L.A. City Councilmember Kevin de León is criticized by opponents over campaign hire
Supporters of Los Angeles City Council candidate Ysabel Jurado on Wednesday criticized her opponent, Councilmember Kevin de León, for hiring a well-known local activist who was accused last year of harassment by a woman he dated.
De León’s campaign paid Najee Ali $3,000 this month for campaign work, according to the City Ethics web site.
In March 2023, the woman, Susan Bradshaw, accused Ali of harassing her and threatening to distribute illicit images of her after she ended their four-year relationship, court records show. A judge granted her a restraining order against Ali.
The allegations gained new attention Wednesday when Bradshaw appeared at a news conference in Boyle Heights organized by Jurado backers, less than a week before the Nov. 5 election.
De León, who was politically damaged by his role in a secretly recorded conversation that included racist and crude remarks, is locked in a heated battle against Jurado, a tenant rights attorney, to represent neighborhoods in downtown L.A. and the Eastside.
Ysabel Jurado has declined to apologize for saying “f— the police,” in a contest where the issue of when and how to apologize has been a dominant theme.
“Ali is not the man he pretends to be in the community,” Bradshaw said Wednesday. “Behind closed doors, he’s a different person, a monster.”
Ali denied all wrongdoing, saying he is the target of a smear campaign.
During a hearing last year for Bradshaw’s restraining order petition, Ali dismissed her as a “liar” who had “cherry-picked” from a long text message thread to paint him as a threat, according to a court transcript.
In her 45-page application for a restraining order filed in March 2023, Bradshaw alleged that Ali verbally abused her, threatened her and choked her during a sexual encounter. She also claimed that he sent nude and “illicit” images of her to her “live-in boyfriend,” and that Ali threatened the man, according to the documents.
In a May 2023 hearing, Ali said the choking happened during consensual sex, “at her request,” according to a court transcript. Ali also said that Bradshaw’s boyfriend threatened him.
Shortly after Bradshaw broke up with Ali, he launched into profane and violent tirades via text messages, according to her restraining order application.
“Mr. Ali texted that l am a whore, he hoped l would die, and that my parents would be ashamed. He also began calling and texting my boyfriend incessantly,” she wrote in the application.
Ali, in an interview, said that Bradshaw was harassing him, not the other way around. He pointed to a text in which Bradshaw called him a slur for a gay person.
“I begged her to stop text messaging me,” he told The Times.
Ali is a frequent presence at L.A. political events and worked for then-Mayor Eric Garcetti’s crisis response team, which deployed to the scene of violent incidents. While a member of Congress, Mayor Karen Bass wrote the forward to Ali’s 2021 book “Raising Hell: A Life of Activism.”
Ali, who regularly speaks on behalf of crime victims’ families, said he has “been the best advocate for women and children over the last 30 years.”
He rose to prominence after helping bring attention to the case of Sherrice Iverson, a 7-year-old South L.A. girl who was sexually attacked and murdered in a Nevada casino bathroom in 1997.
In another high-profile case, he helped advocate for Tioni Theus, a 16-year-old girl who was found dead on the side of the 110 Freeway in 2022. Activists alleged that Theus’ case got less media attention because she was Black.
Hundreds came to mourn the teen dumped along the 110 Freeway. Some say the attention is an opportunity to have a broader conversation about trafficking.
In 2008, Ali was sentenced to four years in state prison after pleading guilty to trying to bribe a witness in a criminal case involving his daughter. He was also convicted of robbery in 1992.
In her application for the restraining order, Bradshaw also alleged that Ali had been arrested for rape.
Ali said Wednesday that he has twice been arrested for rape. In the first instance, in 1982, he was cleared of wrongdoing, he said. In the second instance, he was arrested for trespassing near USC in 1985, he said. The police officer wrote “rape” on his arrest paperwork, but that was false, he said.
He said that his past is no different from that of “other Black young men who were arrested for a crime they didn’t commit.”
The Times couldn’t immediately verify the information about the arrests.
De León’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment about Ali.
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