Coliseum Fugitive Claims Innocence

A man indicted in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum debacle, and currently on the lam, has been talking to the Los Angeles Times, saying he’s the good guy.

Tony Estrada was a janitorial supervisor at the stadium and, in his Cuban accent, has been conversing with the paper via telephone and Skype video conferencing while wearing a ski mask. The 72-year-old contracted janitor says he’s no longer in the U.S. “moving around,” and has no intention of returning.

Estrada, along with three former Coliseum managers and two rave concert promoters, was indicted in March and promptly fled the country. He portrays himself as a whistleblower, and Coliseum officials have apparently described him that way to the Times. He claims he delivered kickbacks to then-GM Patrick Lynch, who allegedly pressured him for money to keep his janitorial contract. Estrada said other stadium employees were also handed money.
Lynch was also indicted.

Estrada says he came forward to tell a government lawyer and an outside investigator about the alleged kickbacks. He told the paper a culture of self-dealing and fraud ran rampant at the stadium for more than a decade.

“I did the right thing,” he said during a Skype call. “I started providing information … [in] every area that was corrupted.”
He said he began telling Lynch in 1999 that managers and other employees were falsifying payroll records, stealing supplies and doing other jobs while on the clock. He also claims he urged Lynch to look into some deep discounts given to the rave promoters.

Estrada also said he informed the GM of rampant drug use at the rave events – a claim that has significance considering a 15-year-old died from an Ecstasy overdose after attending the Electric Daisy Carnival at the facility in 2010.

“Every time that we had a rave dance … it was criminal to see these young kids,” Estrada told the Times. “They’re doped, they’re laying on the floor.”

Some were “not moving at all, just like they’re dead.”

He also claims he told the then-VP of the Coliseum Commission that then-events manager Todd DeStefano was having stadium crews work on his home. DeStefano has been charged with receiving bribes from the promoters in return for low concert costs. He is awaiting trial on related embezzlement and conspiracy counts in connection with about $2 million he received from the promoters, who face similar charges, the paper said.

Lynch has pleaded guilty to conflict of interest and may avoid prison time. His attorney says Estrada’s story doesn’t hold water.