The Brief

Federal officials investigating a well-known L.A. street gang say one of its leaders was being paid by the city as a peace ambassador in MacArthur Park.

The details, contained in a sworn affidavit, came out after the FBI arrested Michael Angel Alvarez, 41, late last week on allegations that he had body armor in his possession despite being convicted of a violent felony, which is illegal under federal and California law.

Alvarez had recently been released from prison for a 2002 murder conviction. He was also convicted in April of unlawful possession of a weapon as a prisoner, a felony, before taking a job as a city contractor in early 2025.

The arrest — part of a wider investigation into the 18th Street gang — made news right before the primary election because of Alvarez’ work as a peace ambassador at MacArthur Park. Alvarez was employed by Healing Urban Barrios, a nonprofit that provides violence prevention services and re-entry programs for formerly incarcerated people. His job involved talking with gang members around MacArthur Park to try to prevent conflict and violence.

Federal investigators allege in the sworn affidavit that, while employed as a peace ambassador, Alvarez rose to a leadership position within the 18th Street gang. LAist attempted to reach out to Alvarez, as well as several people and organizations he is connected with, but did not hear back prior to publication.

Acting U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli announced the arrest last Friday.

“The hardworking tax payers of Los Angeles deserve better than to see their money shelled out to a convicted gang murderer,” Essayli wrote on social media.

Alvarez faces a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison, he added.

What we know about the allegations against Alvarez

It’s far from uncommon for gang violence prevention workers to have criminal records or existing ties to street gangs. That’s because many in the field say that first-hand experience is valuable in lowering tensions between local gangs and encouraging active members to leave gang life.

Healing Urban Barrios has an active contract with L.A. City Council District 1, which includes MacArthur Park and the Westlake neighborhood, that has been in place since 2024.

The city contract with the nonprofit acknowledged the make up of the organization’s workforce: “[Healing Urban Barrios’] staff consists primarily of people who have been involved and/or have unique personal, relatable, and unmatched experience with transnational gangs, the criminal justice and immigration systems. That experience translates to providing in-depth knowledge and effective services to individuals and families in the community.”

The job description for peace ambassadors in the district includes “targeted street outreach, peace mediation efforts, organizing truces and providing rumor control,” according to the contract.

Naomi Roochnik, a spokesperson for Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who represents the district, told LAist peace ambassadors are employed and supervised by community-based organizations. She said Hernandez’ office was never told of any arrests or allegations against Alvarez connected to his time as a city contractor before the charge against him was announced. She said any peace ambassador found to be involved with illegal activity would immediately be removed.

Hernandez was first elected to the district in 2022 and is currently up for reelection. As of Friday morning, she had more than 53% of the vote in the primary, leading her challengers by a wide margin. She will not face a runoff in November if she stays above 50% when the vote is finalized.

Christina Navarro, founder and executive director of Healing Urban Barrios, told LAist in a statement the organization would not comment on Alvarez’ arrest, and that “everyone is innocent until proven guilty.”

“One incident cannot and will not keep us from this critical work,” Navarro wrote. “The results speak for themselves.”

In 2025, Navarro said the organization “reached more than 3,000 community members, mentored 750 individuals, trained 219 in workforce programs, helped earn 194 work-readiness certifications, and moved 50 people into livable-wage employment.”

What’s in the FBI affidavit

The affidavit is based on:

• Recorded phone calls that started in January
• Interactions between LAPD officers and Alvarez that started in March
• An interview with an FBI agent after LAPD officers arrested Alvarez on May 18 and found the body armor in his car. He was released without being charged and then arrested again less than two weeks later

According to the FBI special agent who interrogated Alvarez following his May 18 arrest, Alvarez said he had gained respect, or “juice,” because of his lengthy prison sentence and the severity of his conviction.

“Although he did not want to be ‘the guy,’” the agent wrote, “he found the 18th Street gang was in disarray with a lack of command structure and was bestowed the power by other members to fix it.”

The affidavit claims Alvarez’ rise within the gang came while he was working as a peace ambassador since early 2025.

According to federal officials, Alvarez was paid by Healing Urban Barrios “throughout each quarter of 2025 for a total of $58,156 for the year,” based on records cited in the affidavit from the State of California’s Employment Development Department.

Alleged members of the 18th Street gang described him as a gang leader in a recorded Jan. 3 phone call described in the affidavit. During another recorded call that same day, Alvarez spoke to an alleged gang member about an individual he had “marked out,” which the FBI agent wrote meant to “label someone as a target for violence due to breaking rules or for disloyalty to the gang.”

On March 3, Alvarez spoke with an LAPD officer near the park. The affidavit says he told the officer that “we” cleaned house, and that the individual had been beaten and pushed out of the gang.

