The former Labour leader of Los Angeles firefighters has been scrutinized by purchasing Union cars at a suspect discount, and has since reported lower sales prices to the state to avoid paying taxes, two people with knowledge of the transaction told the Times.
Domingo Albalan Jr., former Los Angeles Fire Department captain and treasurer for United Firefighters in Los Angeles, reported to the Ministry of Automobile that he purchased a 2017 Chevrolet Malibu for $500 in December 2022.
Sources said the UFLAC treasurer receiving it noticed the inconsistency and requested that Albalan return the vehicle to the union. The new accounting also discovered that Albalan had inflated the vehicle’s mileage when he obtained estimates from Kelly Blue’s book, sources said. A Kelley Blue Book spokesperson said Malibu in 2017 was worth more than $10,000 at the time of sale.
Retired Albaran admitted that he underreported the sale price to the DMV because he didn’t want to pay taxes, misinterprets the odometer and accidentally plugged in the wrong mileage when he got a Kelly Blue Book estimate. However, he said the car was in poor condition, needed major repairs and was not worth more than twice what he paid.
“I don’t want to pay a lot of taxes on a potential lemon vehicle, but whatever it is, I own 100% of it,” he said.
According to city pay records, Albaran earned more than $370,000 before resigning in 2023 on wages and benefits. This included $189,339 in overtime payments.
The episode comes as another former officer in the labor organization faces an internal investigation into allegations that he is engaged in financial injustice, including a union charity for injured firefighters and their families. Adam Walker, a former UFLAC secretary who still works for LAFD, told The Times that the allegations were false.
The International Association of Firefighters has accused Walker of suspended from the union leadership post and improperly depositing charity funds from December 2022 to January 2024 in his personal account.
Walker said in an interview that the deposit was a refund for his legitimate out-of-pocket expenses for two golf tournaments that raised money for a disability former firefighter. He said the account on which the deposit was created was set up for the tournament and not for the charity UFLAC Fire Foundation.
“A penny of the money wasn’t foundation money,” he said.
UFLAC Accounting, which uncovered the issue with Albarran’s car purchases, reported to the UFLAC parent organization and the International Firefighters Association, the other local firefighters associations around the country, two sources familiar with the situation said. One source said the IAFF is conducting a broad survey of UFLAC’s finances, including the use of union credit cards by officers.
UFLAC President Freddie Escobar declined to comment on the allegations against Albalan and did not answer questions written by the Times about the IAFF financial review.
The UFLAC could become a political force in LA, with elected officials focusing on their support and financial contributions to the campaign.
Escobar and other UFLAC leaders criticized Mayor Karen Bass for firing LAFD chief Christine Crawley last month. Base said he was unable to properly prepare for the January 7 fire, in which Crawley destroyed the strip of Pallisard in the Pacific Ocean, killing 12 people. On Tuesday, the city council voted 13-2 to deny the appeal for Crawley’s firing.
Albalan’s lawsuit dates back to 2022 when he offered to buy a Malibu sedan that he had been driving for years in the course of performing his union duties. According to two sources, officers are usually assigned a work car if they drive more than a certain number of miles per year, or if they drive more than a certain miles per year.
Before the purchase of Albarran was final, he was charged to the union’s credit card for mechanical work and car improvements of about $1,500. This includes installing two new tires and cleaning the transmission.
In an interview, Albalan said these costs are in an age for routine maintenance and safety upgrades.
“We had to do that, whether I was buying it or whether the union was trying to keep it up,” Albaran said, adding that the steel belt was exposed to the tires. “Are I supposed to drive a car with unsafe tires? And they were worn out while (the car) was in the union.”
Albaran was also accused of being accused of purchasing gas dozens of times for a private vehicle with a coalition credit card, sources said. After finding receipts with more than 13 gallons of gas purchased in a Malibu tank, the incoming treasurer found surveillance footage of Albaran refueling his private vehicle at a gas station, sources said.
In an interview, Albalan said he used Union Credit Cards “up to 10 times” over four years to fill his personal vehicles. He said it would cost more if the Federal Commission refunded the number of miles he drove for work.
“It was much cheaper for the union just to pay for the fuel,” he said.
According to two sources, Albaran reported to the Union Committee that Malibu had 175,000 miles, which led to the trade-in value of the car’s Kelly Blue Book from $4,072 to $5,821, or an average of $4,947. Typically, trade-in estimates are lower than those for Private Party sales.
According to a copy of the document obtained by the Times, Escobar and six other union committee members signed a higher mileage and a Kelly Blue Book Trade-In estimate for December 2022.
Albalan reported to the DMV that the actual mileage of the car was 145,779. Kelley Blue Book said that the fair purchase price for Malibu in 2017 ranged between $8,855 and $11,422 mileage, or averaged $10,139 when the sale occurred. According to DMV, the union had bought the 2017 car for over $30,000.
Albalan said he felt $4,000 was a fair price due to the condition of the car and that he felt that Malibu was immediately returned to the union when he was asked to.
