Former L.A. firefighter union treasurer under scrutiny over car purchase

A former labor leader for Los Angeles firefighters is under scrutiny for buying a union car at an alleged discount — and then reporting an even lower sale price to the state to avoid paying taxes, two people with knowledge of the transactions told The Times.

Domingo Albarran Jr., a former Los Angeles Fire Department captain who served as treasurer of the United Firefighters of Los Angeles City, reported to the Department of Motor Vehicles that he purchased the 2017 Chevrolet Malibu from the union for $500 in December 2022. The sources said that Albarran paid more — a total of $4,000 — for the car but slashed the sale price in documents he filed with the state.

The incoming UFLAC treasurer noticed the discrepancy and demanded Albarran return the vehicle to the union, according to the sources, who asked not to be named in order to discuss the matter candidly. The new treasurer also discovered that Albarran had inflated the vehicle’s mileage when he obtained an estimate from Kelley Blue Book, the sources said. A Kelley Blue Book spokesperson said a 2017 Malibu probably would have been worth more than $10,000 at the time of the sale.

Albarran, who has since retired, acknowledged to The Times that he underreported the sale price to the DMV because he did not want to pay taxes, and said he misread the odometer and mistakenly plugged in the wrong mileage when he obtained the Kelley Blue Book estimate. But he said the car was in poor condition and needed major repairs, and was not worth more than double what he paid.

“I don’t want to pay a lot of taxes on a vehicle that was potentially a lemon, but whatever, I own that 100%,” he said, adding that the price he paid was fair because the vehicle needed up to $2,000 in repairs.

City payroll records show Albarran made more than $370,000 in 2023 in pay and benefits before he retired. That included $189,339 in overtime pay.

The episode comes as another former officer of the labor organization faces an internal investigation over allegations that he engaged in financial improprieties involving the union’s charity for injured firefighters and their families, including using $5,000 of the charity’s money for his personal expenses. Adam Walker, a former UFLAC secretary who still works for the LAFD, told The Times that the allegations are false.

The International Assn. of Fire Fighters has suspended Walker from his union leadership post and accused him of improperly depositing about $75,000 of the charity’s funds into his personal accounts from December 2022 to January 2024, internal IAFF records reviewed by The Times show.

Walker said in an interview that the deposits were reimbursements for his legitimate out-of-pocket expenses for two golf tournaments that raised money for a disabled former firefighter. He said the account from which deposits were made was set up for the tournaments and not for the charity, the UFLAC Fire Foundation.

“Not one penny of the money was foundation money,” he said.

The UFLAC treasurer who uncovered the problems with Albarran’s car purchase reported it to the International Assn. of Fire Fighters, the parent organization of UFLAC and other local firefighter unions across the country, said the two sources familiar with the situation. One of the sources said the IAFF is conducting a broad examination of UFLAC’s finances, including the use of union credit cards by officers.

UFLAC President Freddy Escobar declined to comment on the allegations against Albarran and did not answer a written question from The Times about the IAFF financial review.

UFLAC is a political force in L.A., with elected officials valuing its endorsements and financial contributions to campaigns.

Escobar and other UFLAC leaders have criticized Mayor Karen Bass for firing LAFD Chief Kristin Crowley last month. Bass has said Crowley failed to adequately prepare for the Jan. 7 fire that destroyed swaths of Pacific Palisades and killed 12 people. On Tuesday, the City Council voted 13 to 2 to deny Crowley’s appeal of her firing.

California

L.A. fire officials could have put engines in the Palisades before the fire broke out. They didn’t

Fire officials made the critical decision to forgo calling in scores of extra firefighters and equipment in the hours before the fire, according to internal documents reviewed by The Times.

Jan. 14, 2025

Albarran’s case dates to 2022, when he offered to buy the Malibu sedan he had been driving for years in the course of performing his union duties. Officers typically are assigned a work car if they drive above a certain number of miles a year, because it’s cheaper than reimbursing them for mileage, the two sources said.

Before Albarran’s purchase was final, he charged to a union credit card roughly $1,500 in mechanical work and improvements to the car, including installing two new tires and flushing its transmission, the sources said.

In an interview, Albarran told The Times those expenses were for routine maintenance and safety upgrades.

“That needed to be done whether I was buying it or whether the union was going to keep it,” Albarran said, adding that the steel belt was exposed on the tires. “Am I supposed to drive around in the vehicle with tires that are unsafe? And they were worn out while [the car] belonged to the union.”

Albarran was also accused by the incoming treasurer of purchasing gas dozens of times for a personal vehicle with a union credit card, the sources said. After finding receipts in which the amount of gas purchased exceeded the roughly 13 gallons in a Malibu tank, the incoming treasurer located surveillance video of Albarran refueling his personal car at gas stations, the sources said.

Albarran said in an interview that he filled up his personal vehicle using the union credit card 10 times “at the most” over four years — and only when the Malibu was in the shop, though he said he did not keep any maintenance records. He said getting reimbursed by the union board for the number of miles he drove for work would have cost more.

“It was way cheaper to the union to just pay for fuel,” he said.

The two sources said Albarran reported to the union board that the Malibu had 175,000 miles on it, which put the car’s Kelley Blue Book trade-in value at $4,072 to $5,821, or an average of $4,947. Trade-in estimates are typically lower than estimates for private party sales.

Escobar and six other union board members signed the Kelley Blue Book trade-in estimate with the higher mileage, dated December 2022, according to a copy of the document obtained by The Times.

Albarran reported to the DMV that the car’s actual mileage was 145,779. Kelley Blue Book said the fair purchase price of a 2017 Malibu with that mileage would have been within the range of $8,855 to $11,422, or an average of $10,139 when the sale occurred. According to the DMV, the union had purchased the 2017 car new, for more than $30,000.

Albarran said he thought that $4,000 was a fair price because of the condition of the car and that he quickly returned the Malibu to the union — which refunded his $4,000 — when he was asked to.