By Mark Gutglueck
An attorney for Carol Plowman, a senior vice president and founding principal of Lee & Associates Commercial Real Estate Services in Ontario, this week characterized as “categorically false” reports linking her to an effort by Alan Wapner, the president of the Ontario International Airport Authority Board of Directors, to force airport staff to undertake the sale of 198 acres of airport property to a consortium consisting of Lee & Associates and Sares Regis at a price far below the actual market price of that land.
“Ms. Plowman did not participate in the proposed acquisition of the airport property, provide campaign funds in exchange for governmental action or any business benefit, or enter into any bribe, payoff, or quid pro quo with Wapner or any other public official,” Theodore Stream, of the law firm Stream Kim Hicks Wrage & Alfaro, which represents Plowman told the Sentinel in a letter dated August 11.
The letter was precipitated by the Sentinel’s July 28 coverage of developments in the FBI’s nine-year ongoing investigation into activity involving the Ontario International Airport Authority that had taken place that day in the form of FBI and other federal agents serving search warrants at the homes and offices of Wapner, who in addition to being the president of the airport authority is also an Ontario city councilman; San Bernardino County Fourth District Supervisor Curt Hagman, who is also a board member with the airport authority; Frank Lizarraga, a one-time Ontario planning commissioner who is Wapner’s personal attorney; James Su, the owner of EDI Media; the business office of Andy Sehrmelis, a major campaign donor to Wapner, Hagman and other local elected officeholders; and at a mansion in the 600 block of North Canon Drive of Beverly Hills. The day of those raids, the FBI also served subpoenas for the production of documents at Ontario City Hall and the administrative offices of the Ontario International Airport and the Ontario International Airport authority.
Stream’s registering of objections with the July 28 article, which ran in the July 31 edition of the Sentinel, extended to a passage within it that chronicled the experiences of Kelly Fredericks, who served as the first executive director of the airport authority and manager of the airport following the transference of ownership and management of the airport to the City of Ontario/the Ontario International Airport Authority from the City of Los Angeles in 2016, and Mark Thorpe, who succeeded Fredericks as the airport authority’s executive director in 2017. The Sentinel article cataloged how Wapner, shortly after the local takeover of the airport, began pressuring Fredericks to inventory airport property to ascertain what parcels might be classified as “surplus,” and be sold off to interested buyers. The article related how Fredericks was reluctant to have the airport/airport authority divest itself of property, even it was not at that time being put to aviation-related use, in that it might be later needed for operational expansion, and described how Fredericks’ resistance to Wapner’s demands ultimately resulted in his being pushed out of the executive director/airport managerial role by the board, essentially at Wapner’s insistence.
Also contained in the July 28 Sentinel narrative was a description of Thorpe’s experience as the airport authority’s executive director, which paralleled that of Fredericks’, but played out over a longer period. The Sentinel related how, while Thorp was running the airport, Wapner’s previously amorphous demand that the airport administration ready what he characterized as “surplus airport property” for eventual sale grew into a more sharply defined instruction that 198 acres east of the runway be readied for sale in accordance with an offer tendered by Lee & Associates and the Sares Regis Group at a price of $101 million. The Sentinel article provided a description of how Thorpe, who shared Fredericks’ reservations against selling off airport property piecemeal or in any fashion based upon its potential for use in future aviation applications, in essence dragged his feet and resisted those instructions until a denouement materialized in which making that sale was not necessary. That resolution, the Sentinel article reported, consisted of an arrangement involving San Antonio, Texas-based USAA Real Estate Company and McDonald Property Group of Newport Beach, functioning as a joint venture under the title of CanAm Ontario, leasing the 198 acres for 55 years rather than purchasing the property outright at an overall cost of $625 million, a number that dwarfed the $101 million offer by Lee & Associates/Sares Regis. The agreement specified that CanAm Ontario was to make a non-refundable $10 million deposit with the airport authority, after which USAA Real Estate Company/McDonald Property Group, functioning jointly, were given time to obtain local jurisdictional entitlement and environmental approvals to construct buildings and improvements on the property. In the first five years, CanAm Ontario agreed to pay the airport authority $25 million per year and in the second five years, $30 million per year, such that at the end of the first ten years, the airport authority will have received $275 million. Over the remaining 35 years of the lease, CanAm was to pay the authority an average of $10 million per year.
