March 27, 2025 • 34 mins
The John Kobylt Show Hour 2 (03/27) - Alex Stone comes on the show to talk about an arrest being made in the Molotov cocktail Tesla bombing. Squatters took over an abandoned RV park and it is finally starting to be cleaned up. A Michigan couple is being held in a Mexican prison over a timeshare dispute. More on Ricardo Lara's international travel.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Can't.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
I am six forty. You're listening to the John Cobel
Podcast on the iHeartRadio app. We are on every day
whether you want it or not, one to four o'clock
and after four o'clock John Cobelt Show on demand on
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your problem.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
I was gonna say, I know what you were gonna.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Say, b l MTV. That's all I got to say.
Alex Stone's coming on with us. You know this this
this this stuff is just like so overhyped. You've you've
had some attacks on Tesla's and of course some of
the media wanted to portray it as America turning on
(00:41):
Elon Musk and turning on Donald Trump. But look, and
then it turns out to be a thirty six year
old loser in Las Vegas who set fire to a
bunch of Tesla's Molotov cocktails. Anyway, the authorities got him
and Alex has the details. Yeah, hey John, So yeah,
(01:03):
we learned a lot of information in the last little while.
You remember a week ago when this unfolded, Pam Bondi
that the AG was saying, this is domestic terrorism and
Elon Musk was as well. The sheriff in Vegas is
saying they don't really know if there's a coordinated thing
here that they're still looking into it. They don't see anything,
but thirty six year old Paul Kim is who they
(01:25):
track down, and they they are trying to figure out
if he has links to some organized thing or if
people who are sympathetic to what he did and the
you know, what people are doing to Tesla's if they're
just kind of doing it individually. And they still don't know,
but Vegas police say that they have figured out a
(01:45):
lot about him. He's got he's sympathetic, it appears to
different ideological groups, and that they can see based on
his yeah online activity. So this is a Vegas Assistant
Sheriff Dory Korn a little while ago.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Saying preliminary spent of the suspects social media activity indicates
some very loose but self proclaimed ties to the Communist
Party USA social media group, as well as social media
groups called Revolutionary Communists International, Hidden Palestine, Palestine Action, and
a variety.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Of other social media groups.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
That is part of our investigations to dig further into
it and to be able to determine additional motive and
other potential concerns.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
So he's charged locally and then a few minutes ago
federal charges. There's a federal arrest warrant that was also issued.
The charges are mainly arson and gun charges and having
incendiary devices. No talk of charging them with terrorism, even
though Bondi and Mosque had said, well this was clearly terrorism,
it doesn't seem like it fits the bill of that yet.
Do you know what the differentiation is? Yeah, there are
(02:48):
and I don't have the law in front of me,
but very specific things that the terrorism has to fit
for them to check. And the FBI, the Joint Terrorism
Task Force is the investigating group into this, and the
special Agent in charge to the FBI and Vegas. He said,
it does have some of the telltale signs of terrorism,
but there's a big jump when you go from vandalism essentially,
(03:09):
which is kind of what they're looking at it now,
up to terrorism where all of a sudden, you're talking
about somebody on the domestic side of you know, like
Oklahoma City versus spray painting a building and setting two
teslas on fire. So they have to kind of weigh
what it is and the magnitude of what they're dealing with,
but these are more like vandalism charges. Could change, They
could decide that they're going to go down the terrorism road.
(03:32):
But the key part of this, as they have laid
it out, is how they caught them. And it started
with this grainy surveillance video of a car and headlights
pointed toward a surveillance camera and they had a real
grainy image of somebody dressed all in black with a
mask on and hands covered with gloves so they didn't
(03:52):
get fingerprints. And they went from there, and the sheriff
today said that he thought this might be a case
from the beginning that they would never solve because they
had nothing to go on. The evidence was just not there.
But they used technology and surveillance videos and license play
readers around Vegas, analytics by analyzing a bunch of stuff
to find their man, and Sheriff Kevin mcmahill said a
(04:14):
few minutes ago my.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
Desire to become the most technologically advanced police department in
the country.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
This case is not solved without the use of technology.
So they had over two hundred and fifty investigators and
analysts and they use this technology that they've got and
drones and everything else to hone in on and arrest
this guy, Paul Kim, And they even found DNA that
he left to the crime scene on It appears to
have been on one of the unexploded Molotov cocktails. But
(04:42):
they got DNA from this scene where it was essentially
a vandalism scene. And then last night when they arrested him,
they got his They used a buckle swab and got
his DNA and a little while ago they got a
quick response from their lab that it's positive that it's
a match. So when they executed the search war on
his apartment overnight, they found guns ammo that matched what
(05:04):
was fired into the teslas before they were set on fire.
His electronic devices are right now being analyzed by the
FBI that they're going through those. There was one other thing,
there was pink riding on the building that the suspect
left behind that said resist and guess what they found
in his apartment when they went.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
He also recovered a black gun belt with a pouch
that had pink paint residue on it.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
So there you go. So he's under arrest, long list
of charges. They're still being working on trying to figure
out if he's linked to something bigger. But in eight
days and they're pretty proud of themselves in Vegas that
they went from knowing nothing and thinking this could be
one that they're never going to be able to solve
with just grainy surveillance and no good shots to have
license plates, to being able to catch them and they've
got them in jail. Now. Wow, I mean that's that
(05:47):
would be a great movie. Actually, I'd like to know
all the technology that they have. Now they don't want
you to know all of the technology, and they've got it,
but I want to know that they're very proud of
it though, that they feel like in Vegas and they're
really leading the chick in the way they usedide won
if the pink paint was supposed to be his calling
card and then just called me the pink panther and
tail attacker. Yeah, who's the guy who gets the job
(06:09):
of scraping the DNA off the unexploded Molotov cocktail? Yeah,
well some new old tech had to do that and
figure that out. And how they got the DNA wasn't
a fingerprint so that they knew it was there or
somewhere else. Maybe while he was spray painting the wall,
he put his hand on something and you know they
got some skin cells off of that. But yeah, he
(06:31):
had a rifle, fired it into the cars, set two
of them, but there was one car that they did
not explode, and then five cars in total had damage,
but it was two of that were totally damaged. All right,
good stuff, Alex Stone, Thank you you got it. By
John alex Stone from KFI News UH thirty six years old.
Paul jan Kim and the Communists are having a comeback.
(06:53):
He's apparently connected to several communist groups. And they had
Tesla dealerships and Tesla's and charging stations attacked in Seattle,
Kansas City, Missouri, and Charleston. This is the progressive crowd
that was screaming about climate change. Elon Musk produces the
only popular electric car that you can fight climate change with,
(07:18):
and now he's public enemy number one and people are
blowing up the cars and the dealerships and the charging stations.
You see how insane these people are. He should have
been their hero. Nobody else built an electric car that
anybody wanted, only he did, and now they're blowing them up,
which shows you it's not about the issue. It's about
(07:41):
their need to be to have meaning in their life.
They're losers. You're thirty six years old and you're setting
cars on fire. You're a loser. That's why you join
the Communist party. People who want to be communists and socialists.
They're angry, they're jealous. They've missed out on life. They
don't have any marketable talents. They're never gonna make any money.
