Palm Springs City Hall was raided yesterday by FBI agents working in concert with a public-corruption taskforce that includes at least two California district attorneys and the IRS.
Federal agents sent all city hall-staffers home for the day, then also paid a visit to the mayor at his nearby residence where they removed additional evidence, said a Bureau spokesperson who declined to say what police were looking for.
Search warrants for the multi-agency taskforce’s raid have been sealed by court order, according to that same individual, so the subject of the government’s wide-sweeping investigation has yet to be fully disclosed.
It’s also not clear if sitting mayor Steve Pougnet’s second residence in Colorado will be searched next, but many believe he is the primary target of the ongoing political corruption probe.
As with other public officials who’ve been snagged in similar stings, Pougnet’s allegedly duplicitous dealings with an area land-developer of questionable reputation appears to have raised suspicions of his wrongdoing.
He couldn’t be reached by reporters yesterday, but subsequently released the following cautiously-worded statement:
“I am happy to cooperate with the inquiry going on at City Hall, just as I have always been fully cooperative and open in all of my many years as an elected official in Palm Springs.”
The embattled mayor also expressed “complete confidence that our City Council, city manager, city attorney and city staff will do everything they can to cooperate by ensuring that this process will be as swift and as thorough as possible.”
