May 15, 2025 • 35 mins
The John Kobylt Show Hour 1 (05/15) - It is now a crime to buy a 16 or 17 year old for sex. A south LA couple is facing federal charges for impeding a ICE raid. Suspended UFLAC union head Freddy Escobar comes on the show to give his side of the story.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Can't. I am six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
You're listening to the John Cobel Podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
We're on every day from one until four o'clock, and
then after four o'clock it's a podcast, John Cobel's Show
on demand on the iHeart app and you can listen
to everything that you missed. We have a surprise coming
up in the two o'clock hour. We're gonna have a
(00:23):
co host hanging out and we'll tell you all about
that in a few minutes.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
But it's the winner of the.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Caterina's Club contest with Chef Bruno from last fall and
the high bidder, just like last year, gets to co
host the show for a period of time, and we'll
tell you all about that coming up after two.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
That starts now.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Almost every day something astonishing comes out of Sacramento, something abnormal,
often weird, deviant, and sick. First, the good news, the
California Assembly actually passed the new law that will make
it easier for prosecutors to charge a felony for those
(01:13):
of you who buy sixteen and seventeen year olds for sex.
You know that was a big racket a couple of
weeks ago, because the Democrats were trying to block the
bill because many of them wanted to continue buying teenagers
for sex, and Carl Demio, the Republican Assemblymen, shamed them
out of it. It got extensive media coverage. Gavin Newsom said, no,
(01:36):
we need to make this a felony. How it wasn't
a felony every other state in the Union, it was
a felony not here. So this vote was seventy four
to nothing. Seventy four to nothing, And not only does
it make it a felony to buy a sixteen and
seventeen year old for sex, it also makes it a
(01:57):
crime again to loiter with the intent to buy anyone
for sex. So somewhere along the line, the perverts, pedophiles
and predators in Sacramento had legalized prostitution, and now it's
going to be illegal again.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
So we've got a string of these things.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Remember they had made shoplifting legal, and then Prop thirty
six reverse that. They had made public drug use illegal.
Prop thirty six reversed that as well, and now they're
reversing the idea that prostitution.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Is legal in California.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Not only that, boy, they must have gotten fiery blowback
from normal people. The perverts have now created heftier fines
for businesses like hotels that allow these crimes to take
place on their property. So no longer if hotel management
sees middle aged men dragging teenage girls by the hair
(02:59):
up to the room for sex, will the will the
managers look the other way and just shrug their shoulders
and say, hey, it's legal. What do you want me
to do? That's not going to happen. And there's now
a new fund to support victims of these crimes. So also,
if the adult is more than three years older than
(03:21):
the minor victim, they'll face a felony as well. Seventy
four to nothing. Though there were some absent legislators, well,
the only one present, and this is according to the
only reporter in California who covers the legislator, Ashley Zavala
for KCR TV in Sacramento. Ashley on Twitter wrote that
(03:43):
the only lawmaker here who would not vote for it
was the Democratic assembly woman Mia Banta. That name familiar.
Mia Bonta is the wife of Rob Bonta, the attorney general.
So get this, the attorney General's wife. And by the way,
if you look at her voting record, she is a
(04:05):
whack job who and this proves it. She's sitting there
and the vote is, hey, you want to make buying
a sixteen year old for sex of felony. She got
her arms folded. She's afraid to vote no. She doesn't
want to be the only no vote, so she just
(04:26):
declines to vote abstains. So she's not only crazy, she's
a coward. I mean, how did your your husband's the
attorney general. I mean, just just for basic decency appearances,
all right, So she's on the side of the side
of the pimps.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Yeah, I guess.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
I guess they're perverts, predators, pedophiles, and pimps. The four
p's those that's the assembly. That's the assembly in the
state Senate. You choose your p. Then there's another nut.
This is an assembly woman named this is a good
one Lechee sharp hyphen Collins. Lechee is la capital s
(05:16):
h Ae lache sharp Collins, and she worries how the
proposal could impact the LGBTQ community and people of color.
Why would that be there's no specification about color or
sexual orientation. You can't buy a teenager for sex, that's
what it says. The law says it's a felony if
(05:39):
you buy teenagers for sex. Why would that impact gay
people or or blacks any different from everyone. Well, it doesn't.
It's just nonsense. She's just an idiot. She also claims
it could be against the California Racial Justice Act. I
don't know what that is. It passed in twenty twenty.
(06:00):
Anything that passed in twenty twenty is not good. Is
usually like crazy stuff. But I don't think the California
Racial Justice Act says it's legal for certain races or
ethnicities to buy teenagers for sex.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Does it?
Speaker 2 (06:18):
I doubt it very much, so I lache Sharp Collins.
I always keep track of people who who are willing
to go on the record pretty much. It's as if
they're standing on the roof going I'm really crazy, I'm
a psycho. The assembly woman who filed this was a Democrat,
(06:40):
Maggie Krow, and she was a prosecutor, a prosecutor, she'd
investigated human trafficking, sex trafficking for two decades and she
was a prosecutor for the California Department of Justice, so
she worked for the state and she originally wrote the bill,
and then her name stripped off the bill when it
(07:01):
ran into all that ran into all that commotion. Remember
the moron from Burbank, Nick Schultz, this twelve year old
who's the chairperson, the chairman of the Assembly Public Safety
Committee committee. He took he took the bill away from
Maggie Crell, stripped her name off it, put his name
on it, and then filed it away for some other
(07:24):
time until the blowback was overwhelming and he had to
stick his tail between his legs and resubmit the bill
and put Maggie Crell's name on the bill again. And
Maggie had told the other Well had told the perverts, pimps, predators,
(07:45):
and pedophiles in the Assembly about a human trafficking victims
that she dealt with who had suffered an injury at
the hands of her buyer. So this is a young
girl teenage or who had some kind of an injury,
maybe got beat up in some way, or the sexual
(08:07):
attack was so vicious, she's hurt and the buyer, the guy,
didn't face any consequences for the crime. And Crell said
that moment haunted me the way she felt so disposable.
Now that Crell explained this to the Assembly, members right,
and still they ripped the bill away from her and
(08:30):
blocked it for a time. And we also have to
one of the other bad guys, Assembly Speaker Robert Reevis.
He removed her as the main author him and Chultz
after she spoke out against Revus's decision to block the
felony proposal. Breevous also was one of these sikos who
(08:54):
ran ads lying claiming that the Republicans were the one
blocking the proposal, just out and out lies. He had
a woman who ran one of these public relation companies
and they started running all these ads that were just
complete garbage, smearing Republicans. So that's what Revs is about again.