(08:04):
They're gonna be the big al all their lives. They're
not gonna be able to get a wife, they're not
gonna have kids, they're not gonna own a home. Because
they're losers, they can't do anything, so they blow up
other people's stuff. They set fire to other people's stuff too,
because they're so enraged as to how their awful life
(08:24):
turned out. All right, we come back, speaking of losers.
Squatters took over an abandoned luxury RV park. They moved
into the RVs and they wouldn't leave, and then local
authorities found that it's difficult to remove squatters because in
(08:47):
California there are laws that protect the squatters. We've got
to report from Fox Leven and Haley Winslow coming up,
about this when we return.
Speaker 5 (08:58):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
It's time for world champion Dodger Baseball Today the Dodgers
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First pitch four to twelve. Listen to every game on
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Sports and it's brought to you in part by Harry
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(09:26):
visit Broadway in Hollywood dot com and the ceremony begins
at three point thirty. So, uh, you should be on
your way. You haven't left yet. You should, you should?
You should go now. You can listen to us in
the car well. You may have heard. For a couple
of days there were stories of vagrants, drug addicts, and
(09:48):
mental patients taking over an abandoned luxury RV park. The
the RVs were were sitting there in a private lot
and it became a homeless encampment, and drug addicts being
drug addicts, and mental patients being mental patients. You ended
(10:09):
up with enormous piles of trash fires. Fires. Remember in
the city seventeen thousand fires started by the vagrants every year. Well,
this was going on in the City of Industry, and
it was tough at first to get rid of them.
Let's go to play's story from Hailey Winslow, Fox eleven.
(10:32):
I'm leaving. I'm out of here.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
God, there's no help. There's no help back on the streets.
Speaker 6 (10:38):
Yeah, I go moving day at this dirt parking lot
in the City of Industry.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
It's scary.
Speaker 6 (10:44):
It's a scary thing for those that don't have family
to open up their doors too. Some long gone in
the past twenty four hours with their travel trailer. This
man tries to force on a tire that doesn't fit
so he too can wheel away while sheriff's deputies patrols
a private parking lot through the fence.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Yeah, I'm mostly here because it rained in.
Speaker 7 (11:04):
I didn't want to be out in the rain.
Speaker 6 (11:06):
The growing encampment has been home to a lot of
problems over the past couple of years, constant fires, burglaries,
and literally tons of trash.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
The outside has painting a picture as being drug attics,
and it's.
Speaker 6 (11:20):
Not like that with their marijuana plants, dogs and water.
Well until recently shut off neighbors. Lean and Kimberly say
this is more like a community campground, and some say
they pay an RV lord three hundred dollars rent to
stay in one of these one hundred and thirty new
and abandoned Black series campers. This is my home, sweet home,
(11:40):
on the floor inside the estimated fifty thousand dollars trailer,
dog feces and spilled food.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
It is keeping me warm at night. It's probably make
my coffee.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
You gotta do it. You gotta do your survive out here.
It's not fun. It's not fun at all.
Speaker 6 (11:57):
Not fun for the neighbors either, like the Nissan dealers
that shares part of this lot. We actually had two
fires in the daytime and then we had a fire
at night. Kimberly and Lina say when they finally see
homeless outreach here, they'll happily move into a new home.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Give us some resources. Supposed to have millions of dollars
for homeless, where's the many.
Speaker 6 (12:18):
They just dropped off that forty yard trashman that we
told you about yesterday. Now outreach is expected to start
in the next couple of days, and then lasd is
now hoping to have everybody out by the end of
next week.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
So, Haley, what's the backstory with the two women that
you profiled how they end up homeless?
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Well, that is actually a very interesting story. So Kimberly,
she actually used to own a house with her parents.
She kind of went down a slippery slope and said
that she didn't pay three months rent in a home
down the road from here, and it eventually led her here.
And now Lena, she told me it would take a
miracle basically for her to not be homeless anymore. But
(12:57):
she does have two job interviews she had yesterday as
an optical assistant, which is her background, so she's praying
she gets one of those and gets back on her feet.
Speaker 6 (13:06):
And they were both very kind women. But I can
tell you from being here for the last two days,
we have met people from.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
All walks of life.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Yeah. See, I have never I mean I think all
the hundreds, probably thousands of people I've met in my
life that I know periphally as an acquaintance, as a friend,
none of them were ever homeless. None of them. So
I don't understand this. They're from all walks of life.
(13:35):
They're drug addicts or they're mentally ill. Is there really
is not a third category. Everybody wants to be nice
and tiptoe around it. But when one woman said, you know,
you don't have a family, it's like, all right, well,
what did you do that nobody in your family will
give you a room? What did you do? Okay? I mean,
(13:57):
did you set fire in the Halse house? Maybe you
know your your crack pipe fell on the carpet and
so that's why they tossed you out. Maybe you stole stuff,
stole money, you stole jewelry to satisfy your heroin or
fit noel addiction. What did you do? No? No, I've
never heard a reporter like go up to one of
(14:19):
these people. It's always about, well, you don't have a family,
I don't have a job, and they always sound like
this and I don't have a job. Oh no, I
don't have a drug problem. I don't have an alcohol roble.
Do you know anybody who talks like that in real life?
You ever worked with somebody who has a job he
talks like that?
Speaker 8 (14:36):
Well, actually, what I mean there are some people i've
you know, yeah, we kind of talk like that. They
may not be on drugs, Well.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
They may they probably are. You know a lot of
stone people talk like that exactly. Oh, I see what
you mean. Yeah, they they're not on drugs. Next thing
she said, but the marijuana plants that are. Yeah, you're right,
Stone people talk like that, which I think is about
i'd say sixty percent of the clerks when you go
(15:15):
to any kind of a store, standing at the register,
behind the counter, sixty percent of stoned.
Speaker 8 (15:20):
Well they're you know, they have they have to because
they're not happy with their job.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
No, because it's it's a terrible job and they're bored,
and so they kind of have to sedate themselves in
an esthetize themselves when we come back. Oh, we got
to talk about that Mexico story.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Yeah, another travel story.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Well, because I told this to Debor before when I
first heard the story, it's a vacation Mexico hotel prison. Yeah,
dispute over payment, and for some reason, you thought of me.
You popped into my head. You're the only person who
popped into my head. Who could this also happen to?
Speaker 5 (16:01):
You're listening to John Cobel's on demand from KFI A
six forty.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
If you miss anything, we're on the iHeart app. The
John Cobelt Podcast, John Cobelt, Shawn Demand, it's officially called
and that gets posted shortly after four. Coming up in
the next segment, we're going to play you more of
a story that we started yesterday. Ashley Zavalla did a
(16:28):
story on Ricardo Lara missing a Senate hearing meeting. He's
the insurance Commissioner cal Fart Laarer as we like to
call him. He missed a meeting to go on a
trip to Bermuda, a fifteen minute speech he gave to
insurance executives. It turns out after an investigation, this guy
(16:49):
has been traveling to dozens of cities overseas and here
in this country and has missed many meetings. We went
through about half of this yesterday, going to pick up
on it today and then after three o'clock we're going
to talk with Katie Grimes in more detail about you
know this is this is Karen Bass in Africa. This
(17:11):
is now Riccardo Lara, who's was bolting. We've had a
terrible insurance crisis for years in California for various reasons.
But you know this, you know what you're paying for
home insurance, fire insurance, car insurance, earthquake insurance. It's all
out of control. A lot of companies have pulled out,
(17:31):
and premiums are outrageous, and it's complete mismanagement in the
industry by the state, which is why a government shouldn't
be managing an industry. Especially I don't like Ricardo Lara.
