. Brown's protest appeal was heard by the Board of Commissioners - presided over by BOC President David Levine - and sent right back to the Department alleged to have engaged in the unlawful conduct. The project was delayed, rebid, and awarded without providing notice.

In RFP 90654 the scoresheets were falsified after the evaluation was complete. Maverick's score was reduced from 248.45 to 237.2. Pandora's score was increased from 192 to 302.2 and was recommended for contract award. LADWP Assistant Utility Buyer Andrew Castro then collaborated with Pandora's Managing Member Marco Sands in real time via email - after the award date had passed - to revise Pandora's defective proposal, add the missing compliance documents, and adjust fees. The emails are in the federal court record. LADWP's own attorneys did not dispute a single one of these facts in their Ninth Circuit Answering Brief, in District Court, or in State Court.

This was not the first time. In 2016, Maverick submitted the most qualified proposal for RFP 90289. The non-select letter was dated December 16, mailed December 21, received December 24 - Christmas Eve - bearing two postmarks. LADWP's internal mailroom stamp and the post office stamp. Five days apart. The letter was held internally to ensure it arrived after the protest period had expired. The scoresheets for RFP 90289 were only released after a lawsuit was filed in March 2018. When released they had been falsified. The metadata on the production documents identified Deputy City Attorney Dirk Brosemer as the person who modified the records. In a procurement cycle for RFQ 90452 - an $18,000,000 IT Advisory Services contract - the ranking was never released and Maverick was barred from participation. An email to LADWP buyer Hector Lucero regarding that cycle was copied to then-Mayor Eric Garcetti. That email is in the federal record as Exhibit 2 to the Third Amended Complaint.

Two documented bids. Millions in documented losses. LADWP issues hundreds of contracts per year. Rate increases of more than 20% across rate tiers between 2022 and 2024. If even a fraction of those contracts follow this pattern - the diversion of ratepayer funds over decades is not millions. It is hundreds of millions.

II. What the City of Los Angeles Attorneys and Everett Dorey LLC Did Not Dispute - The Concession Record

In their Ninth Circuit Answering Brief, LADWP's attorneys did not dispute a single specific numerical allegation of procurement fraud. Not one. Their entire factual response to fourteen specific procurement fraud allegations, all thirteen of Pandora's documented bid deficiencies, and every allegation of Andrew Castro's documented misconduct was to characterize the litigation as a "vendetta" reflecting "dissatisfaction" at not winning a bid.

They did not dispute that Maverick's score was reduced from 248.45 to 237.2. They did not dispute that Pandora's score was increased from a failing 192 to 302.2. They did not dispute that Pandora failed to submit a required Business Proposal, a fixed bid price, or any of seven mandatory appendices. They did not dispute that buyer Andrew Castro collaborated with Pandora's Marco Sands to fix Pandora's defective proposal after the award date had passed. They did not dispute that the FBI raided LADWP and the City Attorney's office in July 2019 for RICO violations. They did not dispute that LADWP executives and City Attorney officials were convicted of racketeering.

The Appellees did not answer - they responded with an argument. Under established Ninth Circuit doctrine, arguments not addressed in an answering brief are conceded. Greenwood v. FAA, 28 F.3d 971 (9th Cir. 1994). A characterization is not a rebuttal. Calling a decade of documented procurement fraud a "vendetta" does not make the scoresheet numbers disappear. It does not restore Pandora's missing Business Proposal. It does not explain why Andrew Castro's name appears in emails collaborating with the competing vendor after the award date had passed.

III. The Scheme - The Winner Is Selected Before the RFP Is Published

Brown analyzed LADWP's procurement process across three cycles and identified a multi-layer institutional scheme. The corrupt influence is injected into Supply Chain Services by the City Attorney's office - below the level of Board visibility, with no internal validation checkpoint. The first act of obstruction occurs at the compliance and responsiveness check - a legal right guaranteed to every bidder. LADWP refuses to release scoresheets, bid prices, and proposal documents within the ten-day protest window. Responsive records are not released unless a lawsuit is filed. Bidding firms are barred from protesting before the winner has been selected. By the time records are released the contract has already been awarded to the preferred vendor - whose firm is used over and over again - syphoning money out of the city budget and channeling it to unknown parties that can only be identified through investigation.