(09:18):
We're talking about sixteen year old girls and boys being
bought for sex, and the Republicans were on the right
side of this. The Democrats were on the side of
the pimps and the pedophiles and the predators. And Revas
got mad at Kroll and Revs got mad at the Republicans.
(09:39):
Maggie Crow was a Democrat, and I think there were
two others as well. Revas didn't speak on the Assembly
floor about the proposal because he's a coward, and he
would not speak with reporters after the vote because he's
a coward. These are really tough guys when they're hiding
behind fake ads online, when they're bullying people trying to
(10:01):
do the right thing.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Uh. You know, when you're the speaker, you have all
the power.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
So Maggie Crow as great as a prosecutor she is,
she's got no power up against the Breevus and so
Revs is this big billy bully and pushes pushes Krell around,
runs these these fake lying ads online. But now after
he lost the war, reporters want to talk to him.
He's not talking. Uh, he doesn't. He doesn't speak on
(10:27):
the floor about it. So you just remember Robert Reeves
because he's he and Nick Schultz created this disgusting mess
trying to protect the rapists. I'm sorry, these what these
what these these guys were doing, these middle aged men,
they were grabbing sixteen year olds and seventeen year olds
off the street, taking them to some disgusting hotel and
(10:49):
then raping them in the rooms. That's why there's a
provision now that says, uh, you know, the the hotels
or the uh yeah, the hotels can be find for
allowing the sort of behavior. So Revis and Schultz were
in favor of middle aged weirdos raping teenage boys and
(11:10):
girls and dragging him to motels. All right, and now
suddenly they go quiet, well, gonna hang this around their
necks forever, forever, because this is what you have, Schultz,
is right here out of Burbank. You live in Burbank. Here,
this is your district. This is what you've got here.
You know, they're trying to clean up the mess, but
(11:31):
this is a permanent stain, and we're going to make
sure that you can always hear and see the stain.
All right, we got something good coming up after one thirty.
Freddie Escobart was the Los Angeles Fire Department union president.
I say was because he's currently under suspension, and we
(11:52):
first had him on the show shortly after the Palisades fires,
and he was quite honest and forthcoming about how the
fire department's gotten screwed by Karen Bass and Eric Carcetti
and really gotten screwed for decades. They're wildly underfunded, only
half the department. They only have half a department. I've
(12:12):
said that many times and it's still true. Well, you know,
Freddy was went on the air, and was quite detailed
in his characterization of what was going on. And then
somebody decided to publicize that he has hundreds of thousands
(12:33):
of dollars on Fire Department credit cards or Union credit cards,
and he doesn't have the receipts for all his charges,
and it's hundreds of thousands of dollars. Freddy Escobar claims
that he's innocent of this. He's coming on the air
with us coming up after one thirty because he's trying
to clear his name, so we're gonna hear what.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
He has to say. Then, Debra Mark, Yes, you have
this deep I know. Gosh, I don't know this cold allergies.
I'm dying here. It's getting worse every day every day.
I don't understand it. Don't go to your Conway heat
(13:14):
free cat.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
I know.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Yeah, he's even. He probably wouldn't come to work. Yeah,
I know. I'll stay away from him. Because you had
kind of a rich, deep Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
I always wanted that smoker kind of voice, because I
never smoked, So I think that when I first started
out in the business, I wanted.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
That deep voice, and I think I have it now.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
I think you could do a whole other line of commercials. Now, yeah,
they might qualify for.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Josh Moody has arrived.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Josh is an attorney and he won the uh Katerina's
Club contest when we did that fundraiser for Chef Bruno
last fall and he had the winning bid and he's
going to co host the show. He'll hang out with
us beginning in the two o'clock hour and three o'clock hour.
We're going to talk about whatever Josh wants to talk about.
So he was the winner for the pastathon. And his
(14:07):
wife Marie, who's a prosecutor, is also going to be
sitting in with us. And that's coming up starting after
two o'clock. And like I said, Freddy Escobar, the suspended
LA Fire Department union president, is coming on. He's being
accused of not documenting all of two hundred and sixty
(14:27):
five thousand dollars in union money he spent on union
credit cards and they're doing an investigation. He's got to
produce some receipts. They say, we'll talk to Freddy on
the phone coming up. You know what I like about
the way immigration law is suddenly being enforced for the
(14:49):
first time since.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Probably this country was established.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Is that the guy running the enforcement operation is Tom Homer.
And Tom Homan, if you've seen him on TV. He
is this big, burly bald and it's got like this
bullet head, looks like a slab of cement on his neck,
and he is tough and gruff and is not afraid
(15:18):
of anything, and he has you know, most of the
time when officials talk, they're just trying to intimidate and
deter you. They're not actually going to carry out their threats.
Homan is carrying it out. And he had said that
if anybody gets in the way of his immigration officers
when it comes time to round people up and deport them,
(15:40):
then they are going to be prosecuted with federal crimes.
And that's what's happened to this South Los Angeles couple,
Gustavo Torres and Jamie Flores. Gustavo's twenty eight Kia is
thirty four, and they're facing federal criminal charges for trying
to use their car to impede and pursue federal immigration agents.
(16:05):
The agents were serving search warrants, and federal prosecutors announced
this on Wednesday. Of course, advocacy groups are squawking and
are claiming this is an intimidation tactic. No, that that's
the law people are the law has not been enforced
for so long in so many ways, federally, statewide, locally
(16:30):
in the city of la and other towns, that people
don't recognize the law and they think you're doing something
illegal when you enforce the law. You know this this
this just hit me like today, It's like, how how
could they say something that's written in black and white
very clearly, like if you do this, you've broken the
(16:51):
law and there are consequences. How can you argue with that?
And then I realized, because it hasn't been enforced in
so long, people don't wreck recognize this. It doesn't make
any sense to them. You have people like this, this
is like late twenties, early thirties. Yeah, the last thirty years,
increasingly it's been lawless in this state. Sold they how
(17:13):
would they know? The advocacy and the advocacy groups were
so used to getting their way with weak, silly, stupid
politicians that they're they're they're a gas. It's like, well,
what do you mean you're enforcing the law a wait,
wait a second, Nobody ever did that before.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
What's this? What does that mean in forcing the law?
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Well, you know read, Oh I forgot three quarters of
Californians can't read, so maybe triy sign language. This happened
on February twenty eighth. You had Homeland Security agents, Custom
and Border Protection agents. They were serving search warrants in
South Los Angeles. Small crowd gathered outside of home in
the Florence neighborhood, and at nine thirty or so, three
(17:56):
law enforcement vehicles left the scene with some evidence and
an agent recorded Jamie Flores, the woman outside the house
standing next to a Honda, and then that same car
was blocking the agent's vehicles at sixty first in Broadway
and they could drive around the Honda and then Torres
the man drove in front of one of the government
(18:17):
vehicles and then aggressively pumped his brakes and then pulled
into the gas station and then followed the agents for
about two miles. So this is these are federal crimes,
and I hope they go to federal prison. I hope
they're all bent over in federal prison, both of them.
