Clarissa Valdovinos, an executive secretary who has worked at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP) for over a decade, says Board President Cynthia McClain-Hill reprimanded her for taking a pre-approved day off from work to celebrate her birthday. Valdovinos believes this to be an act of retaliation against her after she reported a fellow employee for sexually harassing her, she said in a press conference Tuesday.
“She ridiculed me. She discussed the way I dress,” Valdovinos said of McClain-Hill’s response to the alleged harassment.
Valdovinos is one of four plaintiffs seeking monetary damages and a jury trial for labor law violations and sexual harassment against the City of Los Angeles and the Department of Water and Power.
The announcement came just hours after disbarred lawyer Paul Paradis was sentenced to 33 months in federal prison for accepting a kickback of more than $2 million in a collusive lawsuit against the DWP.
In a Victim Impact Statement, Tamerlin Godley, a litigation partner at Paul Hastings LLP acting on behalf of the DWP, wrote that “Paradis betrayed the public trust and manipulated numerous individuals for his personal game. Others have and will be held to account for their actions, and so should Paradis.”
The official complaint made against DWP, City of L.A. by plaintiffs Rodriguez, Vicino, Woodard and Valdovinos
Arlene Rodriguez, another plaintiff, said that while working as executive assistant to the DWP general manager, she was “subjected to flagrant and continued sexual harassment.” The official complaint lists several comments allegedly made to Rodriguez by Utility Administrator Brian Gibson, including — “It’s inappropriate to call the GM’s Assistant ‘cute,’ but I have to risk it,” “you’re making me feel like a dirty old man” and “I’m an old man with delusions of grandeur.”
Rodriguez said that no action was taken when she reported this harassment. Instead, according to the complaint, McClain-Hill began to retaliate against her in June 2021. Rodriguez has been subjected to payroll audits, and McClain-Hill has been hostile to her in meetings.
Also alleging sexual harassment is DWP’s former director of security and emergency management, Christopher Vicino. His allegations land on McClain-Hill herself. He alleges she told him, “Don’t you look good in your tight little suit,” while the pair were in an elevator together on a fact-finding trip in Israel.
The complaint also accuses McClain-Hill of policy violations, alleging that she had invoices re-written so as to avoid paying for meals, merchandise and gifts enjoyed at the Accenture International Utilities and Energy Conference.
“While we cannot comment on pending litigation involving employment matters, Board President McClain-Hill denies the misuse of any ratepayer funds,” a DWP spokesperson wrote in a statement to Annenberg Media. “In the circumstance mentioned in the litigation, she was advised that the appropriate course of action to avoid taking an impermissible gift of meals while attending a business-related conference in her capacity as Board President was to submit for reimbursement by LADWP.”
L.A. city officials also declined to comment on pending litigation.
Vicino is claiming wrongful termination, having been removed from his role in March 2023. Part of this claim rests on his efforts to report a cyber intrusion conducted by DWP contractor and Paradis-owned utility solutions company, Aventador (renamed Ardent Cyber Solutions LLC).
The company was also the subject of another DWP scandal. According to a plea agreement for one felony charge of making false statements signed by former head of DWP David Alexander, Paradis successfully bribed Alexander to secure a no-bid contract for Aventador with the DWP.
After Aventador conducted the breach of the DWP network, Vicino requested that the company prepare a report for auditing purposes, according to the complaint. Aventador allegedly refused. Vicino made the same request of Alexander, who also allegedly refused.
Early the next year, in January 2019, Vicino’s staff prepared a report documenting the exercise, which he claims was submitted to a confidential server accessible by Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) auditors. Soon after, Aventador submitted a technical report themselves.
According to the complaint, in June 2020, when the WECC conducted an audit, the documentation of the intrusion was missing and the auditors were not in possession of the technical report from Aventador. A couple of months later, Vicino made a complaint about the “deliberate omission” of this report.
After his initial complaints, an audit of Vicino’s own division regarding overtime hours was allegedly proposed by McClain-Hill and performed by the DWP’s Inspector General. When presented to the department’s board, the audit stated, “falsely,” the complaint alleges, that “there was evidence of overtime being incurred even though no work was performed.” Vicino sought to clarify his overtime statistics, requesting they be compared to those of other similar divisions within DWP.
As the FBI was investigating the matter for evidence of “bribery, kick backs and extortion” adjacent to the scandals involving Paradis, Vicino said he met with DWP general manager Martin Adams and told him that he was going to tell the FBI that the missing document was being withheld. Vicino then “asked Adams if he was going to be fired for this.” Adams said no, but Vicino was fired just weeks later in what the complaint calls an act of retaliation and wrongful termination.
The fourth plaintiff, Woodard, was also terminated after assurances were said to be made by Adams that her “position would be safe” following complaints she made that McClain-Hill was advocating for Dakota Communications, a minority-owned consulting firm, to be reconsidered for a contract with DWP. The firm had failed to submit mandatory forms and, as Woodard said in an interview for the subsequent investigation, had been disqualified. Woodard complained that McClain-Hill’s actions were unethical.
“The common theme is each of my clients has reported wrongdoing, and thereafter they suffered retaliation,” said Bradley Gage, the attorney representing the plaintiffs. Gage said he is seeking, beyond justice for the victims, that the FBI and other federal investigators continue to push forward, as he believes “this is just the tip of the iceberg.”
Gage said claims made as recently as Paradis’ sentencing Tuesday may indicate that more indictments are on the horizon for the DWP. In some of his last moments in court, Paradis accused former City Attorney Mike Feuer, who has denied knowledge of the billing scandal, of perjuring himself, lying to the grand jury and investigators. He also told the court, “What I did was wrong, and I accept the consequences. I’m a changed man, a broken man.”