Hollywood producer and financier Ryan Kavanaugh is pushing to make some changes to LA law enforcement after ruffling the feathers of former LA Sheriff Lee Baca.
The Relativity CEO was accused last year of improperly landing a helicopter on a Sheriff’s Department helipad while visiting Paul Tanaka — a former undersheriff who was planning to run for Baca’s office, and whom Kavanaugh was assumed to be backing. (The LA district attorney dropped any criminal investigation over the chopper flap.)
But last week, Kavanaugh instead threw a fund-raiser for rival LA County Sheriff candidate James Hellmold. The event was hosted at Kavanaugh’s hanger at the Santa Monica airport, where guests including Ron Burkle and Leonardo DiCaprio chatted with Hellmold and his wife.
Some in the race have reportedly been distancing themselves from Baca, who has retired and whose acolytes reportedly formed cliques with names like “The Regulators” within their ranks and got tattoos proving their allegiance.
At a debate on Sunday, Tanaka admitted he was in one such group, the Lynwood Vikings, and got a tattoo years ago, but, “was never part of a gang. It did not become sinister until years later,” the LA Times reported.
Kavanaugh has sent out letters to influential friends asking them to back Hellmold, who said at the debate, “I never . . . did any of that BS stuff.”