LA Mayoral race heats up as both candidates accuse each other of scandals
With less than two months before the November election, the campaign for Los Angeles Mayor is getting ugly as both remaining candidates hurl accusations at each other.
Billionaire and candidate Rick Caruso reiterated the corruption accusations against his opponent Congressman Karen Bass during a campaign event on Monday evening. Bass received a full-ride scholarship from the University of Southern California social work program which has reportedly been connected to a federal corruption investigation.
"I'm not the center of a corruption probe — federal corruption probe and she is," Caruso said. "How are you going to govern this city when you have a cloud of corruption around you?"
The Los Angeles Times reported last week that Bass is being pulled into a federal corruption investigation into former L.A. County Supervisor and suspended LA City Councilman Mark Ridley Thomas.
He is accused of securing the same scholarship at USC for his son in exchange for steering county money to the university.
Despite the accusations, federal officials said Bass was not currently under investigation when CBSLA contacted the U.S. Attorney's Office.
"At present and based on the evidence obtained to date, Rep. Bass is not a target or a subject of our office's investigation.
Bass defended herself against the accusations accusing Caruso of "trying to take advantage" of the situation.
"This case has nothing to do with me — other than in the middle of a political campaign," Bass said. "He is trying to take advantage."
Bass also accused her opponent of covering up sexual abuse at USC during his tenure on the university's Board of Trustees.
"Rick Caruso was on the USC Board of Trustees during the ugliest chapter its history," she said. "Sexual abuse of hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of young women by a USC doctor, we may never know. And that's because of Rick Caruso."
Caruso denied the allegations.
"I was never a part of that," he said. "Stop the liee. Stop the rhetoric. Let's talk about the issues — your track record."
Former LA County Supervisor and UCLA Luskin School Professor Zev Yaroslavsky said the USC scholarship story is not new and it's unclear if it will have any impact on Bass' campaign.
"The question is, is that all there is to the story?" he said. "If that's it, then I think she could survive it. If there's another aspect to it, if another shoe drops and it becomes a drip-drip story, then I think it could hurt her."
