Less than two months after a series of FBI raids at the homes and offices of two Ontario International Airport Authority commissioners and those of their political and personal associates put Ontario Airport under the glare of a public spotlight, another development involving the airport’s executive director/manager is subjecting the aerodrome and those running it to a further round of controversy.
In early 2020, then-Ontario International Airport Authority Board President Alan Wapner and the airport authority’s deputy executive director for communications and marketing, Afif Elkadi, sought to assist their fellow USC alum, Scott Jacobson, after the latter had been sacked from his position as the associate athletic director at the University of Southern California in the aftermath of the “VarsityBlues” college admissions scandal that felled a multitude of celebrities, blue bloods and influential titans of finance and industry who used their wealth to have their children accepted at some of the country’s most prestigious colleges and universities in exchange for bribes paid to scholastic deans and other guardians of the gates of academia. Caught up in the scandal along with Jacobson were USC senior associate athletic director Ron Orr, USC athletic department chief operating officer/chief financial officer Steve Lopes, USC soccer coaches Ali Khosroshahin and Laura Janke, athletic department administrator Donna Heinel and water polo coach Jovan Vavic, all of whom were either sacked or resigned. Revealed at the time were that scions of famous actors and wealthy businessmen or industrialists had been given athletic scholarships to USC despite having no skill, no ability and in some cases no familiarity whatsoever with the sports for which those scholarships had been provided in return for a minimum fee, i.e., bribe of $250,000 and in a few known cases as much as $500,000. An internal review of the situation by USC determined that there were grounds to believe that 33 students were admitted to the college under circumstances that involved fraud or deceit, in which 12 of those students were not involved or could not be proved to be involved in violating the school’s admissions procedure, while the remaining 21 were found to have knowingly made false representations about themselves or had others do so, and were in various ways involved in patently dishonest acts such as having others take SAT tests for them or assume their identities in completing the admissions process, including sitting for interviews.
Initially, Wapner and Elkadi entertained the idea of creating an in-house advertising arm for the airport, one that would include promoting the airport at various sporting and entertainment events and venues, and installing Jacobson as the head of the department. They ran head-on into the consideration that two of the divisions of Lamar Advertising – that pertaining to advertisement in general and its airport advertising division – at that point was not quite three years into a ten-year contract related to advertising with Ontario International Airport and the Ontario International Airport Authority that had been initiated in July of 2017 and yet had seven more years to run. Lamar’s was a multidimensional national advertising agency with contracts with 25 airports around the country and established penetration into a wealth of venues. Within Ontario specifically, Lamar was responsible for the airport advertising program, including indoor and outdoor advertising displays within Terminals 2 and 4, which handled the domestic traffic at the airport departing and arriving, and airport parking venues, as well as billboard signage on airport property.
Mark Thorpe, then the airport authority’s executive director who oversaw management, operations, development, and marketing of the airport, was skeptical about what services Jacobson, whose primary experience confined itself to being a university associate athletic director, could offer the airport authority and the airport. He was satisfied with Lamar’s performance and saw no benefit from instituting a redundancy of the nature that Wapner and Elkadi were advocating with the creation of an advertising department and the hiring of Jacobson.
Wapner hit upon an alternate strategy. By the summer of 2020, as the entire airline industry was hit with substantial downturns in ridership as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, Wapner began bewailing Lamar’s performance. Utilizing the very tangible evidence of the declining numbers of passengers passing through Ontario International Airport’s gates, he maneuvered around Thorpe, working in unison with Elkadi, who directly oversaw the airport’s advertising. On February 1, 2021, the Ontario International Airport Authority entered into a $96,000 annual contract with Fuse Advancement, as it was identified in the contract. At that point, Fuse Advancement had no contracts with any airports or any entities, for that matter. It did not, in fact exist. According to the California Secretary of State, Fuse Advancement was not registered as a business entity until February 18, 2021, 17 days after it was first granted a contract with the airport authority.
Subsequently, on May 27, 2021, the contract with Fuse Advancement was increased to $240,500 per year.
Though both Lamar and Fuse Advancement fell under the rubric of being advertising and promotion companies and both engaged in advertisement at Ontario International Airport, there were elements of their separate functions that differed somewhat. The break with Lamar did not come off as cleanly as Wapner had hoped, and the Ontario International Airport Authority had to buy out the remaining six years of the contract with Lamar.
A significant number of Ontario International Airport Authority employees, indeed upwards of 80 percent of them, and at least one of the airport authority board members knew nothing about the previous relationship between Wapner and Jacobson as the transition from Lamar to Fuse Advancement was being effectuated.
