Consequences for Gascon?

Wealthy people tend to be immune to crime – that is, the day-to-day violent kind of crime.

While claims involving novel interpretations of the IRS code, a dodgy lawyer, a business manager that may be more interested in taking care of his own business, and accountants that get too familiar with their clients’ money happen now and again, in the past regular crime has tended not to be able to penetrate the bubble of private security and gates and such.

But in George Gaston’s Los Angeles that is simply no longer true.

Home invasions, street (literal) rip offs of Rolex’s and baubles from Tiffany’s, rampant burglary gangs, and follow-home car theft now abound in the pricier neighborhoods.

Walking downtown one should keep their head on a swivel, trying to spot danger – sitting on the patio of a westside restaurant should not warrant the same personal attention to peril.

But now it does and that makes the wealthy very nervous. When it feels that walking one’s $4,500 dog down a canyon side street is only marginally safer than taking public transit, it makes the wealthy think about things they are not used to thinking about.

And that does not bode well for Gascon as he seeks re-election as the county’s District Attorney.

In 2020, Gascon’s campaign coffers were flooded with money from wealthy individuals and the political action committees they fund.  Gascon got about $3 million before the 2020 primary, then another $2 million up until about October and then another $5 million in the last month leading up to the election.  All of that money – coupled with the Black Lives Matter/George Floyd riots and demands of the summer – vaulted Gascon past the well-respected, presumably well-enough funded, and definitely Black sitting DA Jackie Lacey.

It was a display of white woke westside (and Silicon Valley) guilt not seen on a local level before.  

And since crime typically did not touch the lives of Gascon’s donors, their support in that race could almost be seen as a throw-away vote, an alms to the poor, good cocktail party chatter scenario because, they assumed, no matter what, they personally had nothing to worry about.

The only skin they had in the crime game, as it were, was their own guilty, typically white skin.

That same attitude could be said to be held regarding voting for tax increases to theoretically fund efforts to end homelessness.  Money is not a problem and as long as the shelters or absurdly expensive high rises  are not built near them  they don’t really care – they just feel good about “doing their part.”

But what happens when the crime explosion becomes personal, and impacts the rich directly? 

First, you see a very distinct drop in money going into the Gascon campaign.  2020 – $3 million for the primary. And 2024? – $440,000. 

The difference is very noticeable at the higher-end of the donation numbers.  In 2020, the “four horsewomen of the woke apocalypse” who have been bankrolling a big chunk of the woke/justice reform/whatever the hell it is effort in California gave heavily to Gascon.

They gave money to various PACs – like Smart Justice –  and groups and activists and campaigns and millions of their dollars found their way into Gascon’s hands. Along with $2.2 million dollars in George Soros money, the four – Quinn Delaney, wife of a San Francisco developer (note – I’d start saving your money, Quinn), Kaitlyn Krieger, wife of the guy who co-founded Instagram, Patty Quillin, wife of the guy who started Netflix, and Elizabeth Simons, daughter of a hedge fund billionaire…you get the idea – helped make sure Gascon got the job.

This time around, so far they have only given $39,000.

The current campaign finance reporting period ends June 30 and those newer numbers must be submitted by the end of July – the question is whether or not they will show any significant difference.

The size of their donations will be extremely telling, especially considering the direct personal issues that could be involved.

Quillin is married, as noted, to Reed Hastings, who is the co-chief of Netflix along with Ted Sarandos.  Sarandos is married to Ambassador Nicole Avant and Avant’s mother Jacquline – a noted philanthropist and wife of the “Godfather of  Motown” Clarence Avant – was gunned down by a parolee during a home invasion robbery in December, 2021.

Avant’s murderer, Aariel Maynor, pleaded guilty – he was found shortly thereafter after he shot himself in the foot trying to break into another Hollywood home – and was sentenced to 190 years to life, without the possibility of parole.

That unusually tough – for Gascon, at least – sentence in and of itself shows he was very nervous about the political fallout from such a high-profile murder and his unconscionably soft-on-crime policies being seen at least partially responsible for Avant’s death.

While Avant has publicly forgiven her mother’s killer, the question for Quillan now is this:  will she give money to a candidate whose policies may have played a role in the murder of her husband’s business partner’s mother-in-law?

It doesn’t get much more personal than that, for Quillin, the other three horsewomen, and every other westside progressive.

Crime is not now, for the first time,  just at their doorstep – it’s in their homes.

NOTE – We did reach out to the Smart Justice PAC to ask about their donation plans and whether or not the Avant murder is playing a role in their seeming to – so far – back away from Gascon.  We did not receive a response.