Bid results are changed and proposals modified before the recommendation ever reaches the Board of Commissioners. The BOC approval is perfunctory - everything is assumed correct by the time the package arrives. The Ratepayer Advocate, Fred Pickel - formerly employed by Enron - saw no problem with a $3,000,000 contract being expanded by addendum to $14,000,000, clearly out of scope, with no deliverables. That $3,000,000 budget was depleted in nine months. Maverick had identified $110,000,000 in potential savings to LADWP ratepayers if the department had a legitimate procurement process. The incoming CEO Janisse Quiñones was hired at $750,000 per year - the highest-paid city employee at the time of hiring. New companies bid unaware that the outcome is predetermined. The winner is already selected. The other bidders never had a real chance.

IV. The Human Cost - Jobs. Dollars. Infrastructure. Lives.

The Third Amended Complaint - filed in federal court before the Palisades Fire - stated directly at paragraphs 58-60:

"When bids are rigged, the quality of goods and services is compromised... costs to maintain systems and infrastructure are artificially increased and the value and quality declines resulting in diminishing returns. In some cases, the effects of using inferior products and services may lead to public hazards resulting in wrongful death." - TAC ¶¶58-60

The complaint also stated at paragraph 53:

"Operating costs are increased resulting in layoffs which could lead to homelessness... employment opportunities are eliminated; business development is discouraged; job creation is stifled; citizens and city employees are placed in mortal danger as a result of mistakes, errors, employee misclassification." - TAC ¶53

These were not predictions. They were documented observations filed in federal court before the consequences materialized. In 2025, under Mayor Karen Bass, the City of Los Angeles announced plans to lay off approximately 1,600 municipal employees. LADWP rate increases exceeded 20% across rate tiers between 2022 and 2024. Moody's assigned LADWP a negative credit outlook in January 2025. At least one Palisades Fire lawsuit seeks $10 billion in damages. The financial hemorrhage Brown documented was already producing the consequences he predicted.

A father and daughter were killed as a result of faulty power lines and failing infrastructure - documented by Brown in a written complaint to the Presiding Judge of the Stanley Mosk Courthouse in February 2024 - before the Palisades Fire. Critical infrastructure projects were sidelined while firms were hired for feasibility studies at excessive fees that produced nothing. The Santa Ynez Reservoir - 117 million gallons - sat empty for nearly a year awaiting repairs. Fire hydrants ran dry within twelve hours of the fire's ignition. Palisades Fire plaintiffs allege LADWP knew about the significant risk wildfires posed in the event of ineffective infrastructure management and delayed repairs decades before the fire. Brown's federal complaint documented that same causal chain before the fire occurred - and predicted wrongful deaths at TAC ¶¶58-60. On January 10, 2025, Governor Newsom called for an independent investigation citing the unavailability of water from the Santa Ynez Reservoir and the loss of pressure at fire hydrants. CEO Janisse Quiñones resigned on March 27, 2026 - within hours of Judge Jessner's February 19, 2026 ruling finding LADWP's infrastructure failures legally sufficient to proceed to trial. Discovery in the Palisades Fire litigation will now compel the internal records Brown's dismissed case never reached.

An NBC4 I-Team investigation by Eric Leonard - May 16, 2023 - documented a former senior LADWP executive stating:

"There is a cancer at the top. And that cancer needs to be cut out with a scalpel. The reality is that it hasn't been cleaned up. The reality is that nobody has done anything. The people at the top act with hubris that they can't be touched."

The federal court case documenting this causal chain was dismissed six days before twelve people died. The dismissal order was unsigned. Prepared from the defendant's proposed order. By a court clerk who knew the hearing had been cancelled.

V. The Court Clerks - How the Scheme Has Survived Over Ten Years Even After an FBI Raid

The procurement fraud survived ten years without judicial intervention not only because it was sophisticated - but because when Brown brought it to court, the judicial process itself was compromised at the clerk level. In two separate courts. With the same City Attorney on the other side. Brown began litigating pro se and has retained three attorneys since July 8, 2022.

