While some concealed weapon applicants typically waited over half a year for their permits, The Times found donors to Sheriff Villanueva’s campaign who received theirs in a fraction of the time.
There are few things Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva has boasted about more during his first term in office than his success in dramatically increasing the number of people who are permitted to carry guns in public.A Times investigation found that among the thousands of people who have received permits under Villanueva are dozens of donors to his election campaigns and others with special links to the sheriff.
regarding permits in June when it ruled that Americans do not need to have a reason for wanting to be armed in public. Because the Sheriff’s Department has refused to provide The Times with copies of every permit application, it was difficult to determine whether people connected to the sheriff were treated differently than others who applied.
needed to be armed because he and his boss “hike to remote areas like in the high mountains to meditate with nature where there is no law enforcement readily available.” Villanueva and a spokesperson for the Sheriff’s Department did not answer most of more than a dozen questions about how weapons permits are awarded and the treatment given to donors who applied for permits. The spokesperson said that campaign donations have “no bearing on the issuance” of a weapon permit.
In 2020, Villanueva said he would increase by five times the number of people permitted to arm themselves in public. At that time, just 155 people in the county of 10 million had CCW permits issued by the department. By late May, that number had swelled to more than 2,800 — an eighteenfold increase. The Sheriff’s Department received one businessman’s application, and two days later he contributed $1,500 to Villanueva’s reelection campaign. The man later received a permit. After receiving a call from The Times in March about the donation, he made a contribution to another sheriff candidate.
Villanueva said in June it was generally taking six to eight months for an application to be processed and a permit to be issued.About two months after applying for a permit, Mouawad donated $1,500 to Villanueva’s reelection campaign in April 2021, and a week later he received his permit. He donated another $1,500 two months after that.
Mouawad donated to previous sheriffs’ campaigns as well, giving $500 to Jim McDonnell in 2018 and $1,500 to Baca in 2013, but it was unclear from his 2021 application whether he had sought permits from them.Cerritos City Councilman Naresh Solanki said he doesn’t know the sheriff personally but was invited to a fundraising event and wrote a $1,000 check to Villanueva’s campaign in May of last year.
The Sheriff’s Department denied a request for copies of all gun permit applications submitted under Villanueva, claiming that producing them would be unduly burdensome. The Times made subsequent requests this year for permit applications submitted by campaign contributors, others with known ties to the sheriff and people with the same last names as donors. The department provided more than half of those requested records.
Villanueva was not alone in his approach. The sheriffs of Riverside and Orange counties have taken a similarly permissive approach, together issuing more than 32,000 active permits, according to figures provided by their departments. Earlier this month, sheriff’s investigators served search warrants at Del Real’s house, at a Monterey Park gun shop whose owner has ties to Villanueva and at the home of a community organizer with ties to the department and the gun shop. Del Real and another deputy, Carrie Robles, were relieved of duty.In its brief statement on the investigation, the department did not name any suspects or detail what schemes they may have carried out.