Singh ran an improper political campaign in 2011.
By The American Bazaar Staff
WASHINGTON, DC: An Indian American restaurateur and aspiring politician in California, who was a decorated war hero in India’s 1971 war against Pakistan, Navraj Singh, was fined along with a campaign colleague, nearly $43,000 by the Ethics Commission in California last month for failing to keep accurate records and faking documents that were supposed to back up a political campaign he ran in 2011.
Singh, 67, had made an unsuccessful bid for a spot on the Los Angeles City Council in 2011 to represent the northwest stretches of the San Fernando Valley, vying for the seat that was ultimately won by Mitch Englander. His campaign committee raised more than $96,000, including $47,300 in public matching funds, reported the Los Angeles Times.
A routine audit and later investigation found that his campaign lacked records that would enable the city to determine whether some of the spending was proper.
When Ethics Commission auditors asked for more documents to examine the spending, Singh and his treasurer, Timothy Davis, came up with some invoices that “appeared to be inauthentic,” according to a report by Ethics Commission staff, the Times report said.
“Singh and Davis provided inauthentic documents rather than admitting to the Ethics Commission that they failed to maintain the documentation necessary to support six campaign expenditures totaling $9,755.12,” the report stated.
Some of the fake documents were largely accurate, but others listed the wrong company or person who received the money.
In one case, one of the invoices listed the name of a company that didn’t provide services to the campaign, the Ethics Commission found. The invoice said $5,000 was sent to Print Plus for printing services, but investigators found the money actually went to Paint Plus — a business that Davis owned — for office space.
Singh, Davis and the campaign committee also failed to provide copies of some of their campaign communications, including postcards, yard signs and recyclable bags, to the Ethics Commission as required.
And on some of his political yard signs, Singh and his campaign committee neglected to include legally required wording about who paid for them.
The maximum fine for the violations reached nearly $86,000, but Ethics Commission staff recommended that Singh, Davis and the committee pay nearly $43,000 — half of the possible penalty.
City staffers did not find any evidence that Singh and Davis were trying to conceal illegal activity by faking the invoices, but said they had failed to resolve the matter years earlier, forcing investigators to spend extensive time trying to cobble together what was spent.
Singh, Davis and their committee agreed to the fine, but will pay it bit by bit under a payment plan over the next year, the Times report said.
The Los Angeles Daily News had in a report in January, 2011, profiled Singh’s successful military career in India, and what prompted him to emigrate from India to the United States.
Singh’s life story includes exploits as an Indian Army captain in the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War, and success as a restaurateur after he came to the United States “with $7 in my pocket.”
That 2011 report said Singh and his wife of 35 years, Paramgit or “Pam,” have lived in Porter Ranch since 1984, and have a 33-year-old son, R.J. Their son Sirtaj died at age 24 in a 2006 car accident on his way home from a Lakers game.
Singh said he has owned 12 Indian restaurants at one time or another in the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys and West Los Angeles. His first restaurant, at Pico Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue, burned down in the 1992 riots.
He grew up near Delhi with three brothers, all engineers. A graduate of the Indian military academy, he said he was decorated for his actions in the 1971 war against Pakistan, in which the 23-year-old captain had to lead his company after the commander was killed.
Singh said he had first become “mesmerized” by America when he watched President Kennedy’s 1961 inaugural address on TV.
He said he was down to $7 when he arrived in New York at age 26, but did so well selling vacuum cleaners door to door that his first paycheck was for $3,000. His trick was to offer to vacuum people’s houses, then empty the picked-up dirt onto the floor in a pile to show how much had been picked up, reported the News.
3 Comments
We must kick out the Indians, Pakis, Nepalis, Bangladeshis, and Sri Lankans out of America. They can play enemy game on their soil, not here. Enough is enough. No immigrants and No Islam.
The native Indians want the Anglo Saxon colonisers to get out and breed in their own tiny, cold island near the Arctic called Britain.
The native Indians want the Anglo Saxons to get out and reproduce in their own tiny, cold island near the Arctic called Britain.