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Capitol Weekly’s Top 100: Nick Gerda

No. 91 Nick Gerda
It is every investigative reporter’s dream to see their work have a real positive impact on society. For LAist reporter Nick Gerda, the dream is reality. Gerda’s dogged reporting on Orange County Supervisor Andrew Do resulted in Do’s arrest and eventual conviction on charges of funneling millions of dollars in taxpayer dollars to his daughter’s nonprofit. In the middle of it all Do tried to get Gerda fired, but instead ended up receiving a five-year prison sentence. The Do case also led to not one but TWO new state laws: one requiring county supervisors statewide to disclose any family ties they have to a nonprofit’s employees or officers before awarding any contracts to them and another going into effect next year that makes it a crime for elected officials to have a hand in awarding government contracts to organizations where their child has an ownership stake of 10 percent or more, or is an officer or director of a vendor. Gerda, meanwhile, won Journalist of the Year awards from press clubs in LA, Orange County and Sacramento. Wow!
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