So we'll have more on all the obscene number of
trips he's taken, many of them paid by taxpayers. That's
that's in the next segment, and then Katie Grimes is
(17:53):
going to come on after three o'clock. All right, you
might have heard about this case. It's getting more. We're
fascinating because this poor couple, Christy and Paul Akeo, have
been in a Mexican prison for twenty three days.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Can you imagine When I.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
First heard the headline on this, I thought, of you,
Why well, they've by the way vacation Mexico dispute overcharges.
I thought, who could that happen? Who potentially could that
happen to? Out of everybody, I do don't wish that
(18:32):
on you. I'm not wishing it on you, all right.
So they had a timeshare deal with Palace Resorts, and
they've had a long running dispute with Pallas and they
haven't paid their bill for months. It's one hundred and
seventeen thousand dollars. They turned over the dispute to American Express,
(18:55):
and American Express sided with Christy and Paul and uh
erase the charges.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
Yeah, what's wrong with that?
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Well, Palace Resorts disagrees. Okay, they claim that that Christy
and Paul are committing fraud. Christy posted on Facebook explaining
to other timeshare owners how to get out of the charges.
(19:25):
Mexican authorities say this describes how to commit fraud, and
so they're really pissed.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Okay, but wait a second, don't post either.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
No.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
Yeah, well I've learned that.
Speaker 8 (19:37):
But are they saying that for people to legitimately I mean,
if they have a legitimate issue, this is how you
get out of it, or they, I don't know, to
screw with the Mexican government.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Well, I guess that you could have two different interpretations.
Maybe they're telling their story and they were giving a
like an explanation is how they got out of the charges.
Whatever they told American Express, American Express bought it. But
just because American Express in the United States says, hey, yeah,
you're right, we will eliminate the charges. Doesn't mean the
(20:12):
company in Mexico is going to go along. And Mexico's
corrupt country, and the police are corrupt, the judges are corrupt,
the government is corrupt to the bone. You don't want
to get in a dispute with anybody. And if anybody
asks you for money in Mexico, you pay them and
then give them an extra twenty five percent for their trouble.
That's how you survive. And I'm telling you this all right,
(20:33):
thank you. The Mexican authorities arrested the Achios for fraud
to a hotel chain. That's what they told ABC News.
Their daughter, Lindsey Hall, is doing the publicity. My mom
is terrified. She tells us every single day, every single
phone call, how scared she is. She obviously cries a lot.
(20:55):
I'm here in a maximum security prison in Mexicano. I've
been doing maximum security. That would get you a longer sentence.
As you cry, well, if you start yelling and kicking
in the protesting maximum security.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
This is didn't kill anybody.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
They claim the resort did not allow them to use
their time as promised. I never got involved in time shares.
I never trusted them.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
I have their pain.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Are they a pain because you want to go a
certain time but they have to have availability?
Speaker 3 (21:32):
Right, yes?
Speaker 2 (21:33):
And I have this feeling that there's never availability well
or everybody wants the same week exactly if.
Speaker 8 (21:39):
You're looking to go to Hawaii for Christmas, forget it.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
You're not going to be able to use your time share.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
So they got a refund. They canceled thirteen transactions. The
Mexican authorities say this was done maliciously, not recognizing the charges. Now,
Lindsey Hall, the daughter, says there's clear no length that
the hotel is not willing to go. To make an example,
this is exactly what's happening on top of corruption and extortion.
(22:08):
And now this has gone on for three full weeks,
it's time for it to be done. Well, the Akios
have gone to a judge, and you know what the
judge did. They gave the timeshare company six more months
to gather evidence.
Speaker 8 (22:22):
Oh no, so they have to stay in that maximum
maximum security prison for six.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
More potently, Yeah, yeah, they went to a judge. Maybe
the judge took a little money from the timeshare company.
It's like, yeah, yeah, six months.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
So wait a seute.
Speaker 8 (22:38):
They didn't just so they disputed this while they were
in Mexico.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
No, they came home. They keep going back to their problem.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
I wouldn't do that.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Maybe that's why you're not in prison.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Maybe that's why.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
No, they keep they kept going back. They've gone for
several years. This is the first time that they got
nailed at the airport there.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
Okay, all right now, yeah, okay, I get it.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Uh. The Palace Company subsidiary it's called Palace Elite, filed
a criminal complaint with Mexican authorities after they after Paul
and Christy fraudulently disputed legitimate credit card charges and publicly
encouraged others to do the same. Shut up, stop sharing
to your all your life on stupid social media. You
(23:25):
know you got to be put in prison just for
posting on social media. Uh, Mexican, that's kind of rude.
Oh bloney. Mexican prosecutors reviewed the evidence, and, following failed
attempts to serve notice, they got a court approved arrest warrant.
Interpol validated the case and issued a red notice, leading
(23:49):
to their detention at Kenkun Airport, and a judge since
ruled their sufficient cause for the case. To proceed to trial.
So not only six months for evidence, but they're going
to lose it at the trial. Yes, this case is cooked.
So they said, we have to engage in preventative detention
(24:09):
of the akias they are.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
You don't want to mess with the Mexican.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Government, No you don't. You can't appeal to the judges.
You can't expect the police to help you out. The
hotel's not helping you out. If you run up the charges,
pay the charges.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
And then don't go back. If you're just.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Government, don't make it a public case on Facebook. Nobody
cares anyway. You know. I always ask this, like I
did about those squatters at the RV, What did you do?
You're in a Mexican prison, What did you do? What
can you do better next time? It's like a half
a dozen things these people could have done differently. Yeah,
like just pay your freaking bill.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
So you think they are scammers?
Speaker 2 (24:52):
I don't know. I don't think there's scammers.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
You know.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Some people are just you can't please them, you know,
and they get really worked up, maybe over small things,
and they want their money back right away for everything.
You know that you know they don't want to pay
a restaurant bill because maybe the steak was a little overdone,
and you know they want the entire table comped. You
know those kind of people. Yeah, I wish, I wish.
(25:19):
I wish your whole life was recorded. Why I can
use examples on the air to explain my point.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Why you're probably could like you don't want.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
To do this. Your vegan meal doesn't come back, Well, yeah.
Speaker 8 (25:32):
There, you know what really quick, let me just tell
you I was at this restaurant. I'm not kidding, So
I said, I want vegan pasta, so no dairy, no
animal products. So basically I said, just how about some
noodles and some olive oil or white wine sauce. I
don't care garlic and vegetables. So it comes back with
cheese all over it. So I send it back and
(25:55):
and it doesn't. It doesn't come back. I mean, I
don't get the proper the correct course doesn't come back.
So I asked the.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
Waitress or the waiter I can't remember, and they said, oh,
we're working out. We're working on it. We're working on it.
So my husband's already way done.
Speaker 8 (26:12):
So we get the manager and he says, okay, it's
coming it's coming.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
That's what I'm talking about.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Okay, So I'm waiting and waiting. It's so stupid.
Speaker 8 (26:20):
This is so easy to take two seconds. This is
this is not a steak that we're cooking here.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
No food for you, So the Mexican prison for you.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
The manager comes.