Wapner is a member of the USC Class of 1978 and self-identifies as a Trojan. Like hundreds of other USC alums, Wapner is a participant in the Trojan Athletic Fund, and as such was frequently in attendance at USC’s home football games at the Coliseum/United Airlines Field, where he viewed the action on the gridiron in a seating section reserved for VIPs. More notably, documentation obtained by the Sentinel shows that Wapner was the recipient of a lagniappe arranged for him through Jacobson, the value of which cannot be quantified, that being the rare privilege of traveling with the football team on certain away games such as those vs. Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana on October 12, 2019 and the contest against the University of Texas in Austin, Texas on September 15, 2018. During the years Jacobson was associate athletic director, he regularly made arrangements to have Wapner fly with the team to the locations where they were playing. Subsequent to Jacobson’s departure as associate athletic director, there was a carryover of the rapport the councilman had established with the USC athletic department through Jacobson, as when he continued to travel with the football in in 2020 and 2021, such as to Denver, Colorado for the team’s match-up against Colorado on October 2, 2021.
Thorpe’s tenure as interim executive director of the airport/airport authority lasted from July 2017 to October 2017, and his official tenure as the full-fledged executive director last four years and five months from October 2017 to March 31, 2022. Throughout the last three years of his time as executive director, Thorp and Wapner were on increasingly acrimonious terms, as Wapner dominated the airport board of commissioners and was dictating policy virtually unilaterally, pursuing policies, including overtures to sell what he defined as “surplus” airport property to real estate speculators and development companies which had made substantial donations to his political fund. Thorpe resisted several initiatives that Wapner was pursuing in this regard. By October 2021, the relationship between Wapner and Thorpe had deteriorated that Thorpe was placed on a special assignment, during which time he was restricted from contacting staff except with regard to those areas relating to his limited assignment. From that point forward, Elkadi, having been designated by Wapner, began serving as the de facto executive director of the airport, despite his lack of expertise in virtually all areas beyond communications and marketing. On January 21, 2022, Thorpe submitted his resignation as CEO, with his term ending March 31, 2022.
Elkadi immediately transitioned to acting CEO and in short order Wapner lined up the votes to promote him to the airport and airport authority’s chief executive officer.
Even before Thorpe’s departure, complaints emanating from Ontario residents relating to Wapner’s actions in his role as president/chairman of the airport commission had been lodged with the FBI.
The focus of that investigation over the course of more than five years has expanded and evolved to touch on quid pro quo arrangements, specifically alleged bribes or kickbacks from individuals, businesses, and entities seeking project approvals, contracts, or franchises from the airport authority, the City of Ontario and San Bernardino County’s government structure, as well as overseas banking activity, particularly involving financial institutions in the People’s Republic of China, and related cryptocurrency exchange access and account codes pertaining to Wapner and another member of the Ontario International Airport Authority, San Bernardino County Fourth District Supervisor Curt Hagman.
On July 28 of this year, the FBI served search warrants at homes of Wapner, Hagman, James Su and Frank Lizarraga, located, respectively, in Ontario, Chino, West Covina and in Rancho Cucamonga. A search warrant was simultaneously served at a mansion in the 600 block of North Canon Drive of Beverly Hills, the domicile of a yet undisclosed individual.
James Su is the owner, president and manager of EDI Media, the California-based West Coast arm of Guoguang Century Media, which consists of 34 radio stations in 14 countries. Guoguang Century Media is backed and funded by China Radio International, the state-owned international radio broadcasting network of the People’s Republic of China. Guoguang Century Media is dedicated to producing content aligned with Beijing’s interests, both domestically and internationally. In 1993, using funding provided to him by the Chinese government through Guoguang Century Media, Su founded EDI Media, Inc., which is now affiliated with G&E Studio Inc. and CiTi News, a company of which Su is the president that includes multiple TV stations, radio stations, magazines, and newspapers. Su and his employees were substantial donors to Hagman’s political campaign fund. Lizarraga is closely identified with the City of Ontario, having had three offices in the city. He was a member of the Ontario Planning Commission for 13 years. He has served as Wapner’s personal attorney and that of Wapner’s wife, for Ontario Councilwoman Daisy Macias and for Ontario Councilman Jim Bowman, who is also a member of the Ontario International Airport Board of Commissioners. Lizarraga was the former general counsel to the Southern California Association of Governments, representing six counties.
In addition, on July 28, search warrants were served at Hagman’s San Bernardino County Fourth District supervisorial office located in the Chino Hills municipal government complex; the EDI corporate office in West Covina; Lizarraga’s law office in Ontario; and the business offices of Andrea “Andy” Sehremelis in Chino. Sehremelis is a major donor to the campaign funds of both Wapner and Hagman. In addition, the FBI submitted subpoenas to the offices of the Ontario city clerk and the airport authority’s executive suite and administrative offices on Avion Drive at the airport.
The FBI’s activity proved to be unsettling in the Ontario community, the Fourth Supervisorial District in Southwest San Bernardino County, at Ontario City Hall, at the airport, its administrative offices, the offices of the airport authority and, to a somewhat lesser extent, in Los Angeles County in West Covina and the Mansion District of Beverly Hills. Before the FBI raids, Wapner was running for mayor in the upcoming November 3 election, challenging the incumbent, Paul Leon, and Hagman’s son, Jonathan, was vying for a position on the Ontario City Council, representing the city’s Third District. Following the raids, Wapner dropped out of the mayor’s contest to run for election in the city’s Third District and young Hagman dropped out of the council race entirely.
