Ventura’s Most Awkward Political Romance- Gorell and Amgen

A brief recap:

• Ventura County Supervisor Jeff Gorell launched his unapproved Gold Team inside Amgen's auditorium;

• An Amgen employee traveled to India on the Gold Team trade mission;

• Shortly after the trade mission, Amgen announced they were opening Amgen India;

• Amgen India has shifted over 3,000 jobs from Thousand Oaks/remote to India;

• As far as we know, Gorell never been employed by Amgen.

So, let's get into the question everyone keeps asking our investigative team, what is the deal with Amgen and Gorell? Magic 8 ball would suggest it’s Amgen. Amgen is what is in it for Gorell. Amgen doesn’t need Gorell.  Gorell needs Amgen.

We received a tip about an Amgen employee* in the government affairs department. The employee is reportedly someone Gorell knew from his days in the California assembly. Someone, who, according to our source, had an unusual relationship with Gorell and intimate knowledge of the Gold Team launch. The relationship between the employee and Gorell we're told was cozy, and not subtle.

It’s a pipeline.

On first blush, nothing about Gorell having a relationship with Amgen seemed shocking. You'd expect it. Gorell should know people at Amgen as someone who lives in Thousand Oaks and also represents voters in Thousand Oaks. It's a major employer in Ventura County.

However, you don’t host events on a corporate campus without exchanging a mountain of emails. Or travel to India on a trade delegation without a lot of documented discussion. So, we did what any responsible investigative team would do: we filed a Public Records Act request for communications between Gorell and this Amgen employee. And surprise surprise - again there are few documents.

In one PRA, Gorell's office denied the emails existed. In another, we got results. As such, we are now in possession of some Amgen employee emails, but we believe what was received was not a complete file. There was the name we were looking for in the documents package Gorell's office handed over. However, there is scant details about why that relationship continues to flourish with Gorell now that he is no longer in Sacramento and has minimal influence beyond permits and other real estate transactions.

Here’s where a pattern emerges — the same pattern we’ve seen time and time again and snapping right back into place. Gorell's office does not communicate in a manner that we expect under California's transparency laws. Gorell is reportedly using technology that deletes and obscures conversations.

Here’s the twist: Amgen does retain records. They’re legally required to do so through their own records retention policy that are foundation to the highly regulated industry they bring drugs to market within. They don’t get to play the “oops, nothing exists” game like Gorell hoping the public will just move on. So, if Gorell’s office claims there are no communications, yet meetings were coordinated with Amgen employees to discuss Gold Team but there are no other records, someone’s not telling the truth.

Except, we have spoken with participants of Gold Team who not only can substantiate that Gold Team has failed to deliver its promises but that discussions did occurr. Gorell unapologetically wasted the time of business owners across his district. For example, we made note of a recent letter to the Thousand Oaks Acorn, the author was part of Gold Team. The author highlights Gorell seemed only interested in big companies like Amgen.

Why?

We are left to wonder many things. The least of which is that if Gold Team is doing what its stated mission is to bring economic vitality to district two of Ventura County, why not plaster communication that demonstrates that across every telephone pole from Somis to Oak Park? Produce documentation of the stellar work you're doing. At a minimum, we should be able to understand why a man who has nothing to do drug development or sales and has no influence on any insurance coverage of their drugs has an open door into the auditorium and has access to a cost center that funds events that otherwise have nothing to do with Amgen.

We do not believe Amgen is doing anything nefarious. We do have questions though why they are so intertwined in Gorell's unapproved programs. In a time where drug prices are high, funding events like Gorell's district 2 awards program seems spurious.

This is the kind of scenario that should interest Ventura County District Attorney Erik Nasarenko’s Public Integrity Unit. Their mandate is public corruption. Their jurisdiction includes failure to comply with public record retention laws and disclosures. Along with any misconduct associated with the contents of destroyed or off-record conversations that should have occurred on the public record. Their job is to investigate what the public cannot do.

The Gold Team story keeps unraveling, thread by thread. Every PRA request exposes another gap, another contradiction, another convenient disappearance of documents that should absolutely exist. And every missing record raises the same question,

What exactly is Gorell trying to hide — and who at Amgen knows the answer?

Stay tuned. We are working to answer these questions.

*Until we can cite a public record that reveals the identity of the individual, we will not reveal a name on this website.