Attorney General’s Office not opposed to unsealing records in CPUC criminal probe

The state Attorney General’s Office, which is investigating backchannel dealings of the California Public Utilities Commission and the companies it oversees, is not opposing a request to unseal court records related to the probe.

The decision means Los Angeles Superior Court judges could make public the search-warrant affidavits and other confidential materials as soon as next week.

San Diego attorneys Maria Severson and Michael Aguirre filed a motion Aug. 22 seeking to unseal the records. They are challenging the $4.7 billion settlement of costs associated with the 2012 failure of the San Onofre nuclear plant north of Oceanside, saying it was a bad deal for utility customers.

The Los Angeles Superior Court gave the Attorney General’s Office 10 days to challenge the request, which it did not. The warrants were requested and executed by the office’s investigators.

State agents convinced the L.A. judges to approve three warrants in 2015, arguing there was enough evidence to believe a felony may have occurred, citing offenses such as obstruction of justice. One affidavit was released but two others were sealed.

The criminal case stalled despite the issuance of multiple search warrants involving the utilities commission and its dealings with utility companies. No charges have been filed.

Southern California Edison acknowledged participating in an undisclosed meeting in Poland with utilities commission officials to discuss an early framework for the plan that eventually assigned ratepayers — rather than company shareholders — the bulk of the cost of paying for the plant failure.

Aguirre said the records should be unsealed so the public can see the evidence judges relied on in signing the search warrants. He also said people should know whether utility regulators misled lawmakers in seeking more than $12 million for private lawyers to respond to the criminal probe on behalf of the commission.

“Our primary focus now is on the California Public Utilities Commission to see if it misrepresented material facts to the Legislature when it said it would use the money to cooperate with the criminal investigation,” Aguirre said. “We’ll find out if what the CPUC said is true once we get our hands on these documents.”

The criminal case launched in 2014 after emails were released showing that utility regulators and executives met frequently in private to discuss business pending before the commission.

“The CPUC has fully complied with its obligations to the investigation,” spokeswoman Terrie Prosper said.

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jeff.mcdonald@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1708 @sdutMcDonald