Former public utilities president's home searched

The San Francisco Chronicle reported last evening (January 28) that agents of the state attorney general's office on Tuesday seized computers and other items from the Los Angeles County home of former California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) president Michael Peevey.

The agents also seized similar items from the home of former Pacific Gas & Electric executive Brian Cherry, who was fired when emails showed that he was trying to get Peevey and other CPUC officials to assign a friendly administrative law judge to the case in which the utility will be punished for its negligence in the 2010 San Bruno explosion that leveled a neighborhood and killed eight people.

Peevey retired December 31 after a dozen years as head of the regulatory body. Emails now show that Peevey was swapping overly friendly messages with Southern California Edison lobbyists and top officials in its quest to get ratepayers to pick up the tab for the failure of the San Onofre nuclear plant. Peevey is a former president of Edison and also a former lobbyist for the utility.

State attorney general Kamala Harris said that the U.S. attorney's office has launched a separate investigation in the judge-shopping case to determine if laws were broken.

Investigators are looking into emails in which Cherry said Peevey solicited political contributions from PG&E and hinted that PG&E would get a quid pro quo. According to the Chronicle, the search warrant said investigators were looking for evidence of improper ex parte communications, judge-shopping, bribery, obstruction of justice, and preferential treatment on matters before the commission.