Speaker 8 (26:29):
Back to me and says, it's still going to be
another ten minutes.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
I said, forget it. My husband's already done. We're going
to leave. And he said, okay, well we won't charge you.
I said, well, why would you charge me?
Speaker 8 (26:38):
I never got the food.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
There you go, that's where you end up in prison.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
I wouldn't do that in Mexican.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Because you won't accept the no charge, you have to
make a public case and scold the guests.
Speaker 8 (26:48):
Stupid to tell me we're not going to of course
you're not going to charge me.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
I never got my food.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
And then you go on Facebook and you do it
right on Facebook, and next thing you know, you're being level.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
I can't even say the name of the restaurant.
Speaker 5 (27:00):
You're listening to John Cobels on Demand from KFI Am
six forty.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
So yesterday we went through part of a story from
Stephanie Sierra of KGOTV about all the outrageous travel by
that knucklehead where Cardo Lara Calphart Lara, who's the insurance commissioner,
who's botched up the whole insurance industry. Everything's too expensive,
a lot of companies have pulled out now, the Fair Plan,
(27:29):
the California insurance backup program that's going to go bankrupt,
and he skips Senate meetings repeatedly to go traveling all
over the world. The latest one is he went to
Bermuda for a fifteen minute speech instead of talking to
the Senate to explain what's going on here. Here is
(27:49):
more of the story where Stephanie Sierra gets into the
long list of vacations where Cardo Lara takes many of
them at the taxpayer's expense.
Speaker 9 (28:00):
It's video Recordings from the Senate website show Lada only
joined those hearings via zoom once.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Great to be here, thank you so much for taking
the time.
Speaker 9 (28:08):
In January twenty twenty four, and that hearing was the
first one hosted after the governor signed an executive order
calling on Lada to do more to address the insurance crisis.
Records show after that he attended most of the other
Assembly insurance hearings last year. Do you think he should
have been there last week?
Speaker 3 (28:25):
Well, that's not for me to say.
Speaker 7 (28:27):
How do you represent the state if you're not even
there at these meetings. I understand you can send your
staff to fill in for you on occasion, but it
sends a message of I think what he believes is important.
Speaker 9 (28:41):
Ray Asbell worked under the California Department of Insurance and
cal HR for more than a decade, specializing in travel policy.
He explains, each state department requires there must be an
established travel need.
Speaker 7 (28:55):
What is your department's core missioner? Howell this travel benefit
that mission and benefit in this case, the ratepayers of California.
Speaker 9 (29:04):
The commissioner was unavailable for an interview to discuss his
travel schedule, but his staff provided this comment regarding the
Bermuda trip. Commissioner Lada's job is to ensure that California
consumers have real choices, not just last resorts. This involves
going over the heads of insurance companies and engaging directly
with the global reinsurance groups that support them. He is
(29:26):
working to retain insurance companies in the market and attract
those that have left. We asked how many insurance companies
have been retained to support California's insurance market, but we have.
Speaker 7 (29:36):
Yet to hear back frankly that people should be outraged to.
Speaker 9 (29:40):
Put this trip in perspective. Seven on Your Side obtained
and analyzed hundreds of public records detailing the Commissioner's expenses
made since assuming office in twenty nineteen. Lada made at
least forty six trips across the country and all over
the world, but as we found out, a significant chunk
of the records are missing and the state has been
unable to provide them, including work related trips where he
(30:03):
is pictured or listed as a speaker in Singapore, Cape Town,
South Africa, Dublin, Costa Rica, Chile, Egypt, Tokyo, Glasgow, and Dubai,
plus a handful of trips to these states. With that said,
the trip receipts we do have are not cheap. For context,
record show Illinois Insurance Commissioner spent six hundred and eighty
(30:24):
dollars for the entire year of twenty twenty two. Meanwhile,
during the first six months of Lada's term, his cross
country and international trips cost taxpayers more than thirty three
thousand dollars. This includes an all expenses paid week long
trip at a luxury five star hotel in Bogota, Columbia
for an LGBTI political leaders conference, and another flight and
(30:46):
five star hotel stay in New York City for PrideFest.
For his schedule listed a vip rooftop event with DJ
Kitty Glitter. We should note the four day trip did
not list any insurance related meetings on his schedule.
Speaker 7 (31:00):
Yet, as on scratching my head as a hedgecratchery, when
somebody travels, it really should be something that is mission critical.
Speaker 9 (31:06):
Receipts showed Lata made a request for a fourteen thousand
dollars mission critical trip to Chile in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
She's up year.
Speaker 9 (31:14):
Why For more than a month, We repeatedly asked the
state what the business purpose was for those trips, but
have yet to get a direct answer. Instead, Lada's staff
appeared to have restated parts of his bio in an
email that started with insurance Commissioner Ricardo Latta as a
recognized global leader in addressing the impact of climate change
(31:34):
on insurance markets, going on to say our goal is transparency.
Yet none of that answered our questions, So I followed
up again and again and again with a very specific
list of questions about those trips, and his office eventually
told me this, we have conducted an exhaustive search and
found no records of attendance at these events. That's interesting
(31:58):
given the commissioner is pictured many of these events and conferences.
Not to mention, seven on your side obtained receipts from
his flights and hotels days.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
So I followed up again.
Speaker 9 (32:08):
His staff did not provide any answer, but instead wrote,
I'm glad we were able to help you. So, as
you can see, we did not get much of an
answer there. The state has also been unable to identify what,
if any regulatory action or benefit to California's insurance market
that came as a result from all these trips.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
There isn't Eddie. He's a grifter. He's a crook, That's
what he is. This is stealing tax money so he
could party around the world. Let's run through all the
sites again that he's traveled to. Paris, Bogata, Bermuda, Uruguay, Hawaii, Washington, Florida, Toronto, Singapore,
Cape Town, Dudley, Costa Rica, Chile, Egypt, Tokyo, Glasgow, Dubai, Arizona, Illinois,
(32:54):
New York, Rhode Island, Washington, d C. Connecticut, the United Kingdom.
Did I mention Uruguay? Yes, yes, he spent eight days
in the UK. He he went to Honolulu for policy training.
Four star hotel bill. We paid for that, luxury trips,
(33:19):
luxury hotels. We spent six thousand dollars so he could
go to Paris. I mean the winner is the all
expense paid week long trip to the LGBTQ Political Leaders
Conference in Bogota, Colombia. That's my favorite. Oh well maybe
this one. A flight and a five star hotel in
New York City for Pride Fest, a vip rooftop event
(33:42):
with DJ Kitty Glitter. Four days, no insurance meetings. He's
a grifter, he's a crook. Of course, he doesn't want
to release any records. We got everything we need to know.
He should be at office. He should be forced to resign,
and he's found to the insurance industry, Go look at
your insurance bill. Why is it so high? Big part
(34:04):
of the reason is the mismanagement of this character, a
complete fraud whose only other claim to fame was trying
to require cows wear machines on their back to catch
their farts because their farts caused climate change. Seriously, go
look it up. He's not known for anything else. People
in this state have elected him twice to the Insurance
(34:27):
Commissioner twice. When we come back, we'll have more on him.
We're going to talk with Katie Grimes from California Globe,
who's researching this story as well. Debra Marc is live
in the KFI twenty four hour News or Hey, you've
been listening to The John Cobalt Show podcast. You can
(34:48):
always hear the show live on KFI Am six forty
from one to four pm every Monday through Friday, and
of course, anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
Can't.