And you know, the woman had it expired driver's license
(18:40):
and you know their boyfriend and girlfriend.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
I don't know why they aren't working.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
And she asked if she was being questioned in relation
to an incident connected to immigrations, and I think she
knew what she did. Anyway, they've got the evidence. She
had photos with writing on the photos. You know, they
looked at her phone and the photos had writing that said,
(19:11):
we try to stop, but I can't do it alone.
We need to stick together to stop them from as
long as we can. Let's fight together in a good way.
And then some Spanish stuff. Anyway, they should all go
to prison, zero tolerance. Enough of this nonsense. When we
come back. Freddy Escobar, the Los Angeles Fire Department union president,
currently suspended, spend a lot of money on credit cards
(19:32):
and they say you can't back it up. We'll talk
to Freddy next.
Speaker 4 (19:36):
You're listening to John Cobel's on demand from KFI A
six forty.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Just a reminder cause it's posted. It's the on YouTube
and Facebook. I appeared on my wife's video podcast demo
cobet Live, and it's on YouTube now and Facebook, like
I said, and you could watch it. We talk more
long form about all the hot issues of the day.
So when you get a chance later today, it's called
(20:05):
Debra Cobet Live. It's on YouTube, it's on Facebook, and
I think you'll enjoy it. And it's video. It's even
more exciting than radio. We are going to have a
guest host, co host Josh Boody coming on after two o'clock.
He's the pastathon winner Katerina's Club with Chef Bruno last
(20:26):
fall he had the winning bid and he and his
wife Marie are going to come on and he's going
to hang out with us for a while, and then
eventually he's going to control topic selection.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
And we will see how that goes.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Coming up right after two o'clock in a moment, we're
going to Freddie Escobar on the LA Fire Department union
president who's been suspended. He ran up two hundred and
sixty five thousand dollars worth of credit card bills on
the union credit card, and the national Union is saying
that he has not provided documentation to substantiate this and
(20:59):
they're invested standing him and he suspended. To get a
real clear rundown of the story, here's ABC seven reporter
Kevin Uzbek.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
That's the gentleman to please leave three times Now.
Speaker 5 (21:10):
The day began with Freddie Escobar being escorted out of
the union parking lot, and the morning didn't get any
better for this now suspended president of the United Firefighters
of Los Angeles City.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
All of a sudden, they're not allowing me to park in.
Speaker 6 (21:24):
The gate codes were changed after the International Association of
Firefighters took control of.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
The local union.
Speaker 6 (21:32):
It accusedes Escobar not fully documenting how more than two
hundred and sixty five thousand dollars in union money he
spent was for union business. Did you ever once use
any penny of the union money for anything personal? Escobar says,
this thumb drive holds all of the receipts proving the
money was properly spent. After holding a press conference, he
(21:53):
went to drop that thumb drive off, but he wasn't
allowed in the front door.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
I don't know what to say.
Speaker 7 (22:01):
An organization that I would have died for has not
given me an opportunity now to present to them what
they've been looking for.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
He then tried the back gate.
Speaker 7 (22:16):
How come you guys don't want it?
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Explain to me, Matt, how come you don't want it?
Speaker 7 (22:21):
What have I done to you?
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Guys?
Speaker 6 (22:23):
Escobar says he was never told he was being audited,
and says investigators never questioned him, but the IAFF tells
us mister Escobar was repeatedly urged and written communication and
face to face meetings to fulfill his fiduciary duties and
submit proper documentation for all expenditures. Escobar eventually could hand
(22:43):
over his thumb drive in hard copies was allowed in,
but said when inside he had a hand over his
Union phone. He then sat in the parking lot for
about an hour before driving off.
Speaker 5 (22:55):
Escobar no longer.
Speaker 6 (22:57):
Maybe head of the UNI, but he is still an
LAFD fire fighter. He says. This week he goes back
to being a full time captain at fire Station number
two in Boyle Heights.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
All right, let's get pretty askomar on ready.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
All right, Hey, John, Hey, thank you for thank you
for having me on. I know it's been a while.
I was doing little research and you said, hey, you
had me on. When this happened, I thought I was
a good guy. I am a good guy, and I
first this is you know, a personal issue, and it's
a life issue for me. And I know there's a
lot of other horrific things that are happening to people
(23:34):
outside of this world that I'm living in right now,
I mean Pacific Pola Seeds. You guys know five thousand
homes were destroyed.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Well, I appreciated you coming on and telling what seems
to be the truth about the massive underfunding of the
Los Angeles Fire Department and how that played into the
response to the Palisades fire. You know, the fire stations
we don't have, we have the same number basically that
we had in the nineteen six these you know, the
massive number of fire calls that are majority are from
(24:06):
homeless people now, So you know, that was a lot
of great information to have now on this matter, On
this matter, I guess the obvious question you know everybody
who just heard that report is they say they kept
asking you for the receipts and documentation. Why did you
not give it to them all along? Why did it
come down to the thumb drive yesterday.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Well, first, no one ever interviewed me, no one ever
asked me, no one even told me I was being audited.
We and when I say, we are executive board at
UFLEG invited the ISS to come in and do an
audit and see if we could we have nothing to hide.
To zero, we'd say, by the rules.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
So this is the international union making these charges against
you as the head of the local union. And they
never called you into a meeting, contacted you in any
way by mail, email, nothing.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
Nothing formal. Zero. I had an informal conversation with one
of the top two members, who happens to be an
LAFD Captain Frank Lima, who's a dear friend of mine.
Never officially, he told me, like in early April we met.
We ran into each other at burdbankut Or doing union
business traveling. He says, hey, do you have your receipts
(25:23):
in I go, yeah, I take a picture, I put who, what, where,
and why. It goes into the cloud and then the
staff reconciliates him. And I've never ever been brought up
on anything regarding reconciliation for six years, for seventeen years
I've been on the board, We've had good audits. This
(25:44):
is I don't know why this is happening, but I
have absolutely nothing to hide, and wenately.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
What is the normal process.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
I know in places I've worked, if you run up
bills and you're eligible for reimbursement, you fill out a
company form, you stay receipts, and you send it into
whatever bureaucrat handles it, and you what what was the
process you went through? Because this is a number of years,
(26:12):
so it should have been dozens of forms that you
filled out and hundreds and hundreds of receipts. Well did
you do all that along the way? Were they just trying?