State court - Stanley Mosk Courthouse - 2022 through 2024: Tentative rulings were deleted from the web portal and changed to misrepresent Brown's opposition - confirmed by court clerk Nancy Digiambattista. The City Attorney's demurrer was filed forty-three days after service - thirteen days late - accepted and scheduled over ninety days out in clear violation of CCP §430.41. Brown's opposition brief filed one day late - denied, stricken, Brown threatened with sanctions in open court. A false Proof of Service filed by Leticia De La Torre - Mark Reusch's own secretary - stated service December 16, 2022. The postmarked envelope showed December 21, 2022. Nothing was mailed December 16. The demurrer was mailed thirteen days beyond the statutory deadline. The clerk accepted it. When Brown attempted to present the sealed postmarked envelope as proof to Judge Curtis A. Kin, the court refused to accept the document and threatened Brown with sanctions. Opposition papers the judge ordered filed after Brown's ex parte motion were never filed by the court clerk. This conduct prompted a formal written complaint to Presiding Judge Honorable Samantha P. Jessner of the Stanley Mosk Courthouse - filed February 29, 2024 - predicting the infrastructure failures that killed twelve people in the Palisades Fire eleven months later.

Federal court - United States District Court - 2025: Court staff member PMC entered Docket Entry 57 on January 22 - hearing formally vacated. Seven days later PMC prepared Docket Entry 58 - a Civil Minutes order using a proposed order filed by Everett Dorey LLP thirty-two days before the hearing date - stating the matter came on for hearing January 27 and was fully considered. The order is unsigned by Judge Wilson and the matter was never heard. The signature block is blank. LADWP's attorneys admitted in their Ninth Circuit Answering Brief that the order contained a false factual finding, characterized the missing judicial signature as "trivial," and called the argument for it "futile." They never confirmed the order was signed.

Two courts. Same City Attorney. Same pattern. After recognizing this dispositive pattern of clerk conduct, Brown informed LADWP's attorneys that if this case was dismissed for any reason it would be appealed. Now the matter is before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit - Case No. 25-790 - oral argument July 2026.

VI. The Only Administration That Acted

Brown wrote to the City Attorney, the District Attorney, the State Attorney General, then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris, Representative Maxine Waters, and many senators. One responded. William Barr - Attorney General under President Donald Trump. The only administration that launched an investigation into the corruption at LADWP and the City Attorney's office was the Trump administration. The FBI raided LADWP and the City Attorney's office in July 2019. General Manager David H. Wright was convicted and sentenced to six years in federal prison, admitted destroying evidence. BOC President David Levine was indicted. Additional City Attorney officials were convicted. The institution reorganized under new leadership but the City of Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and the City Attorney's office went right back to their old behavior. The cancer, as the NBC4 whistleblower confirmed two years later, was never cut out. Brown's business partner Perry Fuller - who became Brown's business partner in 2015 - reviewing the BOC agenda online - discovered LADWP had quietly placed RFP 90654 back on the agenda without notice. They attended the November 7, 2022 Board meeting together and stopped two fraudulent contract awards in a single meeting. Without Perry Fuller none of what followed was possible.

VII. The Appeal - Nine Independent Grounds. None Answered.

The case is before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Case No. 25-790, oral argument July 2026. Nine independent grounds for reversal across nine analytical frameworks. The PACER docket proves the order is false. The irreconcilable orders prove logical impossibility. Collateral estoppel bars the dismissal - the same convicted officials ran the institution during the same procurement cycles. Brown's §1981 racial discrimination claim - a minority entrepreneur's highest-scoring proposal falsified to eliminate him - was never analyzed. His §1983 constitutional violation claims were never analyzed. The Sherman Act violations, RICO predicate acts, CPCC and CPRA violations - none evaluated on the merits. Defendants answered none of these grounds. If the Ninth Circuit does not correct this - an en banc petition to all twenty-nine judges follows. If en banc does not correct this - certiorari to the United States Supreme Court will follow. Brown asserts this is no vendetta. It is a fight for the people in the city where he was born - and for good people who just want to do their jobs in peace.

