Epoch Times - Alex Villanueva Explains Why He's sitting here as a Former Sheriff?  #californiainsider
Aired: 2023-12-04
Duration: 00:57

[00:00:00]  Did you think it would be this tough dealing with the leaders in LA? I didn't know that they were that dirty.
[00:00:04]  I knew there was some corruption, but the level of corruption is breathtaking.
[00:00:08]  My first month in office, they hired a law firm to sue me.
[00:00:10]  They knew I was independently elected as sheriff.
[00:00:13]  I'm bound by ethics.
[00:00:14]  If it's right, well, we're going to do it.
[00:00:15]  I don't care what it is.
[00:00:16]  That freaked out the corrupt board of supervisors.
[00:00:19]  I was a marked man from the very beginning.
[00:00:21]  I mean, they threw everything in the kitchen sink at me.
[00:00:23]  I survived the Department of Justice, investigation of the Sheriff's Department.
[00:00:27]  I survived two criminal grand juries.
[00:00:30]  I inherited a budget of $101 million in the whole.
[00:00:32]  I left it $74 million in the surplus in the Times denouncing my mismanagement.
[00:00:36]  Well, I was told early on by an LEC council person who was named William Anonymous, he said, well, you can be a reformer or you can be re-elected.
[00:00:43]  And you know what?
[00:00:44]  He was right.
[00:00:44]  And I chose to be a reformer.
[00:00:46]  If my goal was to be re-elected, I would have not achieved what I achieved when I was in office.
[00:00:50]  In reality, we achieved an incredible amount of progress in four years.
[00:00:54]  But that progress is threatening to a corrupt administration.