Speaker 3 (26:22):
No? No, no, no, So we were. We did hard
copies when I first started, and I believe in twenty
and sixteen, we went to an app because you know, technology, yeah,
was taking its course, and we have an app called
doc link. So we take a picture of our expenditure,
we put take a picture of it, and then on
the attachment of the app it says who, what, where
(26:44):
and why, and then we fill it in. And since
I've been president, I fill it, I send it, It
goes to a cloud and then the staff reconciliates them.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
So all these bunch of years you were filling out
those forms and documenting every credit card charge that you
used for union business.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Correct and then if the treasurer, who's responsible for the
oversight of that, if there was any issues, they would
bring it up to me. We have a very good
checks and balance. Obviously we could do better, like in
any type of business, and that's why we welcome the iff.
But for what they're accusing me of, the way that
they slandered my name, the deflemation that came out. This
(27:27):
is a union that is supposed to have due process.
They never interviewed me. There's no emails. They'll say they
talked about email. There's no emails. This, I believe is
a wight hut.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
I believed if you're right, okay, because it was a
pretty broad based charge. Two hundred and sixty five thousand.
That adds up to a lot of transactions there. It's
not like you know, one or two fell through the
cracks over the years. It's such a broad paced charge.
And you claim you're entirely innocent, then somebody's had to
(27:58):
get you. And who would that be and why would
they be out.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
I have I do not know, but I can tell
you this, since they've tried to silence me. They silenced
Chief Crowley, they removed her. I was huge on opposing
the first time a general manager came out to speak
the truth. We're locked arms. I've been very vocal about
(28:24):
our budget. I've been very vocal about the LAFD. We
can't afford to take a one person off of tailboard,
lose one position. We're very thankful that she that Mayor Bass,
excuse me, Mayor Bas, has given the LAFD raised in
their operating budget.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
But let me ask you about her, because she got
rid of Kristen Crowley, primarily because Crowley was so publicly
critical of Bass. Do you think Bass could have been
behind your situation here?
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Well, I'm not gonna add that. I'm gonna let everybody
just build their own theories on it. But I could
tell you they've tried to silence me. And since they
silenced me, has anyone gone to the budget committee and
say we can't afford to cut anything on the proposed
(29:18):
budget for mayor baths? No? Do we have a fire
chief saying hey, we can't cut anything.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
No.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
I don't see anyone laying it out there for the
men and women. I'm still elected. I'm a captain two
in the field. I've been elected by my peers to
fight for them, and I've been very vocal about it.
We are finally on the front page, the front line,
first at bat, whichever way you want to look at it.
On saying we are woefully understaffed fire department. We need
(29:48):
to be double the size. And now they've gone away
from that and they're talking about cutting our eits. Who
is the number one support for a commanding control at
an incident? Something bad is going to happen and nobody
is speaking of Freddie?
Speaker 1 (30:04):
Can you hand for another segment? Yes, you got time?
All right?
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Freddie Escobar, the suspended LA Fire Department union chief. We'll
continue with him, and then we're gonna have Joshu Moody,
an attorney who won the Pastathon contest last fall, and
he's gonna be helping to co host for the rest
of the show.
Speaker 4 (30:23):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from kfi.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
A John Cobelt coming up after two o'clock. We're gonna
welcome a co host for the show, josh Moody, an attorney.
He won the Pastathon prize which is getting to co
host the show for Chef Bruno Caterina's Club last fall.
His wife Marie will be in here as well.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Are you gonna be nice? Of course, I'm gonna be nice.
He don't need a lot of money.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Oh I know you behavior my a rude to anybody.
We've got Frey Escobart on the line here. He's the
suspended Los Angeles Fire Department union president. The National Union
is accusing him of not documenting more than two hundred
(31:11):
and sixty five thousand dollars in union money that he
charged on union credit cards. And he said he's given
him now a thumb drive with all the receipts on it.
He says he'd been doing it all along, had no
idea he was being audited, and he's nobody ever came
to him about this. They claim that they repeatedly told
(31:33):
him about it. So one of either you or the
National union heads, one of the two is not telling
the truth.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
Yeah, I mean I could tell you. I'm telling the truth.
They say they got emails. He showed me the emails.
They said that they've called me, show me the phone
call that they've called me. It is simply it's mission
communication and why they're doing it. I do not know.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
The implication is is that you spent the money on
private purchases.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
Not true. I have, I had the thumb drive. All
the private All the of the alleged private charges are fuel, hotel,
travel expense for union stuff and like going with members.
When we're dealing with widows or PSD interviews or budget
(32:25):
it is all union business and it's all documented.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Uh. Have they asked for the money back?
Speaker 3 (32:33):
No? Well no, I mean at the end of it
is when they realize they made a mistake. I want
to see if they're mad enough and they have enough
leadership to apologize.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Well, if it's not true and you have all the
receipts and it's on the thumb drive, uh, and you
followed all the protocols, then yeah, they all are for
a huge apology or because I mean they've they've really
spared you.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
I mean they not only spared me, they My name
is ruined. I can't consult, I can't move forward. It's wrong,
my wife, my kids, this is this is terrible, and
this is the way our union, our brothers are supposed
to treat one another.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Look, if what you're saying is true, and I have
no idea.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
If what you're saying is true, you pissed somebody off, Well.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
I think it's upset. I think that the reality of
La city politics, we were becoming powerful. We're very powerful
in the city of Los Angeles because we're telling the
truth and this homeless crisis, this socialist movement, this is
what I believe. It's all about socialists and everybody scared.
(33:43):
But you got to give the socialist credit. You got
to give them credit. They're organized, right.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
Yeah, that's a vicious crowd.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
And and you know they've got four or five seats
on the city council now and they've in filtrated much
of government.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
The Socialists are brutal what they do.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
Not only are they brutaled, they I mean, I'm a
registered damn. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Okay, you're burning out our a delete button.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
I'm sorry. I'm tired of the party going. And I mean,
look at the budget. Look how much money they're spending
on homelessness, right, which is an abyss in the city
of Los Angeles. Yeah, where everyone's talking about we're going
to cut union jobs. People are going to lose the job.
But look at what they're spending on the homeless crisis.
(34:33):
Look at our fire department. What I'm concerned about? Who's
talking about?
Speaker 1 (34:37):
They're spending half a billion dollars more on.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
Now how's that working out?
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Freddy?
Speaker 2 (34:43):
We'll talk with you again. I got to do the news.
Thank you for coming on.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
Thank you very much. I got it.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Hey, you've been listening to The John Cobalt Show podcast.
