It isn’t every day that Los Angeles’ premiere newspaper and one of its elected officials pulls an endorsement of a candidate for City Council. Then again, it isn’t every day that a council candidate admits to fat shaming, racist speech, tax evasion and extramarital affairs.
Joe Bray-Ali, who once had a promising chance to defeat incumbent District 1 Councilman Gil Cedillo, saw his campaign implode after a number of racist online postings emerged last week. Both the Los Angeles Times and Councilman Mitch O’Farrell have since rescinded their endorsements of Bray-Ali. And on Friday, he disclosed even more indiscretions on Facebook, including $48,000 in unpaid sales taxes and audit costs for his bicycle business plus trysts with Tinder girls.
Bray-Ali is practically radioactive right now, but he says it still won’t stop him from running.
“My reputation is already mud,” he confesses. “I’m just trying to give people a viable option.”
Here’s the initial story that LAist broke on the candidate’s online postings. The details are shocking. Bray-Ali claims he didn’t believe a word of what he was writing at the time, but was instead keeping tabs on all the “hatemongers” out there.