Mayor says Alvarez was not working for her office’s crisis team

During his arrest on May 18, the affidavit also says Alvarez told LAPD officers that he was still part of the 18th Street gang and was working as part of the “CRT,” which the agent who wrote the affidavit believed to be in reference to the mayor’s Crisis Response Team.

The LAPD confirmed in a statement that Alvarez was detained near Bonny Brae and 3rd Street, near MacArthur Park, when Rampart Division officers found two body armor plates in the trunk of his car in violation of California state law.

According to the affidavit, Alvarez told the LAPD officer he had the armor because he was going to “draw on it.” He told the officer he liked doing graffiti and planned to display the painted plates for youth in the area.

In an interview after his arrest, according to the affidavit, Alvarez told the FBI agent and other law enforcement officers he worked for Healing Urban Barrios. He also said he had recently been stabbed while working as a peace ambassador.

After news of Alvarez’ arrest by the FBI was shared by Essayli on social media Friday, Spencer Pratt, who is currently in second place in the vote count and may face Bass in the November general election for mayor, shared the post, writing: “Karen Bass has turned LA City into a criminal cartel.”

Bass’ office says Alvarez was not part of the CRT.

In response to a request for comment, the mayor’s communications office sent an unsigned email statement saying that “community violence interventionists who work with the City of Los Angeles through non-profits are prohibited from being members of gangs or from participating in criminal activity.”

In response to a question about whether the mayor’s office was notified or consulted by federal law enforcement before Alvarez’ arrest, the same email statement said the office is “not going to comment on communications related to law enforcement operations.”

Healing Urban Barrios was previously contracted by the mayor’s office through the Latino Coalition for Community Leadership from 2022 to mid-2025 as part of the city’s Gang Reduction and Youth Development Program, also known as GRYD. The organization had provided gang violence reduction services and re-entry programs in the Hollywood, Olympic and Rampart II GRYD zones.

The most recent contract available on the city website ended in June 2025, and a spokesperson for Bass told LAist that the Latino Coalition for Community Leadership was not awarded a new contract the following year.

An isolated event

LAPD Captain Ben Fernandes, the Rampart Area commanding officer, told LAist three gangs operate in or near MacArthur Park.

“18th Street is the primary, MS-13 is the second and then last is the Crazy Riders,” he said.

He said since taking the position a year ago he has seen peace ambassadors around MacArthur Park work with officers to help deescalate conflict between gangs. This was the first case he knew of where a violence prevention worker in the area had been accused of a crime.

“ It's all been fairly positive,” Fernandes said. “This one instance of this individual being involved in criminal activity is the first I've heard since I've been here.”

Fernando Rejón is the executive director of the Urban Peace Institute, a nonprofit that trains and funds gang violence reduction programs in L.A., but is not associated with Healing Urban Barrios.

Rejón told LAist in an interview that peace ambassadors are typically entry level positions in such programs, and have not received the same level of training as more experienced community intervention workers.

He said he's concerned this situation is being used to further a political narrative.

“Contrary to the national narrative that is being pushed out there about Los Angeles, and California at that, is that California has seen one of its safest years in 2025 it's seen since data's been collected,” Rejón said.

He said last year in L.A. was one of the safest in a long time, which he doesn’t think should be overlooked because of one incident.

LAPD's annual crime and initiatives review for 2025 shows a decrease in homicides over the past four years.

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“ The amount of work that is done behind the scenes to ensure safety, ensure that there is de-escalation of conflict, and to reduce the likelihood of shootings, a lot of times is immeasurable and unseen,” he told LAist.

Raul Claros, who is running against Hernandez as a moderate Democrat, promised in December he would live in an RV parked alongside MacArthur Park if elected to bring attention to issues around the park until they are fixed. He started early, parking his RV next to the park last Friday.

“Unfortunately, we're a national embarrassment,” he told LAist, referencing unsafe conditions in the park.

Claros said he’s not against gang violence reduction programs, but officials need to be more careful about who they contract with.

Something unusual is happening with only a few days remaining before the U.S. men's national team opens its World Cup campaign against Paraguay: Tickets for the match are not sold out.

Although numbers fluctuate regularly, FIFA's ticketing website still shows 132 tickets left to sell for a game that's set to take place in Los Angeles on Friday. Meanwhile, resale platforms such as StubHub and SeatGeek — and FIFA's own marketplace — also show thousands of tickets on sale.

The number is even higher for Canada's opening match against Bosnia Herzegovina in Toronto on the same day, with 226 tickets left in FIFA's website and a high number of tickets available in resale markets.