You can 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. I am six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
You're listening to the John Cobel Podcast on the iHeartRadio app.
We're on every day from one until four o'clock, and
then after four o'clock it's a podcast, John Cobel's Show
on demand on the iHeart app and you can listen
to everything that you missed. We have a surprise coming
up in the two o'clock hour. We're gonna have a
(00:23):
co host hanging out and we'll tell you all about
that in a few minutes.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
But it's the winner of the.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Caterina's Club contest with Chef Bruno from last fall and
the high bidder, just like last year, gets to co
host the show for a period of time, and we'll
tell you all about that coming up after two.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
That starts now.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Almost every day something astonishing comes out of Sacramento, something abnormal,
often weird, deviant, and sick. First, the good news, the
California Assembly actually passed the new law that will make
it easier for prosecutors to charge a felony for those
(01:13):
of you who buy sixteen and seventeen year olds for sex.
You know that was a big racket a couple of
weeks ago, because the Democrats were trying to block the
bill because many of them wanted to continue buying teenagers
for sex, and Carl Demio, the Republican Assemblymen, shamed them
out of it. It got extensive media coverage. Gavin Newsom said, no,
(01:36):
we need to make this a felony. How it wasn't
a felony every other state in the Union, it was
a felony not here. So this vote was seventy four
to nothing. Seventy four to nothing, And not only does
it make it a felony to buy a sixteen and
seventeen year old for sex, it also makes it a
(01:57):
crime again to loiter with the intent to buy anyone
for sex. So somewhere along the line, the perverts, pedophiles
and predators in Sacramento had legalized prostitution, and now it's
going to be illegal again.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
So we've got a string of these things.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Remember they had made shoplifting legal, and then Prop thirty
six reverse that. They had made public drug use illegal.
Prop thirty six reversed that as well, and now they're
reversing the idea that prostitution.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Is legal in California.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Not only that, boy, they must have gotten fiery blowback
from normal people. The perverts have now created heftier fines
for businesses like hotels that allow these crimes to take
place on their property. So no longer if hotel management
sees middle aged men dragging teenage girls by the hair
(02:59):
up to the room for sex, will the will the
managers look the other way and just shrug their shoulders
and say, hey, it's legal. What do you want me
to do? That's not going to happen. And there's now
a new fund to support victims of these crimes. So also,
if the adult is more than three years older than
(03:21):
the minor victim, they'll face a felony as well. Seventy
four to nothing. Though there were some absent legislators, well,
the only one present, and this is according to the
only reporter in California who covers the legislator, Ashley Zavala
for KCR TV in Sacramento. Ashley on Twitter wrote that
(03:43):
the only lawmaker here who would not vote for it
was the Democratic assembly woman Mia Banta. That name familiar.
Mia Bonta is the wife of Rob Bonta, the attorney general.
So get this, the attorney General's wife. And by the way,
if you look at her voting record, she is a
(04:05):
whack job who and this proves it. She's sitting there
and the vote is, hey, you want to make buying
a sixteen year old for sex of felony. She got
her arms folded. She's afraid to vote no. She doesn't
want to be the only no vote, so she just
(04:26):
declines to vote abstains. So she's not only crazy, she's
a coward. I mean, how did your your husband's the
attorney general. I mean, just just for basic decency appearances,
all right, So she's on the side of the side
of the pimps.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Yeah, I guess.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
I guess they're perverts, predators, pedophiles, and pimps. The four
p's those that's the assembly. That's the assembly in the
state Senate. You choose your p. Then there's another nut.
This is an assembly woman named this is a good
one Lechee sharp hyphen Collins. Lechee is la capital s
(05:16):
h Ae lache sharp Collins, and she worries how the
proposal could impact the LGBTQ community and people of color.
Why would that be there's no specification about color or
sexual orientation. You can't buy a teenager for sex, that's
what it says. The law says it's a felony if
(05:39):
you buy teenagers for sex. Why would that impact gay
people or or blacks any different from everyone. Well, it doesn't.
It's just nonsense. She's just an idiot. She also claims
it could be against the California Racial Justice Act. I
don't know what that is. It passed in twenty twenty.
(06:00):
Anything that passed in twenty twenty is not good. Is
usually like crazy stuff. But I don't think the California
Racial Justice Act says it's legal for certain races or
ethnicities to buy teenagers for sex.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Does it?
Speaker 2 (06:18):
I doubt it very much, so I lache Sharp Collins.
I always keep track of people who who are willing
to go on the record pretty much. It's as if
they're standing on the roof going I'm really crazy, I'm
a psycho. The assembly woman who filed this was a Democrat,
(06:40):
Maggie Krow, and she was a prosecutor, a prosecutor, she'd
investigated human trafficking, sex trafficking for two decades and she
was a prosecutor for the California Department of Justice, so
she worked for the state and she originally wrote the bill,
and then her name stripped off the bill when it
(07:01):
ran into all that ran into all that commotion. Remember
the moron from Burbank, Nick Schultz, this twelve year old
who's the chairperson, the chairman of the Assembly Public Safety
Committee committee. He took he took the bill away from
Maggie Crell, stripped her name off it, put his name
on it, and then filed it away for some other
(07:24):
time until the blowback was overwhelming and he had to
stick his tail between his legs and resubmit the bill
and put Maggie Crell's name on the bill again. And
Maggie had told the other Well had told the perverts, pimps, predators,
(07:45):
and pedophiles in the Assembly about a human trafficking victims
that she dealt with who had suffered an injury at
the hands of her buyer. So this is a young
girl teenage or who had some kind of an injury,
maybe got beat up in some way, or the sexual
(08:07):
attack was so vicious, she's hurt and the buyer, the guy,
didn't face any consequences for the crime. And Crell said
that moment haunted me the way she felt so disposable.
Now that Crell explained this to the Assembly, members right,
and still they ripped the bill away from her and
(08:30):
blocked it for a time. And we also have to
one of the other bad guys, Assembly Speaker Robert Reevis.
He removed her as the main author him and Chultz
after she spoke out against Revus's decision to block the
felony proposal. Breevous also was one of these sikos who
(08:54):
ran ads lying claiming that the Republicans were the one
blocking the proposal, just out and out lies. He had
a woman who ran one of these public relation companies
and they started running all these ads that were just
complete garbage, smearing Republicans. So that's what Revs is about again.
(09:18):
We're talking about sixteen year old girls and boys being
bought for sex, and the Republicans were on the right
side of this. The Democrats were on the side of
the pimps and the pedophiles and the predators. And Revas
got mad at Kroll and Revs got mad at the Republicans.