The July 28 Sentinel article, in the context of delineating the significance of the FBI’s activity that day and its relationship to the investigation of Wapner and Hagman that had been ongoing at least since 2018, dwelled at length on what were alleged by those who had alerted the FBI to be quid pro quos, i.e., bribes, involving the two members of the airport authority. Under state law, specifically Government Code § 84308, appointed governmental officials in California from 1982 until 2023 were prohibited from accepting $250 or more from a donor and then voting or taking action on any matter impacting that donor financially or otherwise. In 2022, Government Code §84308 was altered, effective January 1, 2023 so that it was made further applicable to elected officials with a threshold donation amount of $500. Those who had lodged the initial complaints with the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office with regard to Wapner and Hagman had done so because of the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office’s unwillingness to pursue action against the pair based on their violations of Government Code §84308, and sought an examination of the prospect of prosecuting Wapner and Hagman, as well as another member of the airport authority board, Jim Bowman, on those areas of U.S. federal law which parallel Government Code §84308, including but not limited to 2 Code of Federal Regulations § 200.303 and related provisions in the Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards, which governs conflicts of interest and prohibited contributions for governmental agency officials involved in awarding contracts, grants, or other entitlements.
In illustrating what the FBI had been asked to investigate, the Sentinel reported that corporate officers with both Lee & Associates and the Sares Regis Group had provided Wapner with at least $219,040.07 in political donations between 1998 and 2024, making the further clarification that $123,444 of that came from partners/employees within Sares Regis and $95,596.07 came from individuals associated with Lee & Associates. The Sentinel identified those making the donations on behalf of Sares Regis as that company’s principals John Hagestad and Peter Rooney as well as its employees Larry Lukanish, Kenneth Coatsworth, Patrick Russell, Vincent Ciavarella and William Thormahlen. The Sentinel delineated those connected with Lee & Associates who had made the donations as Joe McKay, Mike Wolfe and Carol Plowman.
The Sentinel’s July 28 narrative propounded the theory pursued by the FBI that Wapner’s and Hagman’s demonstrable pattern of accepting campaign donations from donors, who were not solely limited to but did include the Lee and Associates and Sares Regis principals and employees, and then taking action in their official capacity as airport authority directors that was beneficial to those donors potentially constituted bribery and/or soliciting bribes (18 U.S.C. § 666(a)(1)(B)) and honest services wire fraud (18 U.S.C. § 371), which approximate the California state offense of violating Government Code §84308.
In his letter to the Sentinel, Stream took issue with the Sentinel including reference to Plowman in the series of events that led to the FBI investigation and constituted the issues being explored by investigators and evaluated by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for possible prosecution. In this way, Stream asserted, the Sentinel article contained “false and defamatory statements” at least insofar as Plowman is concerned and that the Sentinel had “no factual basis for grouping her with the other identified individuals” who had provided donations above the $250 limit formerly specified in Government Code §84308 or the $500 limit the current version of Government Code §84308 imposes on both appointed and elected public officials.
According to Stream, Plowman “did not make the substantial campaign contributions the article attributes or imputes to her. To the extent the article attributes any portion of the stated $95,596.07 or $219,040.07 collective totals to Ms. Plowman, that attribution is false and materially misleading.”
In his letter, Stream implies that Plowman gave no money to Wapner.
“The article identifies no communication between Ms. Plowman and Wapner concerning the airport property, no role she played in the proposed transaction, and no contribution she made in exchange for official action,” Streams letter states. “Instead, the Sentinel aggregated alleged contributions by numerous people over more than two decades, inserted Ms. Plowman’s name into those collective totals, and then accused the named individuals of graft, bribery, and paying off a public official.”
In suggesting that Plowman did not provide money to Wapner as the July 28 Sentinel article reported, Stream cites the article’s failure to provide the precise dates and amounts contributed to Wapner by Plowman to insinuate that the donations were never made.
“The article provides no breakdown identifying any amount supposedly contributed by Ms. Plowman, no dates of any purported contributions by her, and no factual basis for grouping her with the other identified individuals and attributing that substantial sum to them collectively,” Stream wrote.