VIII. About Maverick Consulting Group LLC

Maverick Consulting Group LLC is a professional consulting firm specializing in Business Process Improvement, Process Management, Process Re-Engineering, and Infrastructure and Enterprise Transformation. The firm has participated in multiple LADWP competitive procurement processes since 2015. RFP 90654 - the contract at the center of this litigation - was directly within Maverick's documented areas of expertise. The infrastructure and enterprise transformation work Maverick specializes in is precisely the work that LADWP's procurement failures prevented from being deployed. The Los Angeles Superior Court found that LADWP's infrastructure failures contributed to the Palisades Fire. The problems that led to the Pacific Palisades Fire could have been avoided if the City Attorney's office had looked at the facts in Brown's complaint and worked to end the corruption in the procurement process. Instead they buried it. Brown analyzed the procurement process with the precision of his profession - identified the cancer - and was prevented from performing the surgery by the disease he came to cure.

IX. What Comes Next - Chapter Two

This is Chapter One of a multimedia investigation. All chapters will be released before the Ninth Circuit hearing in July 2026. Each chapter documents one critical milestone in the ten-year arc of this case.

Chapter Two - releasing April 7, 2026 - answers the question Chapter One raises: how did the City Attorney's office neutralize the first attorney who filed this lawsuit? Deputy City Attorney Dirk Brosemer released falsified scoresheets to Maverick's first attorney Rickey Ivie before any subpoena could bind the production - causing Ivie to conclude the case was unwinnable based on false records. Brosemer's own metadata appeared in all three electronic scoresheets. Chapter Two documents what Brown wrote to Brosemer when he confronted him with that evidence - and what Brosemer did next.

Chapter Two also begins to answer the question that only legal discovery can fully resolve: who is the puppet master? Who directs the City Attorney's office to allocate contracts to pre-selected vendors before the RFP is even published? The case was dismissed before discovery could produce that answer. The Ninth Circuit will decide in July 2026 whether discovery will ever be permitted.

How many more people must die? How many more workers must lose their jobs? How many more ratepayer dollars must be diverted? The Ninth Circuit will decide in July 2026. So far nothing has been able to end this corruption in the City of Los Angeles. Brown believes that with the help of the Ninth Circuit and the FBI he can help the city root out the institutional corruption that has persisted even after a federal conviction. He believes if he does nothing - more people will lose their jobs, more ratepayer dollars will be diverted, and more people may die. That is why he is still fighting. That is why this case matters. Nine packages of formal complaint materials were delivered to federal and judicial authorities on March 24, 2026 - including the Judicial Council, the United States Attorney's Office, the FBI, the State Bar, the Chief Judge and Clerk of the Central District, the Inspector General of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald of the newly confirmed National Fraud Enforcement Division, and Vice President JD Vance's government-wide War on Fraud Task Force. The documentary evidence is public. The PACER docket is public. The answer is in their hands.

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How to Verify Every Fact in This Release

PACER - pacer.gov - Case No. 2:24-cv-05152-SVW-JPR (District Court) and Case No. 25-790 (Ninth Circuit). Pull Docket Entry 57 and Docket Entry 58. Read them together. The NBC4 I-Team report by Eric Leonard aired May 16, 2023 - publicly available at nbclosangeles.com. The February 19, 2026 ruling by Judge Samantha Jessner is a public court record. Federal criminal conviction records for David H. Wright are public. The Appellees' Ninth Circuit Answering Brief Section IX is DktEntry 19 - public appellate record. Nothing in this release requires taking anyone's word for it.

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Media Contact

Marvin Brown, MBA - Appellant Pro Se

m.g.brown377@gmail.com | 562-261-4686

Michael Chakrian (Bar #309619) - Noble Attorneys, APC

Attorney for Appellants/Plaintiffs Brown and Maverick Consulting Group, LLC.

Brown et al. v. City of Los Angeles et al. - Ninth Circuit Case No. 25-790 - Oral Argument July 2026

Chapter Two releases April 7, 2026. Eight additional chapters will follow at weekly intervals through oral argument.

Maverick Consulting Group, LLC
3716 Rutherford Ct
Inglewood, California 90305
562 261 4686
m.g.brown377@gmail.com
Michael Chakrian (Bar #309619) - Noble Attorneys, APC
Attorney for Appellants/Plaintiffs Brown and Maverick Consulting Group, LLC.

Maverick Consulting Group LLC is a professional consulting firm specializing in Business Process Improvement, Process Management, Process Re-Engineering, and Infrastructure and Enterprise Transformation.

This release was published on openPR.