(09:39):
Maggie Crow was a Democrat, and I think there were
two others as well. Revas didn't speak on the Assembly
floor about the proposal because he's a coward, and he
would not speak with reporters after the vote because he's
a coward. These are really tough guys when they're hiding
behind fake ads online, when they're bullying people trying to
(10:01):
do the right thing.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
Uh. You know, when you're the speaker, you have all
the power.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
So Maggie Crow as great as a prosecutor she is,
she's got no power up against the Breevus and so
Revs is this big billy bully and pushes pushes Krell around,
runs these these fake lying ads online. But now after
he lost the war, reporters want to talk to him.
He's not talking. Uh, he doesn't. He doesn't speak on
(10:27):
the floor about it. So you just remember Robert Reeves
because he's he and Nick Schultz created this disgusting mess
trying to protect the rapists. I'm sorry, these what these
what these these guys were doing, these middle aged men,
they were grabbing sixteen year olds and seventeen year olds
off the street, taking them to some disgusting hotel and
(10:49):
then raping them in the rooms. That's why there's a
provision now that says, uh, you know, the the hotels
or the uh yeah, the hotels can be find for
allowing the sort of behavior. So Revis and Schultz were
in favor of middle aged weirdos raping teenage boys and
(11:10):
girls and dragging him to motels. All right, and now
suddenly they go quiet, well, gonna hang this around their
necks forever, forever, because this is what you have, Schultz,
is right here out of Burbank. You live in Burbank. Here,
this is your district. This is what you've got here.
You know, they're trying to clean up the mess, but
(11:31):
this is a permanent stain, and we're going to make
sure that you can always hear and see the stain.
All right, we got something good coming up after one thirty.
Freddie Escobart was the Los Angeles Fire Department union president.
I say was because he's currently under suspension, and we
(11:52):
first had him on the show shortly after the Palisades fires,
and he was quite honest and forthcoming about how the
fire department's gotten screwed by Karen Bass and Eric Carcetti
and really gotten screwed for decades. They're wildly underfunded, only
half the department. They only have half a department. I've
(12:12):
said that many times and it's still true. Well, you know,
Freddy was went on the air, and was quite detailed
in his characterization of what was going on. And then
somebody decided to publicize that he has hundreds of thousands
(12:33):
of dollars on Fire Department credit cards or Union credit cards,
and he doesn't have the receipts for all his charges,
and it's hundreds of thousands of dollars. Freddy Escobar claims
that he's innocent of this. He's coming on the air
with us coming up after one thirty because he's trying
to clear his name, so we're gonna hear what.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
He has to say. Then, Debra Mark, Yes, you have
this deep I know. Gosh, I don't know this cold allergies.
I'm dying here. It's getting worse every day every day.
I don't understand it. Don't go to your Conway heat
(13:14):
free cat.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
I know.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
Yeah, he's even. He probably wouldn't come to work. Yeah,
I know. I'll stay away from him. Because you had
kind of a rich, deep Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
I always wanted that smoker kind of voice, because I
never smoked, So I think that when I first started
out in the business, I wanted.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
That deep voice, and I think I have it now.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
I think you could do a whole other line of commercials. Now, yeah,
they might qualify for.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Josh Moody has arrived.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Josh is an attorney and he won the uh Katerina's
Club contest when we did that fundraiser for Chef Bruno
last fall and he had the winning bid and he's
going to co host the show. He'll hang out with
us beginning in the two o'clock hour and three o'clock hour.
We're going to talk about whatever Josh wants to talk about.
So he was the winner for the pastathon. And his
(14:07):
wife Marie, who's a prosecutor, is also going to be
sitting in with us. And that's coming up starting after
two o'clock. And like I said, Freddy Escobar, the suspended
LA Fire Department union president, is coming on. He's being
accused of not documenting all of two hundred and sixty
(14:27):
five thousand dollars in union money he spent on union
credit cards and they're doing an investigation. He's got to
produce some receipts. They say, we'll talk to Freddy on
the phone coming up. You know what I like about
the way immigration law is suddenly being enforced for the
(14:49):
first time since.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Probably this country was established.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Is that the guy running the enforcement operation is Tom Homer.
And Tom Homan, if you've seen him on TV. He
is this big, burly bald and it's got like this
bullet head, looks like a slab of cement on his neck,
and he is tough and gruff and is not afraid
(15:18):
of anything, and he has you know, most of the
time when officials talk, they're just trying to intimidate and
deter you. They're not actually going to carry out their threats.
Homan is carrying it out. And he had said that
if anybody gets in the way of his immigration officers
when it comes time to round people up and deport them,
(15:40):
then they are going to be prosecuted with federal crimes.
And that's what's happened to this South Los Angeles couple,
Gustavo Torres and Jamie Flores. Gustavo's twenty eight Kia is
thirty four, and they're facing federal criminal charges for trying
to use their car to impede and pursue federal immigration agents.
(16:05):
The agents were serving search warrants, and federal prosecutors announced
this on Wednesday. Of course, advocacy groups are squawking and
are claiming this is an intimidation tactic. No, that that's
the law people are the law has not been enforced
for so long in so many ways, federally, statewide, locally
(16:30):
in the city of la and other towns, that people
don't recognize the law and they think you're doing something
illegal when you enforce the law. You know this this
this just hit me like today, It's like, how how
could they say something that's written in black and white
very clearly, like if you do this, you've broken the
(16:51):
law and there are consequences. How can you argue with that?
And then I realized, because it hasn't been enforced in
so long, people don't wreck recognize this. It doesn't make
any sense to them. You have people like this, this
is like late twenties, early thirties. Yeah, the last thirty years,
increasingly it's been lawless in this state. Sold they how
(17:13):
would they know? The advocacy and the advocacy groups were
so used to getting their way with weak, silly, stupid
politicians that they're they're they're a gas. It's like, well,
what do you mean you're enforcing the law a wait,
wait a second, Nobody ever did that before.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
What's this? What does that mean in forcing the law?
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Well, you know read, Oh I forgot three quarters of
Californians can't read, so maybe triy sign language. This happened
on February twenty eighth. You had Homeland Security agents, Custom
and Border Protection agents. They were serving search warrants in
South Los Angeles. Small crowd gathered outside of home in
the Florence neighborhood, and at nine thirty or so, three
(17:56):
law enforcement vehicles left the scene with some evidence and
an agent recorded Jamie Flores, the woman outside the house
standing next to a Honda, and then that same car
was blocking the agent's vehicles at sixty first in Broadway
and they could drive around the Honda and then Torres
the man drove in front of one of the government
(18:17):
vehicles and then aggressively pumped his brakes and then pulled
into the gas station and then followed the agents for
about two miles. So this is these are federal crimes,
and I hope they go to federal prison. I hope
they're all bent over in federal prison, both of them.