Speaker 2 (00:00):
I am six forty. You're listening to the John Cobel
Podcast on the iHeartRadio app. We are on every day
whether you want it or not, one to four o'clock
and after four o'clock John Cobelt Show on demand on
the iHeart app. That's the A podcast version. I got
your problem.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
I was gonna say, I know what you were gonna.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Say, b l MTV. That's all I got to say.
Alex Stone's coming on with us. You know this this
this this stuff is just like so overhyped. You've you've
had some attacks on Tesla's and of course some of
the media wanted to portray it as America turning on
(00:41):
Elon Musk and turning on Donald Trump. But look, and
then it turns out to be a thirty six year
old loser in Las Vegas who set fire to a
bunch of Tesla's Molotov cocktails. Anyway, the authorities got him
and Alex has the details. Yeah, hey John, So yeah,
(01:03):
we learned a lot of information in the last little while.
You remember a week ago when this unfolded, Pam Bondi
that the AG was saying, this is domestic terrorism and
Elon Musk was as well. The sheriff in Vegas is
saying they don't really know if there's a coordinated thing
here that they're still looking into it. They don't see anything,
but thirty six year old Paul Kim is who they
(01:25):
track down, and they they are trying to figure out
if he has links to some organized thing or if
people who are sympathetic to what he did and the
you know, what people are doing to Tesla's if they're
just kind of doing it individually. And they still don't know,
but Vegas police say that they have figured out a
(01:45):
lot about him. He's got he's sympathetic, it appears to
different ideological groups, and that they can see based on
his yeah online activity. So this is a Vegas Assistant
Sheriff Dory Korn a little while ago.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Saying preliminary spent of the suspects social media activity indicates
some very loose but self proclaimed ties to the Communist
Party USA social media group, as well as social media
groups called Revolutionary Communists International, Hidden Palestine, Palestine Action, and
a variety.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Of other social media groups.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
That is part of our investigations to dig further into
it and to be able to determine additional motive and
other potential concerns.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
So he's charged locally and then a few minutes ago
federal charges. There's a federal arrest warrant that was also issued.
The charges are mainly arson and gun charges and having
incendiary devices. No talk of charging them with terrorism, even
though Bondi and Mosque had said, well this was clearly terrorism,
it doesn't seem like it fits the bill of that yet.
Do you know what the differentiation is? Yeah, there are
(02:48):
and I don't have the law in front of me,
but very specific things that the terrorism has to fit
for them to check. And the FBI, the Joint Terrorism
Task Force is the investigating group into this, and the
special Agent in charge to the FBI and Vegas. He said,
it does have some of the telltale signs of terrorism,
but there's a big jump when you go from vandalism essentially,
(03:09):
which is kind of what they're looking at it now,
up to terrorism where all of a sudden, you're talking
about somebody on the domestic side of you know, like
Oklahoma City versus spray painting a building and setting two
teslas on fire. So they have to kind of weigh
what it is and the magnitude of what they're dealing with,
but these are more like vandalism charges. Could change, They
could decide that they're going to go down the terrorism road.
(03:32):
But the key part of this, as they have laid
it out, is how they caught them. And it started
with this grainy surveillance video of a car and headlights
pointed toward a surveillance camera and they had a real
grainy image of somebody dressed all in black with a
mask on and hands covered with gloves so they didn't
(03:52):
get fingerprints. And they went from there, and the sheriff
today said that he thought this might be a case
from the beginning that they would never solve because they
had nothing to go on. The evidence was just not there.
But they used technology and surveillance videos and license play
readers around Vegas, analytics by analyzing a bunch of stuff
to find their man, and Sheriff Kevin mcmahill said a
(04:14):
few minutes ago my.
Speaker 4 (04:15):
Desire to become the most technologically advanced police department in
the country.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
This case is not solved without the use of technology.
So they had over two hundred and fifty investigators and
analysts and they use this technology that they've got and
drones and everything else to hone in on and arrest
this guy, Paul Kim, And they even found DNA that
he left to the crime scene on It appears to
have been on one of the unexploded Molotov cocktails. But
(04:42):
they got DNA from this scene where it was essentially
a vandalism scene. And then last night when they arrested him,
they got his They used a buckle swab and got
his DNA and a little while ago they got a
quick response from their lab that it's positive that it's
a match. So when they executed the search war on
his apartment overnight, they found guns ammo that matched what
(05:04):
was fired into the teslas before they were set on fire.
His electronic devices are right now being analyzed by the
FBI that they're going through those. There was one other thing,
there was pink riding on the building that the suspect
left behind that said resist and guess what they found
in his apartment when they went.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
He also recovered a black gun belt with a pouch
that had pink paint residue on it.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
So there you go. So he's under arrest, long list
of charges. They're still being working on trying to figure
out if he's linked to something bigger. But in eight
days and they're pretty proud of themselves in Vegas that
they went from knowing nothing and thinking this could be
one that they're never going to be able to solve
with just grainy surveillance and no good shots to have
license plates, to being able to catch them and they've
got them in jail. Now. Wow, I mean that's that
(05:47):
would be a great movie. Actually, I'd like to know
all the technology that they have. Now they don't want
you to know all of the technology, and they've got it,
but I want to know that they're very proud of
it though, that they feel like in Vegas and they're
really leading the chick in the way they usedide won
if the pink paint was supposed to be his calling
card and then just called me the pink panther and
tail attacker. Yeah, who's the guy who gets the job
(06:09):
of scraping the DNA off the unexploded Molotov cocktail? Yeah,
well some new old tech had to do that and
figure that out. And how they got the DNA wasn't
a fingerprint so that they knew it was there or
somewhere else. Maybe while he was spray painting the wall,
he put his hand on something and you know they
got some skin cells off of that. But yeah, he
(06:31):
had a rifle, fired it into the cars, set two
of them, but there was one car that they did
not explode, and then five cars in total had damage,
but it was two of that were totally damaged. All right,
good stuff, Alex Stone, Thank you you got it. By
John alex Stone from KFI News UH thirty six years old.
Paul jan Kim and the Communists are having a comeback.
(06:53):
He's apparently connected to several communist groups. And they had
Tesla dealerships and Tesla's and charging stations attacked in Seattle,
Kansas City, Missouri, and Charleston. This is the progressive crowd
that was screaming about climate change. Elon Musk produces the
only popular electric car that you can fight climate change with,
(07:18):
and now he's public enemy number one and people are
blowing up the cars and the dealerships and the charging stations.
You see how insane these people are. He should have
been their hero. Nobody else built an electric car that
anybody wanted, only he did, and now they're blowing them up,
which shows you it's not about the issue. It's about
(07:41):
their need to be to have meaning in their life.
They're losers. You're thirty six years old and you're setting
cars on fire. You're a loser. That's why you join
the Communist party. People who want to be communists and socialists.
They're angry, they're jealous. They've missed out on life. They
don't have any marketable talents. They're never gonna make any money.
(08:04):
They're gonna be the big al all their lives. They're
not gonna be able to get a wife, they're not
gonna have kids, they're not gonna own a home. Because
they're losers, they can't do anything, so they blow up
other people's stuff. They set fire to other people's stuff too,
because they're so enraged as to how their awful life
(08:24):
turned out. All right, we come back, speaking of losers.
