A Harsher Sentence for Harish Sidhu.

Federal prosecutors are asking for a sentence of eight months in prison for former Anaheim Mayor Harish “Harry” Sidhu, a sentence they insist is “sufficient, but not greater than necessary, to punish defendant, promote respect for the law, deter others from committing similar crimes in the future, and avoid sentencing disparities.” Many of us in Anaheim who lived through Sidhu’s time in power, and spoke up when nobody was listening, feel it is insufficient.

Naturally, Mayor Sidhu would prefer to do NO time in prison, maybe just some home arrest, probation, or community service. He has penned a six-page letter attempting to make his case, dizzyingly alternating between minimizing his offenses and abjectly apologizing. (His explanation of what he meant by demanding a million from the Angels through Todd Ament is especially fanciful! – see page 5.)

He tells his whole life story in this letter, from first coming to America with SIX DOLLARS in his pocket (he used to say it was sixty.) In the prosecution’s view, this story is “aggravating, rather than mitigating.” He only manages to show that he was not financially desperate, he’s educated, he’s a successful businessman and politician. He “knew right from wrong and had the means, the ability, and the options to live any life he wanted. Unfortunately, he chose, time and again, to prioritize his political career and personal finances over doing the right thing or faithfully serving the public.”

Well, he was convicted of what he was convicted of, he confessed to what he confessed to. But if Harry Sidhu is allowed to give his whole bio thinking that it makes him more sympathetic, to portray his adjudicated crimes as uncharacteristic lapses in character and judgment, we Anaheim citizens should be able to tell what we know of his public story, which shows these crimes he’s convicted of to be part of a larger picture, a picture of greed and arrogance, of lawlessness and secrecy. We the people of Anaheim were his victims, and here is our Victims’ Impact Report.

2004-12 Cronyism on Council.

Staff who worked with Sidhu during his eight years on Council complain that he was forever pressuring them to steer development contracts to friends of his, and had no patience for the traditional process of putting work out to a fair bid. (JL Report p. 108-11) One developer he pushed for above all others was ADI, an affordable housing developer that was already under FBI investigation for mammoth overbilling, bribing public officials, and “bringing in immigrants from India to work for them and then paying them almost nothing when they got here.” The owners of ADI eventually fled the country, and in 2016 a couple of them finally got arrested in Mumbai. An early example of Harry’s philosophy of governance.

2010 – Lying about residence to run for Supervisor.

Harry ran for higher office several times while on Council, and in 2010 there was an open seat for Supervisor, but not in the Anaheim Hills district where he lived, rather in West Anaheim. So he rented a cheap apartment by the Linbrook bowling alley and swore on penalty of perjury that was where he lived, even though his luxurious spread in the Hills is well known. Later in 2018 when Todd Spitzer ran for District Attorney he brought up this case as something he would prosecute if the statute of limitations hadn’t expired, and he has recently charged several politicians with felonies for the same exact thing.

2012 – Gardenwalk Giveaway Comment.

By the end of his Council tenure Harry was part of a 3-2 majority that insisted on giving huge tax subsidies to well-connected luxury hoteliers, a very controversial practice. The first of these was the $158 million “Gardenwalk Giveaway” to hotelier Bill O’Connell. The package was rushed through 3-2, but City Attorney Cristina Talley ruled that the vote had not been properly publicly noticed under the Brown Act and had to be redone. Harry’s reaction was memorable: he complained about the waste of electricity, opening up council chambers for a second meeting, while it was a $158 million giveaway that was being debated. (This call led to Talley’s being fired, and later prevailing against the City in court, but Sidhu was termed out by then.)

2018 – Stolen Valor in July 4 Parade.

Many military veterans took offense, and called it “stolen valor,” when non-veteran Harry Sidhu, in the middle of his run for Mayor, appeared in the July 4 2018 Anaheim Hills Parade dressed in an Air Force flight suit and standing on the back of a humvee. Sidhu and his defenders pointed out that he wore no insignia, but this was obviously intended to give the candidate the illusion of having served in the military.

2018 on – Arte Moreno’s Mayor.

We know that Sidhu hoped to get at least $1 million in campaign funds for his 2022 re-election from the Angels, as he estimated his services to owner Arte Moreno were worth at least that much. But what happened leading up to his 2018 victory was just as sleazy, if maybe not illegal. The Angels owner had been wanting to get his hands on that land, for a bargain basement price, since at least 2013, and only Mayor Tait stood in his way. When Tait was termed out in 2018, Sidhu seemed much more dependable to Arte than his opponent Ashleigh Aitken.

And a month before the November election, just as it looked like Aitken could win, Arte pulled an October surprise, tore up his lease and announced he was taking the Angels and leaving Anaheim. It was a hollow threat, there was nowhere for him to go, but it had the desired effect of scaring a lot of Angels-loving voters, and Harry Sidhu was prepared, with a statement out within minutes claiming that only he, Harry Sidhu, could keep the Angels in Anaheim.

Sidhu won by a mere 472 votes, and almost immediately on taking office (1/15/2019) re-instated Arte Moreno’s lease, which had the intended effect of “encumbering” or devaluing the land, as the first step in consummating Arte’s sweetheart deal.

“Anaheim First” recouping its investment in Sidhu.

“Anaheim First,” an astroturf outfit formed by Sidhu’s crony Todd Ament, donated $230,000 to Sidhu’s campaign, and was – after a decent interval, in April 2019 – awarded a no-bid $250,000 of taxpayer money by Sidhu’s lockstep majority. (JL Report p. 30)

The Temporary Homeless Shelter Gravy Train.

