A former Los Angeles Fireman for firefighters is under control for buying a union car to an alleged discount – then reporting an even lower sale price to the state to avoid paying taxes, two people who know the Times transactions said.
Domingo Albarran Jr., a former Captain of the Los Angeles fire service, who was treasurer of the Los Angeles City united firefighters, reported to the Ministry of Engine vehicles that he had bought the 2017 Chevrolet Malibu in $ 500 in December 2022. The sources said that Albarran had paid more than $ 4,000 $ 4,000.
The new UFLAC treasurer noticed the gap and demanded that Albarran refers the vehicle to the Union, according to the sources, which asked not to be appointed in order to discuss with franchise the issue. The new treasurer also discovered that Albarran had inflated the mileage of the vehicle when he obtained an estimate of Kelley Blue Book, the sources said. A spokesperson for Kelley Blue Book said that a Malibu 2017 would probably have valued more than $ 10,000 at the time of the sale.
Albarran, who has since retired, recognized at the time that he had underestimated the sale price at the DMV because he did not want to pay taxes, and said that he had badly read the odometer and mistakenly connected the bad mileage when he had obtained the estimate of the Kelley Blue Book. But he said that the car was in poor condition and needed major repairs, and was not worth more than double what he paid.
“I do not want to pay a lot of taxes on a vehicle that was potentially a lemon, but whatever, I have 100%,” he said, adding that the price he had paid was just because the vehicle needed $ 2,000 in repairs.
The city’s pay files show that Albarran won more than $ 370,000 in 2023 in salary and in services before retiring. This included $ 189,339 in overtime.
The episode comes when another former Officer of the Work Organization is faced with an internal investigation into allegations according to which he is committed to financial irregularities involving the union’s charitable organization for injured firefighters and their families, in particular by using $ 5,000 of the money from the charitable organization for his personal expenses. Adam Walker, a former UFLAC secretary who is still working for the LAFD, told Times that allegations were false.
The International Firefighter Association suspended Walker from its union management position and accused it of having laid off a poor quality of around $ 75,000 from the funds of the charitable organization in its personal accounts from December 2022 to January 2024, internal IAFF files examined by Times Show.
Walker declared in an interview that deposits were reimbursements for its legitimate expenses for two golf tournaments which collected funds for a former disabled firefighter. He said that the account from which deposits were made was set up for tournaments and not for the charity, the UFLAC Fire Foundation.
“No money of money was money from the foundation,” he said.
The UFLAC treasurer who discovered problems with the purchase of Albarran cars reported it to the International Firefighter Association, the Mother Organization of UFLac and other local firefighters unions across the country, the two familiar sources with the situation said. One of the sources indicated that the IAFF is carrying out a large examination of the finance of the UFLAC, including the use of union credit cards by the officers.
The president of the UFLAC, Freddy Escobar, refused to comment on the allegations against Albarran and did not answer a written question of the Times on the financial magazine of the IAFF.
UFLAC can be a political force in Los Angeles, elected officials evaluating its mentions and financial contributions to the campaigns.
ESCOBAR and other UFLAC leaders criticized Mayor Karen Bass for dismissed Lafd chief Kristin Crowley last month. Bass said Crowley had failed to adequately prepare for the January 7 fire which destroyed the Pacific Palissades and killed 12 people. On Tuesday, the municipal council voted 13-2 to refuse Crowley’s call for its dismissal.
The case of Albarran dates from 2022, when he proposed to buy the Malibu sedan which he had been driving for years during his union functions. The agents are generally awarded a work car if they drive above a certain number of miles per year, because it is cheaper than reimbursing them for the mileage, the two sources said.
Before the purchase of Albarran was final, he billed a union credit card about $ 1,500 in mechanical work and car improvements, in particular by installing two new tires and throwing its transmission, the sources said.
In an interview, Albarran told Times that these expenses were intended for maintenance and security upgrades.
“It should be done, that I bought it or if the union was going to keep it,” said Albarran, adding that the steel belt was exposed on the tires. “Am I supposed to drive in the vehicle with dangerous tires?” And they were exhausted while (the car) belonged to the union. »»
Albarran was also accused by the new treasurer of the purchase of gas gas for a personal vehicle with a union credit card, the sources said. After finding receipts where the quantity of gas purchased exceeded around 13 gallons in a Malibu tank, the new treasurer has located Albarran surveillance images rejecting his personal car in the service stations, the sources said.
Albarran said in an interview that he had completed his personal vehicle using the Union credit card 10 times “at the maximum” for four years – and only when Malibu was in the store, although he said he had not kept any maintenance file. He said that he was reimbursed by the Union Board for the number of miles he led for work would have cost more.
“It was much cheaper for the union to simply pay the fuel,” he said.
The two sources said that Albarran reported to the Union’s board of directors that Malibu had 175,000 miles, which had a Kelley Blue Blue Blue Book Trade value at $ 4,072 at $ 5,821, an average of $ 4,947. Commerce estimates are generally lower than estimates for sales of private parties.
Escobar and six other members of the Union board of directors signed the Kelley Blue book trade estimate with the higher mileage, dated December 2022, according to a copy of the document obtained by the Times.
Albarran told the DMV that the real mileage of the car was 145,779. Kelley Blue Book said that the fair purchase price of a Malibu 2017 with this mileage would have been in the range of $ 8,855 to $ 11,422, an average of $ 10,139 when the sale took place. According to the DMV, the union bought the 2017 New car for more than $ 30,000.
Albarran said that he thought that $ 4,000 was a fair price due to the condition of the car and that he had quickly returned Malibu to the Union – which reimbursed his $ 4,000 – when asked.
California Daily Newspapers