Squatters took over an abandoned luxury RV park. They moved
into the RVs and they wouldn't leave, and then local
authorities found that it's difficult to remove squatters because in
(08:47):
California there are laws that protect the squatters. We've got
to report from Fox Leven and Haley Winslow coming up,
about this when we return.
Speaker 5 (08:58):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
It's time for world champion Dodger Baseball Today the Dodgers
taken on the Detroit Tigers opening Day at Dodger Stadium.
First pitch four to twelve. Listen to every game on
the iHeartRadio app. The keyword is AM five seventy LA
Sports and it's brought to you in part by Harry
Potter and the Cursed Child. Now at the Hollywood Pantagious
(09:26):
visit Broadway in Hollywood dot com and the ceremony begins
at three point thirty. So, uh, you should be on
your way. You haven't left yet. You should, you should?
You should go now. You can listen to us in
the car well. You may have heard. For a couple
of days there were stories of vagrants, drug addicts, and
(09:48):
mental patients taking over an abandoned luxury RV park. The
the RVs were were sitting there in a private lot
and it became a homeless encampment, and drug addicts being
drug addicts, and mental patients being mental patients. You ended
(10:09):
up with enormous piles of trash fires. Fires. Remember in
the city seventeen thousand fires started by the vagrants every year. Well,
this was going on in the City of Industry, and
it was tough at first to get rid of them.
Let's go to play's story from Hailey Winslow, Fox eleven.
(10:32):
I'm leaving. I'm out of here.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
God, there's no help. There's no help back on the streets.
Speaker 6 (10:38):
Yeah, I go moving day at this dirt parking lot
in the City of Industry.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
It's scary.
Speaker 6 (10:44):
It's a scary thing for those that don't have family
to open up their doors too. Some long gone in
the past twenty four hours with their travel trailer. This
man tries to force on a tire that doesn't fit
so he too can wheel away while sheriff's deputies patrols
a private parking lot through the fence.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Yeah, I'm mostly here because it rained in.
Speaker 7 (11:04):
I didn't want to be out in the rain.
Speaker 6 (11:06):
The growing encampment has been home to a lot of
problems over the past couple of years, constant fires, burglaries,
and literally tons of trash.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
The outside has painting a picture as being drug attics,
and it's.
Speaker 6 (11:20):
Not like that with their marijuana plants, dogs and water.
Well until recently shut off neighbors. Lean and Kimberly say
this is more like a community campground, and some say
they pay an RV lord three hundred dollars rent to
stay in one of these one hundred and thirty new
and abandoned Black series campers. This is my home, sweet home,
(11:40):
on the floor inside the estimated fifty thousand dollars trailer,
dog feces and spilled food.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
It is keeping me warm at night. It's probably make
my coffee.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
You gotta do it. You gotta do your survive out here.
It's not fun. It's not fun at all.
Speaker 6 (11:57):
Not fun for the neighbors either, like the Nissan dealers
that shares part of this lot. We actually had two
fires in the daytime and then we had a fire
at night. Kimberly and Lina say when they finally see
homeless outreach here, they'll happily move into a new home.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Give us some resources. Supposed to have millions of dollars
for homeless, where's the many.
Speaker 6 (12:18):
They just dropped off that forty yard trashman that we
told you about yesterday. Now outreach is expected to start
in the next couple of days, and then lasd is
now hoping to have everybody out by the end of
next week.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
So, Haley, what's the backstory with the two women that
you profiled how they end up homeless?
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Well, that is actually a very interesting story. So Kimberly,
she actually used to own a house with her parents.
She kind of went down a slippery slope and said
that she didn't pay three months rent in a home
down the road from here, and it eventually led her here.
And now Lena, she told me it would take a
miracle basically for her to not be homeless anymore. But
(12:57):
she does have two job interviews she had yesterday as
an optical assistant, which is her background, so she's praying
she gets one of those and gets back on her feet.
Speaker 6 (13:06):
And they were both very kind women. But I can
tell you from being here for the last two days,
we have met people from.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
All walks of life.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Yeah. See, I have never I mean I think all
the hundreds, probably thousands of people I've met in my
life that I know periphally as an acquaintance, as a friend,
none of them were ever homeless. None of them. So
I don't understand this. They're from all walks of life.
(13:35):
They're drug addicts or they're mentally ill. Is there really
is not a third category. Everybody wants to be nice
and tiptoe around it. But when one woman said, you know,
you don't have a family, it's like, all right, well,
what did you do that nobody in your family will
give you a room? What did you do? Okay? I mean,
(13:57):
did you set fire in the Halse house? Maybe you
know your your crack pipe fell on the carpet and
so that's why they tossed you out. Maybe you stole stuff,
stole money, you stole jewelry to satisfy your heroin or
fit noel addiction. What did you do? No? No, I've
never heard a reporter like go up to one of
(14:19):
these people. It's always about, well, you don't have a family,
I don't have a job, and they always sound like
this and I don't have a job. Oh no, I
don't have a drug problem. I don't have an alcohol roble.
Do you know anybody who talks like that in real life?
You ever worked with somebody who has a job he
talks like that?
Speaker 8 (14:36):
Well, actually, what I mean there are some people i've
you know, yeah, we kind of talk like that. They
may not be on drugs, Well.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
They may they probably are. You know a lot of
stone people talk like that exactly. Oh, I see what
you mean. Yeah, they they're not on drugs. Next thing
she said, but the marijuana plants that are. Yeah, you're right,
Stone people talk like that, which I think is about
i'd say sixty percent of the clerks when you go
(15:15):
to any kind of a store, standing at the register,
behind the counter, sixty percent of stoned.
Speaker 8 (15:20):
Well they're you know, they have they have to because
they're not happy with their job.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
No, because it's it's a terrible job and they're bored,
and so they kind of have to sedate themselves in
an esthetize themselves when we come back. Oh, we got
to talk about that Mexico story.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
Yeah, another travel story.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Well, because I told this to Debor before when I
first heard the story, it's a vacation Mexico hotel prison. Yeah,
dispute over payment, and for some reason, you thought of me.
You popped into my head. You're the only person who
popped into my head. Who could this also happen to?
Speaker 5 (16:01):
You're listening to John Cobel's on demand from KFI A
six forty.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
If you miss anything, we're on the iHeart app. The
John Cobelt Podcast, John Cobelt, Shawn Demand, it's officially called
and that gets posted shortly after four. Coming up in
the next segment, we're going to play you more of
a story that we started yesterday. Ashley Zavalla did a
(16:28):
story on Ricardo Lara missing a Senate hearing meeting. He's
the insurance Commissioner cal Fart Laarer as we like to
call him. He missed a meeting to go on a
trip to Bermuda, a fifteen minute speech he gave to
insurance executives. It turns out after an investigation, this guy
(16:49):
has been traveling to dozens of cities overseas and here
in this country and has missed many meetings. We went
through about half of this yesterday, going to pick up
on it today and then after three o'clock we're going
to talk with Katie Grimes in more detail about you
know this is this is Karen Bass in Africa. This
(17:11):
is now Riccardo Lara, who's was bolting. We've had a
terrible insurance crisis for years in California for various reasons.
But you know this, you know what you're paying for
home insurance, fire insurance, car insurance, earthquake insurance. It's all
out of control. A lot of companies have pulled out,
(17:31):
and premiums are outrageous, and it's complete mismanagement in the
industry by the state, which is why a government shouldn't
be managing an industry. Especially I don't like Ricardo Lara.