This “Anaheim Way” temporary homeless shelter is something Sidhu boasts of in his letter, as one of his great works. Here is the story. When Sidhu took office at the end of 2018, his predecessor Mayor Tait and his Council had been working hard to deal with Anaheim’s homeless problem, and had two big shelters ready to open in January and February. But Sidhu, as his first act, insisted on spending $1,320,449 of city money slapping together a 6-week interim shelter. Typically, it was no-bid, awarded to Chamber-connected campaign supporters of his, an accounting mess as documented in pages 192 to 207 of the JL Report, a huge waste, and pretty unnecessary. It seemed to have been driven by Sidhu’s desire to show that “he could deal with homelessness better than Mayor Tait,” and his campaign promise to clear out the homeless from the parks by Christmas. The folks who did stay there those few weeks found themselves showering in sewage, but the building owner, a friend of Harry’s, enjoyed a lot of permanent improvements to his property.

The Two No-Bid Chamber of Commerce Contracts

While Sidhu was Mayor and enjoyed a five-member lockstep majority on Council, Chamber head Todd Ament got anything he wanted. This included two no-bid contracts totaling $950,000 with the vaguest of deliverables, as documented in JL 207-217.

Developers’ Pay-to-Play Paradise, 2019-22

While Harry Sidhu was Mayor, his two most favored developers, Greenlaw and Shopoff, who had been among his biggest campaign contributors, were able to do whatever they wanted. If housing and development staff, who used to have some authority, attempted to make any changes or demands, these developers would tell them they had permission from “Harry” or “Todd.” Thus during these years, they pursued ever more lucrative developments, and Anaheim fell ever further from its affordable housing goals. JL 100-118.

Crushing a Gas Station to help a Campaign Donor

The story is best told here, of how Sidhu took a personal interest in denying a permit to an Anaheim Hills gas station, which was otherwise approved, to benefit a campaign contributor who owned a station across the street, thus squelching competition and keeping prices high. Another motivation may have been that decades earlier the applicant’s father had refused to invest in Sidhu’s fast-food empire.

The $6.5 million COVID money heist to Visit Anaheim

Of $15 million in federal COVID funds granted to Anaheim in March 2021, Sidhu insisted on giving $6.5 million to our tourist agency “Visit Anaheim” which didn’t need it and couldn’t actually think of anything to do with it. As was later revealed by JL Group’s investigation, Visit Anaheim CEO Jay Burress was just told “Think of an amount you’d like,” he thought of $5 million, and Sidhu himself said, “Tack on $1.5 million to that.” The extra $1.5 million was later secretly and illegally funneled to Todd Ament. And City Manager Chris Zapata’s objection to all this led to his firing. (JL p 173-184; this was also later the subject of a state audit, called for by Assemblyman Valencia and Senator Umberg.)

Suppression of Democracy thru the Sidhu Years

Harry Sidhu was the sort of Mayor who did his best to crush any disagreement either on the dais or in the public. There were two councilmembers – Jose Moreno and Denise Barnes – that disagreed with most of the actions listed here. Previously a member needed to have a “second” to put an item on the agenda; Sidhu changed the rules so that they needed a “third,” knowing that Moreno or Barnes would almost never get a third.

When COVID hit in 2021, nearly every Orange County city began to conduct Council meetings via Zoom, so that the public could participate without having to risk their health (and they still do that.) Only Mayor Sidhu steadfastly refused, conducting meetings for most of 2021 via teleconference with frequent technical glitches. OC’s largest, wealthiest city.

And we will always remember how when he objected to a public commenter he would threaten to “have my police escort you out!” HIS police.

2019/20 – the race against the Surplus Land Act!

There was a lot more to criticize in Sidhu’s behavior regarding the attempted Stadium sale than what’s covered in this case. Appraisals of the Stadium and other information important to the public and Council minority were kept in secrecy. And once the deal was finally unsealed, on December 20, 2019, it became some sort of emergency to approve it by the end of the year. (In ten days!) As it turned out, that was when the state’s new Surplus Land Act was to go into effect, and Arte Moreno thought that might complicate his deal. As it turned out it did anyway.

2022 – Sidhu perjures himself in the Brown Act Lawsuit

In early 2022, before the FBI revelations and even before AG Bonta’s Surplus Land Act complaints, the People’s Homeless Task Force sued the City over Brown Act violations in the Stadium sale. The biggest point was that the decision to sell the stadium (rather than lease it) was made in a CLOSED SESSION meeting of Sept. 24, 2019 – it is okay to discuss terms of a sale in closed session, but not the basic question of WHETHER to sell. Councilman Jose Moreno and fired City Manager Chris Zapata testified that this decision was made in closed session. Mayor Sidhu perjured himself denying that had happened, and angrily called Moreno and Zapata liars and “traitors” in public. It was Sidhu who was lying, and Zapata and Jose Moreno are still owed an apology.

2023 – Harry stymies the JL Report

In late 2022, after Sidhu’s disgrace and resignation, the remaining Council voted unanimously to commission a thorough corruption investigation, which became the “JL Report” by the “JL Group.” By 2023, when the long investigation took place, Sidhu would have you believe he was chastened, sorry for his crimes, and desirous of full transparency. But he stymied the work of the JL investigation by refusing to provide the passcode to his iPhone which JL had possession of. So there is still a lot that we don’t know, and Mr. Sidhu will never let us know if he can help it.

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I hope this balances off the warm, fuzzy, self-exonerating picture Mr. Sidhu gave of himself in his letter. The crimes he was convicted of are merely the tip of the iceberg, and the very LEAST he deserves is an eight-month sentence. Many of us believe a longer sentence would be appropriate given the damage he and his conspirators did to our city.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

A version of this has been sent to:
The Honorable John W. Holcomb
United States District Judge
Ronald Reagan Federal Building
411 W. 4th Street Room 1053
Santa Ana, CA 92701-4516.

Sentencing is on Friday at 2, Ronald Reagan Courthouse.