The LA Weekly report details the family’s dynamic, Crespo’s abusive behavior, and the moments leading up to the shooting.
Daniel Crespo grew up in Brooklyn’s Bushwick neighborhood and made it to California after an accident on Coney Island’s Cyclone rollercoaster led to a $100,000 settlement. Crespo would attend Cal State Los Angeles and find a job as an LA County Probation Officer.
Crespo found Bell Gardens City Councilmember and power broker Maria Chacon who would help him gain a city council seat in 2001. Chacon would become embroiled in a years-long conflict of interest case after she resigned from the Bell Gardens City Council and was appointed City Manager on the same day, she would only serve a year’s worth of probation.
With Chacon’s help, Crespo campaigned and won a seat on the city council, but fell out with the other councilmembers in fairly rapid fashion. Despite this, his constant public interaction kept him very popular outside of City Hall.
Shortly into his tenure on the City Council, Crespo’s problematic behavior began to surface. Crespo’s sexual harassing and termination of a City Council Secretary led to a $70,000 settlement. Crespo then butted heads with then-City Manager John Ornelas with Crespo claiming Ornelas created a hostile work environment for him. However, it was Crespo who had made threats against Ornelas and it was Crespo who was rebuked in a memo by former-Mayor Jennifer Rodriguez which said, "Mr. Crespo, you are the one initiating a hostile environment at City Hall."
When he became mayor in July 2013, the council’s appointing him came with the agreement that he stop his contentious political behavior and ally with the majority.
Personally, Crespo’s story can be difficult to read as it shows a steady decline with what some might call a predictable end.
The LA Weekly story’s first mention of domestic abuse dates back to 1996 when his wife, Lyvette Crespo, bought a dollar store radio for their daughter’s friend’s birthday. Daniel Crespo dominated his wife’s life, requiring her to call him in order to leave the house and rarely bringing her to city events.
The Crespo story details two notable affairs while Lyvette was expected to maintain the role of housewife. After the first one ran its tragic course, which included a pseudo-wedding that Crespo dubbed a “commitment ceremony,” Lyvette began talking to the woman her husband had been seeing. Lyvette was told to “wake up.”
In June 2014, Lyvette asked for a divorce after years of alluding to doing it once their son, Daniel Jr., was grown. The divorce was bogged down over arguments of asset division. And after Daniel got back together with the woman from his first notable affair, she asked again, this time asking for nothing.
But it was in September 2014 when she confronted him over a day out with his affair that they began to fight and Daniel Jr. asked him to stop. When the father turned on his son, it was only then that Lyvette shot her husband three times.
Daniel Crespo died on the operating table and Lyvette Crespo is yet to stand trial for a voluntary manslaughter charge.
For the complete LA Weekly story about the Crespo family, see here.