Page 3
Ex-Lawyer Paradis to Receive Compassionate Release
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Paul O. Paradis, a key figure in the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power scandal, has been granted compassionate release from prison after serving one year of his two-year-and-three-months sentence, pursuant to a guilty plea, for bribery.
U.S. District Court Judge Stanley Blumenfeld Jr. of the Central District of California said in an order filed Wednesday:
“The Court grants the motion, reduces Defendant’s sentence to time served, and imposes home confinement as an additional condition of supervised release.”
Supervised release is to be for a period of three years.
Paradis is suffering from a brain tumor. Blumenfeld said:
“Based on the seriousness of Defendant’s medical condition and the uncertainty surrounding the [Bureau of Prison]’s ability to arrange for his immediate surgical and post-surgical care, the Court finds there are extraordinary and compelling reasons for Defendant’s release.”
Paradis, who was a New York attorney (now disbarred), and Beverly Hills attorney Paul Kiesel set up a sham lawsuit against the city based on the DWP’s massive over-billing of customers, to minimize the city’s losses. Then-City Attorney Mike Feuer has denied knowledge of the scheme bit Paradis has said that Feuer is lying.
The conviction was based on Paradis’s acceptance of a $2.2 million kickback.
Neither Kiesel nor Feuer has been charged criminally and neither faces State Bar charges.
Copyright 2025, Metropolitan News Company