Last week Los Angeles County election officials acknowledged cooperating with law enforcement

Last week, Los Angeles reported that Los Angeles County election officials were cooperating with law enforcement regarding allegations that the Skid Row homeless population was paid, or bribed with cigarettes and other items, to register to vote and sign ballot petitions.

On Thursday, plainclothes federal agents from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security Investigations Division descended on Skid Row to conduct interviews regarding election fraud, two sources confirmed to Los Angeles.

Laura Eimiller, a spokesperson for the FBI Los Angeles field office, confirmed there was “FBI investigative activity” on Skid Row Thursday, but declined further comment other than to say no warrants were issued.

The city’s top federal prosecutor, First Assistant United States Attorney for California’s Central District, Bill Essayli, has repeatedly referenced multiple ongoing voter fraud investigations, which, he promised, would likely “lead to arrests.” On Thursday, a spokesperson for the Central District, Ciaran McEvoy, also said “federal agents are conducting an investigation into a criminal matter,” but declined to elaborate.

The investigation, sources say, is largely tied to a surge in mail-in ballots that put City Councilmember Nithya Raman, a Democratic Socialist, the ballot for the November runoff in the Mayor’s race, knocking Spencer Pratt out of the running despite showing him in a solid second-place position on primary night.

More than 1.8 million Vote by Mail ballots were cast in the recent June Primary Election. Of those, more than 700,000 were returned at Ballot Drop Boxes or Vote Centers on Election Day, according to Los Angeles County election officials.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department deputies secure ballots on June 2 Credit: Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk

But the swell of last-minute mail-in votes led to outrage from many Angelenos, including Pratt, who released a video last week warning his former opponents that the FBI was coming for them. “I got in this to expose this corrupt machine,” he says in the video. “And nothing’s changed.”

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He had a direct message to the people he called “commie animals,” who have profiteeered off the city’s increasing chaos. He warned about “FBI blazers busting the door” of those engaged in corruption and election fraud.

“I want all of you awake at night, sweating and worried,” he said in the post. “Because I assure you: they’re coming.”

Last week, election officials acknowledged a spate of posted videos purporting to show Skid Row residents discuss payments in exchange for voter registration or signature ballots. “The videos circulating that continue to assert petition and voter registration activity of this nature have all been forwarded to law enforcement,” the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk posted on X. “Where verifiable information is decipherable from the content, we check and include it with our referrals.”

In May, a Marina del Rey woman pleaded guilty to charges that she paid Skid Row residents to vote. Brenda Lee Brown Armstrong, 64, admitted in a federal plea deal that she illegally registered people on Skid Row to vote, sometimes using her own address for mail-in ballots.