In his news conference Monday, June 11, the mayor wouldn’t deny he was having an affair. He said such questions were out of bounds.
Tony Castro speculated June 13 about the mayor’s lover: "Is it the television reporter who began fielding phone calls from reporters Wednesday? Is it the former mayoral aide who accompanied the mayor on one of his international trips? Is it the anchor-translator who has helped Antonio with his Spanish? Is it the…"
On January 30, a veteran journalist told me: "I used to say that his former communications chief, Cecile Ablack, was his girlfriend — she left a tenured job at Yale to move here."
Ablack worked under Ron Brown during the Clinton administration and presumably met Antonio then. When Villairagosa became mayor, she sold her home in Westport, Connecticut and moved to Los Angeles.
Skeptics say Ablack is not beautiful enough to command the mayor’s complete romantic attention.
I report. You decide. Here are some photos of Ablack with the mayor in China in 2006. She’s on the far right of each picture.
Cecile had to dumb it down to hit it off with the vapid mayor.
Other suspects in the hunt for the mayor’s affections include TV reporters in the Spanish-language networks Univision and Telemundo.
Around 1994, the mayor had an affair with Martha Reyna, who (as of Dec. 2006) was an account executive at Univision.
Los Angeles Times reporters are working the phones. Sources are telling competing journalists, "The Times was here the day before… The Times is going to scoop you."
I hear The L.A. Times is even staking out the mayor.
At a meeting with the L.A. Daily News a few weeks ago, reporter Brent Hopkins asked the mayor about the San Fernando Valley’s porn industry. The mayor was surprised and didn’t have anything to say.
Meanwhile, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca has skipped town and gone to the Middle East. This ticked off many people at the L.A. County Supervisors office.