In the seedy ecosystem of Los Angeles County politics, where public service is just a polite synonym for self-service, few comeback stories smell as foul as Tony Mendoza’s. Once branded a serial sexual harasser and chased out of Sacramento in disgrace, Mendoza has somehow found his way back to the trough, courtesy of none other than Supervisor Janice Hahn, one of the most powerful figures in LA County government and a recurring headliner in The Current Report’s ongoing pay-to-play investigative series.
Let’s rewind the tape.
In 2018, then-State Senator Tony Mendoza of Artesia resigned just hours before a Senate vote to expel him. The chamber’s investigative report, loaded with graphic accounts from multiple female staffers, laid out a chilling pattern: unwanted advances, retaliatory demotions, and a booze-soaked “mentorship” culture that blurred the line between power and predation. Mendoza dismissed it as a “farcical witch hunt.” But the evidence was damning, the witnesses credible, and the damage irreversible. He slithered out of Sacramento under the shadow of #MeToo, vowing he’d been “wronged.”
Most politicians would have vanished after a scandal like that. But this is California, a state where corruption doesn’t end careers; it just relocates them.
In a move that further exposes the rubber-stamp choreography of public service, Tony Mendoza didn’t simply slip into the county pay-roll; he simultaneously snagged a second gig that screams of political patronage. In July 2019 it was reported that the Artesia Cemetery District—long mired in mismanagement, broken irrigation, rampant weeds and gophers—had unanimously approved Mendoza as its new district manager, after a posting generated 41 applications. Los Cerritos Community News On paper, Mendoza was hired to “clean up the place” (in the words of Janice Hahn) around the cemetery’s financial systems, payroll, board meetings and grounds maintenance. Los Cerritos Community News But let’s be real: this isn’t a restorative public service for a bruised institution—it’s a cushy side-deal for a disgraced politician who already had one county paycheck. Two government roles. One taxpayer tab. No transparent vetting. Welcome back to the trough.
By late 2019, Mendoza quietly resurfaced, this time deep inside LA County’s bureaucracy as a “senior advisor” to Supervisor Janice Hahn, pulling down over $120,000 a year plus benefits.
No press release. No fanfare. Just a familiar name sliding onto the county payroll under the radar.
Sources inside Hahn’s office tell The Current Report that Mendoza’s return wasn’t about merit, it was about muscle. Hahn, was deep in the Majestic Realty pay-t0-play carousel, where over $340,000 in campaign donations coincided with $154 million in no-bid county leases, needed a loyal operative who knew how to keep the machinery humming quietly. Mendoza fit the bill: damaged goods with deep ties in Southeast LA, fluent in the transactional politics Hahn’s family dynasty has perfected for generations.
County payroll data and campaign finance records back it up. Mendoza’s hiring came just weeks after Hahn’s campaign collected a $25,000 bundle from labor PACs and real estate interests, the same groups that financed Mendoza’s rise before his fall. On paper, it’s all legal. In practice, it reeks of political money-laundering disguised as “public service.”
But Mendoza wasn’t just stapling memos. He was embedded in some of the county’s dirtiest dealings. Internal records reviewed by The Current Report list him as a liaison on multiple Majestic Realty lease extensions, including a $12 million Pico Rivera warehouse deal that bypassed competitive bidding entirely.
His fingerprints also appear on the executive background check approvals for contractors flagged in our previous reports, a move that reeks of inside baseball at best, obstruction at worst.
And that Levine Act violation we exposed earlier this week? Mendoza’s name pops up again. According to ethics sources, consulting fees were allegedly funneled through a PAC linked to his old campaign apparatus, money that circled right back to Hahn’s office. The Fair Political Practices Commission has reportedly received an anonymous tip (not from us – but we’re glad someone else is paying attention).
This is how the machine perpetuates itself: the disgraced, the complicit, and the connected, trading seats at the same table while the public foots the bill.
It’s a familiar playbook: rewrite history, recycle the players, and call it reform.
But in a county where one in five women reports workplace harassment, the decision to re-employ a man formally found to have harassed subordinates isn’t “second chance” policy, it’s a slap in the face to every survivor.
Tony Mendoza didn’t earn redemption. He was granted access, because in LA County, redemption is just another word for connections.
And the Hahn dynasty? It keeps cashing in, one scandal at a time.
Stay tuned. We’re not done peeling.
Follow Us