That's unusual for high-profile events such as the opening matches of the World Cup — traditionally among the hardest to get tickets in the tournament. This year will feature three hosts in the U.S., Canada and Mexico — but so far only Mexico's opening match against South Africa on Thursday looks to be virtually sold out.

Ticketing experts widely agree on the reason: the prices. FIFA dramatically jacked them up for the tournament — especially for high profile games. The most expensive regular seats for the U.S. opener against Paraguay are priced at $2,735 — more than the final cost for the 2022 World Cup final — while the cheapest are $1,120.

Even President Trump said he wouldn't pay those prices.

"I would certainly like to be there, but I wouldn't pay it either, to be honest with you," Trump told the New York Post in a recent interview.

The other two remaining games for the U.S. national have far fewer tickets available, given that prices are well below the ones for the opening match.

Prices have also fallen sharply

There are not only plenty of tickets left to sell — a number of them are also available below FIFA's face value. According to Ticketdata, which tracks prices across the resale platforms, the cheapest pair of tickets for the opening match for the U.S. and Canada was $951 as of Monday morning, while in FIFA's resale platform, tickets were available for as low as $690.

Other games across the 104-match tournament also still have many tickets left to sell — despite FIFA President Gianni Infantino's claim that every match is "already sold out." That's especially the case for lesser well known teams such as the Jordan against Algeria match, which still had hundreds of unsold seats in the FIFA's web site.

Demand for high-profile tickets such as Argentina and Portugal was far higher, however, with many of those games looking largely sold out.

Will the opening matches sell out?

Whether eventually the U.S. and Canada opening matches will sell out is hard to answer. Throughout the sales process, FIFA has closely guarded how many tickets it has actually sold and how many are left to sell, making it virtually impossible to gauge.

In addition, like other teams, FIFA could also sell tickets in other platforms including third-party ones such as SeatGeek, which can further obscure how many tickets are left to sell.

FIFA and organizers, however, are hoping for a surge in excitement that leads to a last-minute rush of sales for the opening matches as well as for those such as Jordan against Algeria that look far from being sold out.

Ben Shields, a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, says perceptions so far of the tournament have been shaped by how expensive tickets and travel has been for a tournament taking place across an entire continent.

That, he says, "does not seem to sit well with many."

But that could change.

"The hope or bet — for FIFA is that once the matches start — and the greatest players in the world compete for the most prestigious prize of them all, the sport as business lens will fade into the background and the World Cup will be seen and experienced as the enduring global institution that it is," Shields says. "We shall see."
Copyright 2026 NPR

Orange County’s top elected leaders on Tuesday are set to discuss what to do with $3.7 million recovered from the Andrew Do corruption scheme.

Do is now serving a five-year sentence in federal prison after he admitted to accepting bribes in exchange for awarding millions in tax dollars meant to feed needy seniors and people with disabilities in his district.

As part of the plea deal, Do acknowledged taking more than $800,000 in bribes through his two daughters, including a down payment on the house his youngest daughter Rhiannon Do later forfeited to resolve the criminal case. The scheme was first uncovered by LAist.

Federal officials recovered money from seized bank accounts and two properties connected to Do’s scheme — including the Tustin house his daughter bought.

The county Board of Supervisors is expected to publicly discuss plans for the recovered funds as they make decisions on the overall county budget at their meeting Tuesday. Public comment will also be taken.

What to do with the money?

Ahead of Tuesday’s discussion, Do’s successor said the funds should support residents of his former district who were deprived by Do and his alleged co-conspirators.

“For the past five years, every other district in Orange County has benefitted from the same community funds to support their cities, nonprofits, civic projects which strengthens their communities,” Supervisor Janet Nguyen wrote in a mass email to constituents last week. “However, our district went without because Do stole what belonged to our residents.”

“This money was stolen from the First District, and it must come back to the First District,” Nguyen added.

Nguyen was Do’s mentor and former boss more than a decade ago, before the two had a bitter falling out by 2016.

She encouraged residents of her district to send letters to the board and to speak during public comments.

Several county supervisors told LAist they supported a similar approach, one in which the recovered money goes to support the original intended recipients: seniors and people with disabilities in Do’s former district. Some supervisors have since advocated a broader view of how they’d want to use the money, noting that it was meant to address disruptions caused by the pandemic. Now that years have passed since the initial COVID-19 outbreak and lockdowns, some supervisors argue community needs have changed.

“We are so many years on, and the problems that money originally was to address (mostly Covid impacts) are now behind us, that I think we should have a discussion about how and where to spend it,” Supervisor Don Wagner told LAist via text message in March. “The budget is so tight and the needs so great across the county.”

Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento said he’d work toward a fair distribution of the funds to best serve residents, with a focus on current needs.

“We will definitely consider what areas of the County were harmed by Do’s scheme, but we must also remember that the funds were intended for relief efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic, a threat we are no longer facing,” he said in March. “We also need to consider addressing the current needs of residents with any dollars returned to the county.”

Millions more haven’t been recovered, at least yet

The amount of taxpayer money recovered so far is less than half of the $7.9 million Andrew Do admitted was diverted from specific meal contracts.

In a lawsuit seeking to recover funds, the county alleges the total amount lost in the scheme was even larger: $13.25 million. The county’s suit — scheduled for trial in November 2027 — covers all of the money Do gave to two nonprofits accused in the scheme, Viet America Society and Hand to Hand Relief Organization.

That leaves more than $4 million — and possibly much more — not yet recovered.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office noted they have an ongoing criminal case against Do’s alleged co-conspirator Peter Pham.

“Assuming we obtain a conviction in that matter, we would expect to seek restitution,” the spokesperson, Ciaran McEvoy, said.

Pham left the country on a flight to Taiwan in late 2024 and remains a fugitive, according to McEvoy. The case against him also includes charges against another alleged co-conspirator, Thanh Huong Nguyen, who led the Hand to Hand nonprofit.

Fans of the U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team swelled the stadium at the Great Park in Irvine on Monday to watch players practice for the first time since arriving at the training facility they’ll call home for the first round of the 2026 World Cup.

“Seeing them play right now… it was really cool to see how they play and how they practice,” said Mila Ran, who came with her mother from nearby Mission Viejo.

“This whole time she’s saying, 'I want to go shoot, I want to go play,'” said Mila’s mother, Farah Ran.

They were among about 6,000 people who won free entry to the practice in a lottery that received more than 30,000 entries, according to Irvine officials.

Fans got to the venue early.

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The team’s biggest stars — Christian Pulisic, Antonee Robinson and others — showed off their ball handling skills, honed over years of play on U.S. youth fields and overseas in professional leagues. Fans yelled, waved U.S. flags, held up homemade signs, and did the wave several times.

The U.S. Men's National Team at their only open-to-the-public practice session in Irvine.

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After the roughly 45-minute practice, some players walked to the sidelines to take selfies with fans and sign autographs.

The players know it’s going to take more than this, however, to live up to expectations during the World Cup.

US men's national team player Tim Ream signs an autograph for a fan.

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“To be in a position to train in front of these people today… is such a unique opportunity and one that none of us take for granted,” said backup goalie Matt Freese before the practice. “We’re working as hard as we can, as focused as we can to leave the next generation inspired."

The U.S. men’s team and their training staff will use the Great Park facility over the next several weeks as the team plays Paraguay on Friday, Australia on June 19, and Turkey on June 25 in group play at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood.

Jury selection began Monday for the trial of the man accused of igniting a fire that led to the deadly and destructive Palisades Fire, which killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of structures.

Jonathan Rinderknecht is charged with one count of destruction of property by means of fire, one count of arson affecting property used in interstate commerce and one count of setting timber afire. He could face up to 45 years in federal prison.

How we got here

Prosecutors allege Rinderknecht set brush alight near a popular hiking trail in the Santa Monica Mountains on New Year’s Day, starting the Lachman Fire. Firefighters initially thought they put out the fire, but it remained smouldering underground for several days. High winds then brought the embers to the surface, sparking the Palisades Fire, which burned more than 23,000 acres.

What prosecutors say

In a court filing in April, prosecutors allege Rinderknecht displayed “extreme anger, indignation, and frustration” because he had to spend New Year's Eve alone. After driving around for Uber, Rinderknecht hiked up a popular trail and set chaparral alight in a clearing, according to prosecutors.

“He then started calling 911 multiple times, hiked down the hill, and fled the area in his car before firefighters arrived. Defendant returned to the area after he saw fire trucks arriving and then took videos of the firefighting efforts,” prosecutors wrote.

The filing also states that Rinderknecht threatened to burn down his sister’s home.

Prosecutors are expected to argue that Rinderknecht started the smaller blaze knowing it could turn into a bigger inferno.

U.S. District Court Judge Anne Hwang has previously expressed the government’s position could confuse jurors.

What the defense says

Defense attorney Steve Haney previously told reporters that prosecutors were trying to blame Rinderknecht for a fire that started days before the Palisades Fire.

"Well what about what happened between Jan. 1 and Jan. 7?" he asked. "Jonathan wasn't out there with a fire hose putting that fire out at the Lachman location, the Fire Department was. So why are they blaming him for whatever the Fire Department didn't do?"