Council Candidate Admits to Cheating On Wife, Vandalism, Tax Delinquency, and Racist Slurs

LOS ANGELES, CA — In an effort to get ahead of the ever-more damning revelations about his use of racist slurs and unsavory online posts, Los Angeles City Council candidate Joe Bray-Ali publicly admitted to cheating on his wife a lot, owing $48,000 in back taxes, and public acts of vandalism.

The admissions, which he made in a Facebook Video post telling voters, "Here is the dirt on me," follow a week in which he lost major endorsements from the Los Angeles Times and Councilman Mitch O'Farrel. Bray-Ali responded to the revelations about his use of epithets, admitting "I'm not perfect." On Thursday, seven City Council members agreed, calling on Joe Bray-Ali to withdraw from his race against Councilman Gil Cedillo. Bray-Ali's apprent downfall began with the revelations that he used racial slurs and mocked mentally disabled people, overweight people and transgender people in online posts. Specifically, Bray-Ali made online comments in which he used the N-word, called gender reassignment surgery a "shameless excess," used the word "retard" and made other comments that offended leaders in the LGBT and civil rights communities.

In a posting Friday on his personal Facebook page, Bray-Ali again vowed to stay in the race. Then he opened the door to additional skeletons in his closet.

Bray-Ali opened the post by saying, "Here is the dirt on me." The post then said:

-- "Flying Pigeon-LA LLC owes the State Board of Equalization for a failure to pay an audit and several quarters of sales taxes. The amount is ~$48,000 the last time I bothered to open the envelope."

-- "I slept with several other women from 2011 to 2014. Not my wife. For a time I even had a Tinder profile."

-- "I painted bike symbols (sharrows) in the middle of the night with friends, and on camera with German documentary filmmaker."

-- "I have said many profane, rude, statements to people I've gotten into arguments with online."

Bray-Ali then said his online slurs "are a distraction from what this election is about and not a reflection of who I am as a person. They are a verification that I am a human being with flaws, like everyone."

He added, "A career built around serving our community, all colors and creeds and genders, a campaign built around neighbor-to-neighbor connections and not institutional support and developer backing -- that is who I am."

Bray-Ali is challenging Councilman Gil Cedillo in the 1st Council District. Cedillo was forced into the May 16 runoff when he fell just short of the required 50 percent of the vote on March 7, finishing with 49.34 percent to Bray-Ali's 37.97 percent.

Things were looking good for Bray-Ali's campaign when the week began. The Times had recently re-endorsed him for the runoff race and he had also snagged the endorsement of O'Farrell on April 6. The endorsements were a significant boost for Bray-Ali, who is a former bicycle shop owner who has never held political office.

But both of those endorsements were quickly pulled when Bray-Ali's online activity on a site called Voat was revealed. The Times noted it is the first time in recent memory it had pulled an endorsement.

Bray-Ali's comments included disparaging remarks about overweight people. In a forum called "v/FATPEOPLEHATE," he said about an overweight woman accused of aiding in the sexual abuse of her daughter, "If they keep her on her diet, that won't be a long lifetime."

In one of the forums, which uses an epithet about blacks as its title, Bray-Ali commented on some videos of black people fighting with derogatory headlines like "Elementary Zoo Fight" and "Sheboons fighting at a gas station."

Other commenters used the epithet and other derogatory and racist language repeatedly, and Bray-Ali did not denounce the language in his own posts. One person wrote in a post, "I like it when they die. Black lives don't matter. Good for entertainment though."

Bray-Ali also used the epithet himself when he said dark-skinned people in a particular image were not Africans, which should disqualify them from being called the epithet.

Bray-Ali made another comment talking about how girls with a weave have an advantage in fighting over girls with long hair.

Bray-Ali said he made the comments because he wanted to engage bigots to understand them better and "ended up sounding like a bigot myself. And I'm not proud of it."

But The Times board found that explanation unsatisfactory.

"He has said he went to the site to `track' bigots and hatemongers out of `morbid fascination' and that he sought to pick fights with them. But there is no indication he was `tracking' anyone, and picking fights is exactly what he didn't do," The Times board wrote. "He participated in the conversations without once criticizing the headlines, the participants or the subject matter, without once noting that such talk was unacceptable or offensive."

City News Service reported last week on a 9-year-old YouTube video in which Bray-Ali spoke into the camera and asked why Mexicans in his neighborhood always honk their horns instead of using a doorbell.

Bray-Ali first apologized for the video to City News Service, but later told the The Times the video was intended to be a question for a humorous OC Weekly column, "Ask a Mexican."

CRAIG CLOUGH of City News Service and Patch staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report.