And you know, the woman had it expired driver's license
(18:40):
and you know their boyfriend and girlfriend.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
I don't know why they aren't working.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
And she asked if she was being questioned in relation
to an incident connected to immigrations, and I think she
knew what she did. Anyway, they've got the evidence. She
had photos with writing on the photos. You know, they
looked at her phone and the photos had writing that said,
(19:11):
we try to stop, but I can't do it alone.
We need to stick together to stop them from as
long as we can. Let's fight together in a good way.
And then some Spanish stuff. Anyway, they should all go
to prison, zero tolerance. Enough of this nonsense. When we
come back. Freddy Escobar, the Los Angeles Fire Department union president,
currently suspended, spend a lot of money on credit cards
(19:32):
and they say you can't back it up. We'll talk
to Freddy next.
Speaker 4 (19:36):
You're listening to John Cobel's on demand from KFI A
six forty.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Just a reminder cause it's posted. It's the on YouTube
and Facebook. I appeared on my wife's video podcast demo
cobet Live, and it's on YouTube now and Facebook, like
I said, and you could watch it. We talk more
long form about all the hot issues of the day.
So when you get a chance later today, it's called
(20:05):
Debra Cobet Live. It's on YouTube, it's on Facebook, and
I think you'll enjoy it. And it's video. It's even
more exciting than radio. We are going to have a
guest host, co host Josh Boody coming on after two o'clock.
He's the pastathon winner Katerina's Club with Chef Bruno last
(20:26):
fall he had the winning bid and he and his
wife Marie are going to come on and he's going
to hang out with us for a while, and then
eventually he's going to control topic selection.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
And we will see how that goes.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Coming up right after two o'clock in a moment, we're
going to Freddie Escobar on the LA Fire Department union
president who's been suspended. He ran up two hundred and
sixty five thousand dollars worth of credit card bills on
the union credit card, and the national Union is saying
that he has not provided documentation to substantiate this and
(20:59):
they're invested standing him and he suspended. To get a
real clear rundown of the story, here's ABC seven reporter
Kevin Uzbek.
Speaker 1 (21:07):
That's the gentleman to please leave three times Now.
Speaker 5 (21:10):
The day began with Freddie Escobar being escorted out of
the union parking lot, and the morning didn't get any
better for this now suspended president of the United Firefighters
of Los Angeles City.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
All of a sudden, they're not allowing me to park in.
Speaker 6 (21:24):
The gate codes were changed after the International Association of
Firefighters took control of.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
The local union.
Speaker 6 (21:32):
It accusedes Escobar not fully documenting how more than two
hundred and sixty five thousand dollars in union money he
spent was for union business. Did you ever once use
any penny of the union money for anything personal? Escobar says,
this thumb drive holds all of the receipts proving the
money was properly spent. After holding a press conference, he
(21:53):
went to drop that thumb drive off, but he wasn't
allowed in the front door.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
I don't know what to say.
Speaker 7 (22:01):
An organization that I would have died for has not
given me an opportunity now to present to them what
they've been looking for.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
He then tried the back gate.
Speaker 7 (22:16):
How come you guys don't want it?
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Explain to me, Matt, how come you don't want it?
Speaker 7 (22:21):
What have I done to you?
Speaker 1 (22:22):
Guys?
Speaker 6 (22:23):
Escobar says he was never told he was being audited,
and says investigators never questioned him, but the IAFF tells
us mister Escobar was repeatedly urged and written communication and
face to face meetings to fulfill his fiduciary duties and
submit proper documentation for all expenditures. Escobar eventually could hand
(22:43):
over his thumb drive in hard copies was allowed in,
but said when inside he had a hand over his
Union phone. He then sat in the parking lot for
about an hour before driving off.
Speaker 5 (22:55):
Escobar no longer.
Speaker 6 (22:57):
Maybe head of the UNI, but he is still an
LAFD fire fighter. He says. This week he goes back
to being a full time captain at fire Station number
two in Boyle Heights.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
All right, let's get pretty askomar on ready.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
All right, Hey, John, Hey, thank you for thank you
for having me on. I know it's been a while.
I was doing little research and you said, hey, you
had me on. When this happened, I thought I was
a good guy. I am a good guy, and I
first this is you know, a personal issue, and it's
a life issue for me. And I know there's a
lot of other horrific things that are happening to people
(23:34):
outside of this world that I'm living in right now,
I mean Pacific Pola Seeds. You guys know five thousand
homes were destroyed.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Well, I appreciated you coming on and telling what seems
to be the truth about the massive underfunding of the
Los Angeles Fire Department and how that played into the
response to the Palisades fire. You know, the fire stations
we don't have, we have the same number basically that
we had in the nineteen six these you know, the
massive number of fire calls that are majority are from
(24:06):
homeless people now, So you know, that was a lot
of great information to have now on this matter, On
this matter, I guess the obvious question you know everybody
who just heard that report is they say they kept
asking you for the receipts and documentation. Why did you
not give it to them all along? Why did it
come down to the thumb drive yesterday.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Well, first, no one ever interviewed me, no one ever
asked me, no one even told me I was being audited.
We and when I say, we are executive board at
UFLEG invited the ISS to come in and do an
audit and see if we could we have nothing to hide.
To zero, we'd say, by the rules.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
So this is the international union making these charges against
you as the head of the local union. And they
never called you into a meeting, contacted you in any
way by mail, email, nothing.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
Nothing formal. Zero. I had an informal conversation with one
of the top two members, who happens to be an
LAFD Captain Frank Lima, who's a dear friend of mine.
Never officially, he told me, like in early April we met.
We ran into each other at burdbankut Or doing union
business traveling. He says, hey, do you have your receipts
(25:23):
in I go, yeah, I take a picture, I put who, what, where,
and why. It goes into the cloud and then the
staff reconciliates him. And I've never ever been brought up
on anything regarding reconciliation for six years, for seventeen years
I've been on the board, We've had good audits. This
(25:44):
is I don't know why this is happening, but I
have absolutely nothing to hide, and wenately.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
What is the normal process.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
I know in places I've worked, if you run up
bills and you're eligible for reimbursement, you fill out a
company form, you stay receipts, and you send it into
whatever bureaucrat handles it, and you what what was the
process you went through? Because this is a number of years,
(26:12):
so it should have been dozens of forms that you
filled out and hundreds and hundreds of receipts. Well did
you do all that along the way? Were they just trying?