In the midst of this, in the last two weeks comes word that Elkadi’s 24-year-old daughter, Abigail daughter, Abigail Elkadi, has been hired by Jacobson to work for Fuse Advancement. This has caused quite a stir. While some see no particular problem with young Elkadi finding a job, and there are assertions that as a parent, Elkadi has no control over what his adult children do., nevertheless, some are suggesting that Jacobson hiring Elkadi’s daughter at Fuse when Elkadi played a primary role in providing the company with a contract that has resulted in payments to that company of more than $1.25 million over the last five years is improper. At the very least, some of the same people who were instrumental in getting the FBI investigation rolling that resulted in July 28 serving of search warrants are saying, it looks bad. Others have alleged that it constitutes nepotism that crosses the line into a criminal conflict of interest.
The Sentinel this morning in an email to Elkadi asked him to on the record on behalf of the airport authority with regard to the matter. The Sentinel asked him if it was appropriated for Fuse to hire his daughter and if there was any problem with Fuse having hired a member of the airport authority’s general manager’s family. The Sentinel asked Elkadi, if he did not consider the situation to be problematic, to provide a cogent refutation to those who say it is. The Sentinel sought from him an encapsulation of the airport authority’s position vis-à-vis those calling for him to resign over what has occurred. The Sentinel further sought from him what the airport authority’s position is with regard to those who are calling for the airport authority to end its relationship with Fuse and Jacobson. The Sentinel asked if the airport authority is reevaluating its contractual relationship with Fuse.
Elkadi did not respond. However, the airport authority’s/airport’s spokesman, Steve Lambert did react to an email posing similar questions to the airport authority for official comment, stating, “Your ridiculous inquiry attempts to manufacture a controversy out of the employment of the CEO’s daughter by a private company. She is an adult, pursuing her own career and making her own professional decisions. The suggestion that her employment somehow constitutes grounds for her father’s resignation—or should dictate the airport’s relationship with an outside firm—is an extraordinary leap, and nothing presented in your inquiry establishes a factual basis for it.”
Lambert said, “More troubling is the decision to make a family member part of the Sentinel’s continuing campaign against Ontario International Airport. The airport has tolerated a steady stream of Sentinel stories and inquiries built around accusations, innuendo and false claims advanced by individuals who plainly have grievances against the airport and its leadership. You have repeatedly and apparently intentionally misstated generally available facts about the airport, its success since its return to local control and its impact on this vibrant region we serve. You have steadfastly refused to provide the same level of scrutiny to those who are feeding you misinformation, all while hiding their identities. But going after someone’s daughter is beyond the pale. Public officials and executives of public agencies should expect scrutiny. Their children should not become collateral damage simply because someone is looking for another angle of attack.”
Making no acknowledgment of Fuse’s status as a contractor to a public agency or Elkadi role in heading that public agency, Lambert implied that Fuse’s hiring of Elkadi’s daughter had no public relevance.
“Your predicate—asking the airport to rebut unnamed people who are supposedly demanding resignations and terminated contracts—is not a factual one,” Lambert asserted. “It is an invitation to participate in the creation of a controversy. We decline to do so.”
The Sentinel’s coverage of the matter relating to the Fuse contract, Atif Elkadi’s role as the executive director of the airport and airport authority, Abigail’s hiring by Fuse and a host of other issues pertaining to Ontario International Airport and the airport authority, Lambert said “is unfair, misleading and driven more by personal vendettas than by a legitimate effort to inform the public. This latest inquiry fits a pattern we have seen repeatedly, and bringing an adult daughter into it takes that pattern to a disturbing new level.”
The matter pertaining to Abigail Elkadi’s hiring by Fuse following her father’s participation in extending a public contract to Fuse is paralleled by the circumstance involving former Los Angeles City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, who was also at one time a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, an Assemblyman and a California State Senator. Ridley-Thomas was convicted in 2023 on five counts of honest services wire fraud, one count of conspiracy and one count of bribery involving programs receiving federal funds.
The case centered on a quid pro quo scheme between Ridley-Thomas, then a Los Angeles County Supervisor, and Marilyn Flynn, then dean of the USC School of Social Work. Prosecutors alleged that Flynn arranged for benefits for Ridley-Thomas’ son, Sebastian – including USC graduate school admission, a full-tuition scholarship, and a paid professorship – in exchange for Ridley-Thomas’ support for a telehealth contract between Los Angeles County and USC.
In March 2023, a Los Angeles federal jury found him guilty on the seven counts but acquitted him of 12 other fraud charges. In August 2023, he was sentenced to 42 months in federal prison and a $30,000 fine The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld his convictions in August 2026.
Unlike Ridley-Thomas, Atif Elkadi is not an elected official. Nevertheless, Elkadi served in a key decision-making role with regard to the hiring of Fuse Advancement. As in the Ridley-Thomas matter, Ontario International Airport receives federal funds. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles, which prosecuted Ridley-Thomas, is overseeing the production of evidence being accumulated in the FBI’s investigation of Ontario International Airport and the airport authority, and will handle the prosecutions that may result from that investigation