Longtime Coliseum finance director is off the payroll

A top Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum official caught up in an ongoing financial scandal no longer works at the stadium, the county counsel’s office said Wednesday.

Ronald Lederkramer, the Coliseum’s longtime finance director who was second in command, went on paid medical leave in September, shortly after a member of the stadium’s governing commission demanded that he be fired.

At the time, the Coliseum’s interim general manager said he expected Lederkramer to return to his post. But in response to queries by The Times, Acting Assistant County Counsel Thomas Faughnan confirmed Wednesday that Lederkramer has been removed from the payroll. He provided no details.

Lederkramer, reached by phone, said: “No comment as to whether I was terminated or retired.� He declined to discuss the matter further.

His departure is the third in the Coliseum’s management ranks since The Times began reporting financial irregularities at the taxpayer-owned stadium and companion Sports Arena.

According to records and interviews, Lederkramer billed the Coliseum for luxury car costs, his personal auto insurance, snoring treatments and other questionable expenses. He also used his personal Visa to buy hundreds of thousands of dollars in Coliseum equipment, enabling him to collect credit card reward points worth tens of thousands of dollars.

More recently, Coliseum officials were looking into his handling of Fidelity investment accounts for the stadium, according to people familiar with the inquiry, because he had a relationship with the company for his side business providing financial planning services. Lederkramer said in an earlier interview that he did not benefit personally from the Coliseum accounts, and he has denied doing anything wrong.

City Councilman Bernard C. Parks, a Coliseum commissioner, called for Lederkramer’s ouster four months ago, accusing him of spending abuses and a failure to weed out alleged corruption at the stadium as keeper of the books.

Parks said the interim general manager, John Sandbrook, should also be removed, in part because he was a strong defender of Lederkramer.

“I’m just pleased to see that he is gone,� Parks, whose district includes the Coliseum, said of Lederkramer.

Patrick Lynch, who ran the Coliseum for 17 years, quit as general manager last February, after The Times reported that he allowed his then-events manager to work on the side for a company that staged rave concerts at the property.

The county counsel said in October that the Coliseum’s technology manager and a co-worker were no longer employed by the stadium. That followed a Times report that the manager, Leopold Caudillo Jr., directed Coliseum business to a firm he set up with the co-worker.

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