Former CBS president and CEO Leslie Moonves personally tried to influence a former LAPD captain, who had pledged his allegiance to Moonves and was leaking confidential information about a criminal investigation in which Moonves had been accused of sexually assaulting a former employee, according to new legal documents made public Friday by the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission.
Moonves agreed on Feb. 5 to pay a $11,250 fine for violating the city’s ethics code by “inducing” a city official to misuse his position in order to create a private advantage for Moonves.
An attorney for Moonves in New York did not immediately return a request for comment.
The former LAPD captain was Corey Palka, who, according to the ethics investigation, while serving as commanding officer of the Hollywood Division in 2017, personally provided Moonves with information about the LAPD investigation and the former Moonves employee who made the accusation.
The Ethics Commission finding said Palka met personally with Moonves on November 25, 2017 at a restaurant in Westlake Village to share what should have been confidential information.
“They met for about an hour and discussed the LAPD investigation,” the ethics summary said. “The meeting was not part of the official investigation by the LAPD.”
Then in December, Moonves texted Palka directly and discussed the case again, the commission found.
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In a previous phone call Palka, who has retired from the LAPD, told NBC4’s I-Team he was unaware of allegations that he had leaked confidential information about the Moonves case to CBS executives or Moonves, which were first revealed in an insider trading settlement between Moonves and the New York Attorney General’s Office.
The woman who made the accusation, Phyllis Gottlieb, said during a news conference in 2022 that she was assaulted by Moonves while working for him at an entertainment firm in 1986.
When she made the crime report to the LAPD in 2017, the incident…
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