So we'll have more on all the obscene number of
trips he's taken, many of them paid by taxpayers. That's
that's in the next segment, and then Katie Grimes is
(17:53):
going to come on after three o'clock. All right, you
might have heard about this case. It's getting more. We're
fascinating because this poor couple, Christy and Paul Akeo, have
been in a Mexican prison for twenty three days.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Can you imagine When I.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
First heard the headline on this, I thought, of you,
Why well, they've by the way vacation Mexico dispute overcharges.
I thought, who could that happen? Who potentially could that
happen to? Out of everybody, I do don't wish that
(18:32):
on you. I'm not wishing it on you, all right.
So they had a timeshare deal with Palace Resorts, and
they've had a long running dispute with Pallas and they
haven't paid their bill for months. It's one hundred and
seventeen thousand dollars. They turned over the dispute to American Express,
(18:55):
and American Express sided with Christy and Paul and uh
erase the charges.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
Yeah, what's wrong with that?
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Well, Palace Resorts disagrees. Okay, they claim that that Christy
and Paul are committing fraud. Christy posted on Facebook explaining
to other timeshare owners how to get out of the charges.
(19:25):
Mexican authorities say this describes how to commit fraud, and
so they're really pissed.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Okay, but wait a second, don't post either.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
No.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
Yeah, well I've learned that.
Speaker 8 (19:37):
But are they saying that for people to legitimately I mean,
if they have a legitimate issue, this is how you
get out of it, or they, I don't know, to
screw with the Mexican government.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Well, I guess that you could have two different interpretations.
Maybe they're telling their story and they were giving a
like an explanation is how they got out of the charges.
Whatever they told American Express, American Express bought it. But
just because American Express in the United States says, hey, yeah,
you're right, we will eliminate the charges. Doesn't mean the
(20:12):
company in Mexico is going to go along. And Mexico's
corrupt country, and the police are corrupt, the judges are corrupt,
the government is corrupt to the bone. You don't want
to get in a dispute with anybody. And if anybody
asks you for money in Mexico, you pay them and
then give them an extra twenty five percent for their trouble.
That's how you survive. And I'm telling you this all right,
(20:33):
thank you. The Mexican authorities arrested the Achios for fraud
to a hotel chain. That's what they told ABC News.
Their daughter, Lindsey Hall, is doing the publicity. My mom
is terrified. She tells us every single day, every single
phone call, how scared she is. She obviously cries a lot.
(20:55):
I'm here in a maximum security prison in Mexicano. I've
been doing maximum security. That would get you a longer sentence.
As you cry, well, if you start yelling and kicking
in the protesting maximum security.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
This is didn't kill anybody.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
They claim the resort did not allow them to use
their time as promised. I never got involved in time shares.
I never trusted them.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
I have their pain.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Are they a pain because you want to go a
certain time but they have to have availability?
Speaker 3 (21:32):
Right, yes?
Speaker 2 (21:33):
And I have this feeling that there's never availability well
or everybody wants the same week exactly if.
Speaker 8 (21:39):
You're looking to go to Hawaii for Christmas, forget it.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
You're not going to be able to use your time share.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
So they got a refund. They canceled thirteen transactions. The
Mexican authorities say this was done maliciously, not recognizing the charges. Now,
Lindsey Hall, the daughter, says there's clear no length that
the hotel is not willing to go. To make an example,
this is exactly what's happening on top of corruption and extortion.
(22:08):
And now this has gone on for three full weeks,
it's time for it to be done. Well, the Akios
have gone to a judge, and you know what the
judge did. They gave the timeshare company six more months
to gather evidence.
Speaker 8 (22:22):
Oh no, so they have to stay in that maximum
maximum security prison for six.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
More potently, Yeah, yeah, they went to a judge. Maybe
the judge took a little money from the timeshare company.
It's like, yeah, yeah, six months.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
So wait a seute.
Speaker 8 (22:38):
They didn't just so they disputed this while they were
in Mexico.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
No, they came home. They keep going back to their problem.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
I wouldn't do that.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Maybe that's why you're not in prison.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Maybe that's why.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
No, they keep they kept going back. They've gone for
several years. This is the first time that they got
nailed at the airport there.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
Okay, all right now, yeah, okay, I get it.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
Uh. The Palace Company subsidiary it's called Palace Elite, filed
a criminal complaint with Mexican authorities after they after Paul
and Christy fraudulently disputed legitimate credit card charges and publicly
encouraged others to do the same. Shut up, stop sharing
to your all your life on stupid social media. You
(23:25):
know you got to be put in prison just for
posting on social media. Uh, Mexican, that's kind of rude.
Oh bloney. Mexican prosecutors reviewed the evidence, and, following failed
attempts to serve notice, they got a court approved arrest warrant.
Interpol validated the case and issued a red notice, leading
(23:49):
to their detention at Kenkun Airport, and a judge since
ruled their sufficient cause for the case. To proceed to trial.
So not only six months for evidence, but they're going
to lose it at the trial. Yes, this case is cooked.
So they said, we have to engage in preventative detention
(24:09):
of the akias they are.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
You don't want to mess with the Mexican.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Government, No you don't. You can't appeal to the judges.
You can't expect the police to help you out. The
hotel's not helping you out. If you run up the charges,
pay the charges.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
And then don't go back. If you're just.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Government, don't make it a public case on Facebook. Nobody
cares anyway. You know. I always ask this, like I
did about those squatters at the RV, What did you do?
You're in a Mexican prison, What did you do? What
can you do better next time? It's like a half
a dozen things these people could have done differently. Yeah,
like just pay your freaking bill.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
So you think they are scammers?
Speaker 2 (24:52):
I don't know. I don't think there's scammers.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
You know.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Some people are just you can't please them, you know,
and they get really worked up, maybe over small things,
and they want their money back right away for everything.
You know that you know they don't want to pay
a restaurant bill because maybe the steak was a little overdone,
and you know they want the entire table comped. You
know those kind of people. Yeah, I wish, I wish.
(25:19):
I wish your whole life was recorded. Why I can
use examples on the air to explain my point.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Why you're probably could like you don't want.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
To do this. Your vegan meal doesn't come back, Well, yeah.
Speaker 8 (25:32):
There, you know what really quick, let me just tell
you I was at this restaurant. I'm not kidding, So
I said, I want vegan pasta, so no dairy, no
animal products. So basically I said, just how about some
noodles and some olive oil or white wine sauce. I
don't care garlic and vegetables. So it comes back with
cheese all over it. So I send it back and
(25:55):
and it doesn't. It doesn't come back. I mean, I
don't get the proper the correct course doesn't come back.
So I asked the.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
Waitress or the waiter I can't remember, and they said, oh,
we're working out. We're working on it. We're working on it.
So my husband's already way done.
Speaker 8 (26:12):
So we get the manager and he says, okay, it's
coming it's coming.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
That's what I'm talking about.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Okay, So I'm waiting and waiting. It's so stupid.
Speaker 8 (26:20):
This is so easy to take two seconds. This is
this is not a steak that we're cooking here.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
No food for you, So the Mexican prison for you.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
The manager comes.
Speaker 8 (26:29):
Back to me and says, it's still going to be
another ten minutes.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
I said, forget it. My husband's already done. We're going
to leave. And he said, okay, well we won't charge you.
