Eidc's H'wood Offices Raided Again By L.a. Da

Authorities from the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office again descended on the Hollywood offices of the Entertainment Industry Development Corp. on Thursday in what appears to be the start of the next phase of its criminal investigation of the film-permitting office and its former president Cody Cluff.

District Attorney's Office spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said that search warrants had been issued for EIDC's offices, the homes of Cluff and current vp and general manager of operations Darryl Seif as well as two storage facilities in Santa Barbara, Calif. In September, authorities raided the office of the EIDC and its then-president Cluff, carting off boxes of documents, financial records and computers. Cluff resigned in December.

Gibbons said the warrants were very specific about what they were seeking. "When you do an initial search warrant, often it will lead to other information that requires another warrant," Gibbons said. "We were looking for badges and all permits issued between 1997-2002, and we got the material we were looking for." Pressed further about the badges in question, Gibbons said that they are badges "that would indicate that they were public officers."

Much of the original debate over the EIDC centered on whether it is a full-blown private agency or whether it has enough affiliation with the public sector — mainly Los Angeles' city and county government — to hold it accountable to the Brown Act, which dictates rules of conduct and regulations for public agencies.

One eyewitness said that six or seven dollies worth of material had been seized by the half-dozen investigators from the District Attorney's office, and an internal EIDC memo confirmed that the focus of Thursday's search was on film permits and EIDC badges that bore the official city seal.

"It's been a little hectic here this morning," said interim EIDC president Lindsley Parsons Jr., who was appointed to the post last month. "They came in with a warrant and took some more of our files. The interesting part is that, had they walked in and asked, I would have given it to them. We have nothing to hide. There are two audits going on, and I don't quite know what the DA's motives are."

Parsons said he was allowed up to the EIDC's offices during the search while the rest of the employees were kept downstairs in the lobby. He added that badges were sought, and that at least one was confiscated from Seif's desk. Nothing, however, was taken from Seif's home. As for the storage facilities in Santa Barbara, Parsons said they were "rental facilities for dead files."

"(The DA) is scraping the bottom of the barrel for evidence, and I don't know where this is going," Cluff's attorney Mark Werksman said. "What they took was trivial and doesn't appear to be relevant to this investigation. We're just waiting for this to be over with."

If nothing else, Thursday's searches will end speculation that Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley had lost interest in the case since Cluff's resignation.

Thursday's searches come on the heels of a spate of other EIDC-related activity. On Wednesday, Los Angeles City Council members Wendy Greuel and Alex Padilla indicated their intent to enter a motion to the City Council to renegotiate the city's current contract with the EIDC while two separate ongoing audits of the film-permitting agency are pending. One financial audit is being conducted by City Controller Laura Chick's office, and a second internal structural and financial audit is being conducted by the firm KPMG. Additionally, a subcommittee consisting of Greuel, Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn, County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and the MPAA's Melissa Patack also has been established to recommend changes to the structure of the EIDC's board of directors.

"This is getting ridiculous," said one source who works closely with the EIDC. "You need a scorecard to keep track of all the players."

To date, the investigation has revealed what some consider improper spending of EIDC funds by Cluff, including $200,000 in donations to local politicians — some of whom served on the agencies' executive committee — cigar club memberships, a $5,000 donation to his children's high school and a $10,000 donation to the Pittsburgh Film Office."We are fully cooperating, and the staff has been instructed to give them whatever they want," said Keith Comrie, former chief administrative officer of the city of Los Angeles who has been serving as an outside consultant to the EIDC. "We can't speculate on what the DA wants until he makes a statement."