A Los Angeles real estate developer has been sentenced to federal prison for bribing a former L.A. City Councilman in 2016.

Dae Yong Lee, also known as “David Lee,” a 58-year-old developer from Bel Air, was sentenced Friday to 72 months in federal prison for his involvement in a bribery scheme with former councilmember José Huizar and his special assistant.

Lee was fined $750,000, the maximum allowed by law, and his business, 940 Hill LLC, received the maximum fine of $1.5 million and was placed on a five-year probation.

Lee was convicted in June 2022 after a nine-day trial in which he was found guilty of paying a $500,000 cash bribe to Huizar and his assistant in exchange for their help in resolving a labor organization’s appeal regarding Lee’s downtown Los Angeles development project.

The bribery scheme took place in August 2016, when a labor organization filed an appeal against Lee, stalling his mixed-use development project.

Lee reached out to Huizar through his fundraiser, Justin Jangwoo Kim. Huizar chaired the Planning and Land Use Management and Kim indicated to Lee that Huizar would need financial incentive to help the project move forward.

After several months of negotiations, Lee agreed to provide a $500,000 cash bribe to Huizar and his assistant, George Esparza. The bribe was delivered in multiple payments, including one in a paper bag, which Esparza later transferred to a liquor box to show Huizar.

Two years after paying the bribe, Lee’s company was served with a federal grand jury subpoena from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for records related to Huizar. According to the Department of Justice, Lee and the company obstructed the investigation by making false entries in accounting records and submitting false state and federal tax returns. They falsely categorized the $500,000 bribe as a legitimate business expense used for resolving the labor organization’s appeal, the DOJ said.

Prosecutors argued in a sentencing memorandum that Lee, despite his privileged position, sought a “guaranteed shortcut” to silence opposition and advance his real estate ambitions by circumventing the city’s process.

In related cases, Justin Jangwoo Kim and George Esparza, who cooperated with the investigation, were convicted in 2020 and are scheduled for sentencing in October.

José Huizar pleaded guilty in January to racketeering and conspiracy charges, as well as charges for tax evasion and is awaiting sentencing in December.

In May, the judge in this case sentenced another real estate development company, Shen Zhen New World I LLC, for its involvement in Huizar’s pay-to-play scheme, imposing five years of probation and a $4 million fine for providing over $1 million in benefits to Huizar in exchange for project approval, including trips to Las Vegas and a loan to settle a sexual assault lawsuit.

Additionally, former Los Angeles Deputy Mayor Raymond Chan is scheduled for re-trial in March 2024 on federal charges of conspiracy to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act and lying to federal investigators in a public corruption case.