I said, well, why would you charge me?
Speaker 8 (26:38):
I never got the food.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
There you go, that's where you end up in prison.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
I wouldn't do that in Mexican.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Because you won't accept the no charge, you have to
make a public case and scold the guests.
Speaker 8 (26:48):
Stupid to tell me we're not going to of course
you're not going to charge me.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
I never got my food.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
And then you go on Facebook and you do it
right on Facebook, and next thing you know, you're being level.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
I can't even say the name of the restaurant.
Speaker 5 (27:00):
You're listening to John Cobels on Demand from KFI Am
six forty.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
So yesterday we went through part of a story from
Stephanie Sierra of KGOTV about all the outrageous travel by
that knucklehead where Cardo Lara Calphart Lara, who's the insurance commissioner,
who's botched up the whole insurance industry. Everything's too expensive,
a lot of companies have pulled out now, the Fair Plan,
(27:29):
the California insurance backup program that's going to go bankrupt,
and he skips Senate meetings repeatedly to go traveling all
over the world. The latest one is he went to
Bermuda for a fifteen minute speech instead of talking to
the Senate to explain what's going on here. Here is
(27:49):
more of the story where Stephanie Sierra gets into the
long list of vacations where Cardo Lara takes many of
them at the taxpayer's expense.
Speaker 9 (28:00):
It's video Recordings from the Senate website show Lada only
joined those hearings via zoom once.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Great to be here, thank you so much for taking
the time.
Speaker 9 (28:08):
In January twenty twenty four, and that hearing was the
first one hosted after the governor signed an executive order
calling on Lada to do more to address the insurance crisis.
Records show after that he attended most of the other
Assembly insurance hearings last year. Do you think he should
have been there last week?
Speaker 3 (28:25):
Well, that's not for me to say.
Speaker 7 (28:27):
How do you represent the state if you're not even
there at these meetings. I understand you can send your
staff to fill in for you on occasion, but it
sends a message of I think what he believes is important.
Speaker 9 (28:41):
Ray Asbell worked under the California Department of Insurance and
cal HR for more than a decade, specializing in travel policy.
He explains, each state department requires there must be an
established travel need.
Speaker 7 (28:55):
What is your department's core missioner? Howell this travel benefit
that mission and benefit in this case, the ratepayers of California.
Speaker 9 (29:04):
The commissioner was unavailable for an interview to discuss his
travel schedule, but his staff provided this comment regarding the
Bermuda trip. Commissioner Lada's job is to ensure that California
consumers have real choices, not just last resorts. This involves
going over the heads of insurance companies and engaging directly
with the global reinsurance groups that support them. He is
(29:26):
working to retain insurance companies in the market and attract
those that have left. We asked how many insurance companies
have been retained to support California's insurance market, but we have.
Speaker 7 (29:36):
Yet to hear back frankly that people should be outraged to.
Speaker 9 (29:40):
Put this trip in perspective. Seven on Your Side obtained
and analyzed hundreds of public records detailing the Commissioner's expenses
made since assuming office in twenty nineteen. Lada made at
least forty six trips across the country and all over
the world, but as we found out, a significant chunk
of the records are missing and the state has been
unable to provide them, including work related trips where he
(30:03):
is pictured or listed as a speaker in Singapore, Cape Town,
South Africa, Dublin, Costa Rica, Chile, Egypt, Tokyo, Glasgow, and Dubai,
plus a handful of trips to these states. With that said,
the trip receipts we do have are not cheap. For context,
record show Illinois Insurance Commissioner spent six hundred and eighty
(30:24):
dollars for the entire year of twenty twenty two. Meanwhile,
during the first six months of Lada's term, his cross
country and international trips cost taxpayers more than thirty three
thousand dollars. This includes an all expenses paid week long
trip at a luxury five star hotel in Bogota, Columbia
for an LGBTI political leaders conference, and another flight and
(30:46):
five star hotel stay in New York City for PrideFest.
For his schedule listed a vip rooftop event with DJ
Kitty Glitter. We should note the four day trip did
not list any insurance related meetings on his schedule.
Speaker 7 (31:00):
Yet, as on scratching my head as a hedgecratchery, when
somebody travels, it really should be something that is mission critical.
Speaker 9 (31:06):
Receipts showed Lata made a request for a fourteen thousand
dollars mission critical trip to Chile in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
She's up year.
Speaker 9 (31:14):
Why For more than a month, We repeatedly asked the
state what the business purpose was for those trips, but
have yet to get a direct answer. Instead, Lada's staff
appeared to have restated parts of his bio in an
email that started with insurance Commissioner Ricardo Latta as a
recognized global leader in addressing the impact of climate change
(31:34):
on insurance markets, going on to say our goal is transparency.
Yet none of that answered our questions, So I followed
up again and again and again with a very specific
list of questions about those trips, and his office eventually
told me this, we have conducted an exhaustive search and
found no records of attendance at these events. That's interesting
(31:58):
given the commissioner is pictured many of these events and conferences.
Not to mention, seven on your side obtained receipts from
his flights and hotels days.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
So I followed up again.
Speaker 9 (32:08):
His staff did not provide any answer, but instead wrote,
I'm glad we were able to help you. So, as
you can see, we did not get much of an
answer there. The state has also been unable to identify what,
if any regulatory action or benefit to California's insurance market
that came as a result from all these trips.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
There isn't Eddie. He's a grifter. He's a crook, That's
what he is. This is stealing tax money so he
could party around the world. Let's run through all the
sites again that he's traveled to. Paris, Bogata, Bermuda, Uruguay, Hawaii, Washington, Florida, Toronto, Singapore,
Cape Town, Dudley, Costa Rica, Chile, Egypt, Tokyo, Glasgow, Dubai, Arizona, Illinois,
(32:54):
New York, Rhode Island, Washington, d C. Connecticut, the United Kingdom.
Did I mention Uruguay? Yes, yes, he spent eight days
in the UK. He he went to Honolulu for policy training.
Four star hotel bill. We paid for that, luxury trips,
(33:19):
luxury hotels. We spent six thousand dollars so he could
go to Paris. I mean the winner is the all
expense paid week long trip to the LGBTQ Political Leaders
Conference in Bogota, Colombia. That's my favorite. Oh well maybe
this one. A flight and a five star hotel in
New York City for Pride Fest, a vip rooftop event
(33:42):
with DJ Kitty Glitter. Four days, no insurance meetings. He's
a grifter, he's a crook. Of course, he doesn't want
to release any records. We got everything we need to know.
He should be at office. He should be forced to resign,
and he's found to the insurance industry, Go look at
your insurance bill. Why is it so high? Big part
(34:04):
of the reason is the mismanagement of this character, a
complete fraud whose only other claim to fame was trying
to require cows wear machines on their back to catch
their farts because their farts caused climate change. Seriously, go
look it up. He's not known for anything else. People
in this state have elected him twice to the Insurance
(34:27):
Commissioner twice. When we come back, we'll have more on him.
We're going to talk with Katie Grimes from California Globe,
who's researching this story as well. Debra Marc is live
in the KFI twenty four hour News or Hey, you've
been listening to The John Cobalt Show podcast. You can
(34:48):
always hear the show live on KFI Am six forty
from one to four pm every Monday through Friday, and
of course, anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
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John Kobylt
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