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Big leases, park progress, and other happenings Around Town.
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Editorial: The Dodgers should drop the seven-for-one Yankees ticket scheme.
Who Is Brian Alexik? Tracing the Past of the Reserve Lofts Counterfeiting Suspect, From Arrests to a Penchant for Tiling to Pictures With Bono by Ryan Vaillancourt
Staff Writer t 20, he went to jail for selling heroin and cocaine. Four years later, he caught another felony in his hometown of Edison, New Jersey, for “theft by deception.” Now, Brian Elliot Alexik, the man who on April 19 evaded police by scampering down a fire escape from his Reserve Lofts penthouse, is on the loose. He is wanted on weapons charges and likely faces additional federal charges for counterfeiting. As the LAPD investigates the case, it remains unclear whether Alexik, 34, is a focused, money-faking mastermind planning an attack on a key financial hub, or a troubled soul dabbling in drugs and an array of black-market schemes to pay for a high-rolling lifestyle. At this point, there are many more questions than answers: What was in the two duffel bags he escaped with? Why did he rent an apartment overlooking the Federal Reserve Bank? What inspired him to make a tile mosaic resembling the Central Intelligence Agency logo inlaid in the floor of his seventh floor loft? Why
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W W W. D O W N T O W N N E W S . C O M
May 24, 2010
Volume 39, Number 21
Readers Choice
did he install tiles across a previous Downtown home? And, perhaps most interestingly, why did the man police warn should be considered armed and dangerous have numerous photos in his apartment of himself partying with Bono of U2 as well as model and reality TV star Janice Dickinson? There is one thing police are certain about: He’s dangerous. “I think he fancies himself as a super sleuth, as a spy,” said Lt. David Dolan, one of the investigators working the case under the Major Crimes Division. “Someone he went to high school with told us [Alexik] wanted to work for the CIA. But I think that that’s what this guy is — he likes to chase the game. And the guy’s just evaporated.” The man who has gone by several names, including Ken Shurin and Brian Alexia, and who left in his loft dozens of the plastic cards used to make fake IDs, appears to have led a sort of double life: On one hand, he lived luxuriously, renting expensive Downtown penthouses and driving a black Lexus. see Alexik, page 8
images courtesy of LAPD
The four faces of Brian Alexik: LAPD images show the different looks employed by the Reserve Lofts counterfeiting suspect. More than a month after he evaded police by escaping down a fire escape, he remains at large.
Snakes, ‘Star Trek’ and the City Budget Los Angeles Embraces $6.7 Billion Worth of Frustration by Jon Regardie
Return of the Last Remaining Seats.
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19 CALENDAR LISTINGS 21 MAP 22 CLASSIFIEDS
executive editor
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or the past couple years, dealing with the city of Los Angeles’ budget has been like playing in a snake pit. Everywhere you look, someone is slithering around, dropping revenue and layoff the regardie report
projections, then darting back into a hole at the slightest protest. Each time you think you have a grasp on the fiscal situation, a corn snake twists in an impossible direction and wriggles through your fingers. Just when you’ve finally taken a significant step, like throwing a net over the entire pit, the biggest, baddest viper rips a hole in the fabric, rears up and bites you in the eye. In other words, it’s business as usual in
City Hall. And so it was on Monday, May 17, when the City Council approved a $6.7 billion budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1. Despite the vote, a few important things are still wiggly. There continues to be a divide as a) some politicians argue they should count on money that they 82% believe will materialize in a few months, b) others fret that any move to lay off city employees will prevent them from getting a single penny in union election support ever again, and c) a small faction says everyone else is living in Financial Fantasyland, and the only way to escape the mess is by actually cutting expenses and lopping off a lot of jobs. Meanwhile, amid all the hissing and fits, see Budget, page 10
R I C H A R D
photo by Gary Leonard
It’s not just current politicians who have spoken out about Los Angeles’ fiscal crisis. Richard Riordan, who was termed out in 2001, has blasted city leadership recently.
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