While the Sentinel did not include a blow-by-blow description of the donations from the Lee & Associates and Sares Regis principals and employees in the July 28 article, it had previously reported on the generosity shown to Wapner by Lee & Associates in sponsoring his political activity. In an article published on February 20, 2026, the Sentinel reported that Lee & Associates and its various principals/employees had provided Wapner with at least $97,153.14 in political contributions. In an article published in the Sentinel’s July 18, 2025 edition, it was noted that Lee & Associates had endowed Wapner’s political war chest with at least $95,596.07. In a Sentinel article published on August 2, 2024, it was reported that Lee & Associates had provided Wapner with, at minimum, $95,596.07 for use in his electioneering efforts. In an article published on October 7, 2022 pertaining to Wapner having pressured Thorpe and other airport staff members to sell the 198-acre airport property to the Lee & Associates/Sares Regis consortium, the Sentinel reported that between 1999 and that month, McKay, Wolfe, Plowman and Lee & Associates had supplied Wapner with $95,596.07 in campaign funding.
Available California Form 460 campaign funding disclosure records filed by Wapner in connection with his campaigns going back to his first run for the city council in 1994 that are in the possession of the Sentinel are marred by, two instances of an entire missing year and in a third and a fourth case missing reports covering at least six months each. That incomplete record shows that Plowman provided Wapner with $1,000 on December 8, 1999; $1,000 on November 28, 2000; $1,000 on December 27, 2001; $1,000 on January 28, 2003; $500 on May 29, 2003; $1,000 and $99, both on June 9, 2005; $1,000 on February 6, 2006; $1,000 on June 1, 2006; $1,000 on December 12, 2007; $1,000 on September 8, 2009; $1,000 on February 18, 2009; $1,000 on February 27, 2012; $1,000 on February 25, 2013; $1000 on May 19, 2014; $5,000 on October 17, 2014; $1,000 on March 20, 2015; $1,000 on February 16, 2016; $1,500 on February 17, 2017; $99 on May 31, 2018, $1,000 on February 3, 2020; $2,500 on February 5, 2021 and $2,500 on April 12, 2022..
Stream’s letter implied that Plowman did not contribute to Wapner’s campaign fund.
“To the extent the article attributes any portion of the stated $95,596.07 or $219,040.07 collective totals to Ms. Plowman, that attribution is false and materially misleading,” Stream wrote. “During the past 24 months, Ms. Plowman’s only contributions were two checks to the Business Roundtable—one for $1,000 and one for $3,000. No contribution by Ms. Plowman had any connection to Wapner, the proposed property transaction, or any governmental action.”
As Stream did not acknowledge in his August 11 letter to the Sentinel that Plowman provided any money to Wapner’s campaign fund, he did not offer any explanation of what Plowman’s purpose was in the more the more than $28,000 investment she has made in Wapner’s political career. He makes no reference to Government Code § 84308, which prohibited Wapner from engaging in any action, as the president of the Ontario International Airport Authority, concerning or impacting Lee & Associates and Sares Regis, given the political contributions he had received from those companies, their principals and employees. Nor did he reference the parallels in federal law to Government Code § 84308 – 2 Code of Federal Regulations § 200.303, 18 U.S.C. § 666(a)(1)(B) and 18 U.S.C. § 371 – which formed the basis of the FBI’s investigation of possible bribery or solicitation of a bribe on the parts of Wapner and Hagman.
Stream did write in his letter to the Sentinel, “Ms. Plowman categorically denies every statement and implication that she participated in, knew of, authorized, facilitated, funded, or benefited from any bribe, payoff, graft, quid pro quo, pay-to-play arrangement, or other corrupt transactions.”
Stream withheld judgment as to whether Hagestad, Rooney, Lukanish, Coatsworth, Russell, Ciavarella, Thormahlen, McKay and Wolfe, in providing political contributions to Wapner, were engaged in an attempt to influence his decision-making as the president of the Ontario International Airport Board of Commissioners, but insisted that his client was engaged in no such illicit effort. He demanded that the Sentinel “[c]orrect the false and misleading attribution to Ms. Plowman of having participated in supplying substantial campaign funding to Wapner” and that it [r]emove Ms. Plowman’s name from the portions of the article associating the identified contributors with criminal or corrupt conduct.”
Stream demanded that the Sentinel retract those portions of the July 28 article which related to how “Ms. Plowman supplied campaign funding constituting or contributing to ‘graft,’ a “classic quid pro,’ ‘a bribe to a public official’ or payment intended to benefit persons “paying [Wapner] off.”
Stream further wants the Sentinel to back off from any reportage that “Ms. Plowman participated in, funded, knew of, or benefited from bribery, graft, a payoff, a quid pro quo or any other corrupt transaction.”