Speaker 3 (26:22):
No? No, no, no, So we were. We did hard
copies when I first started, and I believe in twenty
and sixteen, we went to an app because you know, technology, yeah,
was taking its course, and we have an app called
doc link. So we take a picture of our expenditure,
we put take a picture of it, and then on
the attachment of the app it says who, what, where
(26:44):
and why, and then we fill it in. And since
I've been president, I fill it, I send it, It
goes to a cloud and then the staff reconciliates them.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
So all these bunch of years you were filling out
those forms and documenting every credit card charge that you
used for union business.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Correct and then if the treasurer, who's responsible for the
oversight of that, if there was any issues, they would
bring it up to me. We have a very good
checks and balance. Obviously we could do better, like in
any type of business, and that's why we welcome the iff.
But for what they're accusing me of, the way that
they slandered my name, the deflemation that came out. This
(27:27):
is a union that is supposed to have due process.
They never interviewed me. There's no emails. They'll say they
talked about email. There's no emails. This, I believe is
a wight hut.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
I believed if you're right, okay, because it was a
pretty broad based charge. Two hundred and sixty five thousand.
That adds up to a lot of transactions there. It's
not like you know, one or two fell through the
cracks over the years. It's such a broad paced charge.
And you claim you're entirely innocent, then somebody's had to
(27:58):
get you. And who would that be and why would
they be out.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
I have I do not know, but I can tell
you this, since they've tried to silence me. They silenced
Chief Crowley, they removed her. I was huge on opposing
the first time a general manager came out to speak
the truth. We're locked arms. I've been very vocal about
(28:24):
our budget. I've been very vocal about the LAFD. We
can't afford to take a one person off of tailboard,
lose one position. We're very thankful that she that Mayor Bass,
excuse me, Mayor Bas, has given the LAFD raised in
their operating budget.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
But let me ask you about her, because she got
rid of Kristen Crowley, primarily because Crowley was so publicly
critical of Bass. Do you think Bass could have been
behind your situation here?
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Well, I'm not gonna add that. I'm gonna let everybody
just build their own theories on it. But I could
tell you they've tried to silence me. And since they
silenced me, has anyone gone to the budget committee and
say we can't afford to cut anything on the proposed
(29:18):
budget for mayor baths? No? Do we have a fire
chief saying hey, we can't cut anything.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
No.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
I don't see anyone laying it out there for the
men and women. I'm still elected. I'm a captain two
in the field. I've been elected by my peers to
fight for them, and I've been very vocal about it.
We are finally on the front page, the front line,
first at bat, whichever way you want to look at it.
On saying we are woefully understaffed fire department. We need
(29:48):
to be double the size. And now they've gone away
from that and they're talking about cutting our eits. Who
is the number one support for a commanding control at
an incident? Something bad is going to happen and nobody
is speaking of Freddie?
Speaker 1 (30:04):
Can you hand for another segment? Yes, you got time?
All right?
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Freddie Escobar, the suspended LA Fire Department union chief. We'll
continue with him, and then we're gonna have Joshu Moody,
an attorney who won the Pastathon contest last fall, and
he's gonna be helping to co host for the rest
of the show.
Speaker 4 (30:23):
You're listening to John Cobelt on demand from kfi.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
A John Cobelt coming up after two o'clock. We're gonna
welcome a co host for the show, josh Moody, an attorney.
He won the Pastathon prize which is getting to co
host the show for Chef Bruno Caterina's Club last fall.
His wife Marie will be in here as well.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Are you gonna be nice? Of course, I'm gonna be nice.
He don't need a lot of money.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
Oh I know you behavior my a rude to anybody.
We've got Frey Escobart on the line here. He's the
suspended Los Angeles Fire Department union president. The National Union
is accusing him of not documenting more than two hundred
(31:11):
and sixty five thousand dollars in union money that he
charged on union credit cards. And he said he's given
him now a thumb drive with all the receipts on it.
He says he'd been doing it all along, had no
idea he was being audited, and he's nobody ever came
to him about this. They claim that they repeatedly told
(31:33):
him about it. So one of either you or the
National union heads, one of the two is not telling
the truth.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
Yeah, I mean I could tell you. I'm telling the truth.
They say they got emails. He showed me the emails.
They said that they've called me, show me the phone
call that they've called me. It is simply it's mission
communication and why they're doing it. I do not know.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
The implication is is that you spent the money on
private purchases.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
Not true. I have, I had the thumb drive. All
the private All the of the alleged private charges are fuel, hotel,
travel expense for union stuff and like going with members.
When we're dealing with widows or PSD interviews or budget
(32:25):
it is all union business and it's all documented.
Speaker 1 (32:29):
Uh. Have they asked for the money back?
Speaker 3 (32:33):
No? Well no, I mean at the end of it
is when they realize they made a mistake. I want
to see if they're mad enough and they have enough
leadership to apologize.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Well, if it's not true and you have all the
receipts and it's on the thumb drive, uh, and you
followed all the protocols, then yeah, they all are for
a huge apology or because I mean they've they've really
spared you.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
I mean they not only spared me, they My name
is ruined. I can't consult, I can't move forward. It's wrong,
my wife, my kids, this is this is terrible, and
this is the way our union, our brothers are supposed
to treat one another.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Look, if what you're saying is true, and I have
no idea.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
If what you're saying is true, you pissed somebody off, Well.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
I think it's upset. I think that the reality of
La city politics, we were becoming powerful. We're very powerful
in the city of Los Angeles because we're telling the
truth and this homeless crisis, this socialist movement, this is
what I believe. It's all about socialists and everybody scared.
(33:43):
But you got to give the socialist credit. You got
to give them credit. They're organized, right.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
Yeah, that's a vicious crowd.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
And and you know they've got four or five seats
on the city council now and they've in filtrated much
of government.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
The Socialists are brutal what they do.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
Not only are they brutaled, they I mean, I'm a
registered damn. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Okay, you're burning out our a delete button.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
I'm sorry. I'm tired of the party going. And I mean,
look at the budget. Look how much money they're spending
on homelessness, right, which is an abyss in the city
of Los Angeles. Yeah, where everyone's talking about we're going
to cut union jobs. People are going to lose the job.
But look at what they're spending on the homeless crisis.
(34:33):
Look at our fire department. What I'm concerned about? Who's
talking about?
Speaker 1 (34:37):
They're spending half a billion dollars more on.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
Now how's that working out?
Speaker 1 (34:43):
Freddy?
Speaker 2 (34:43):
We'll talk with you again. I got to do the news.
Thank you for coming on.
Speaker 3 (34:46):
Thank you very much. I got it.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
Hey, you've been listening to The John Cobalt Show podcast.
You can 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
The John Kobylt Show News
Host
John Kobylt
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