Baez

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Plaintiff Cesar Baez (plaintiff) and two others signed two agreements forming (and dividing the profits earned by) two different companies—Centinela Investment Partners, LLC and Centinela Group, LLC. Of the three partners, two (including plaintiff) are Latino; the third is black. Defendant California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) is charged with managing the investments that fund the pensions of California state employees. CalPERS hired plaintiff and his partners to manage two $500 million investment funds. To effectuate this arrangement, plaintiff and his partners created two new entities that they (through the two Centinela entities named above) co- owned with CalPERS: (1) Centinela Holdings LLC, to serve as the two funds’ manager; and (2) Centinela Capital Partners LLC, to serve as the two funds’ investment advisor. At some point thereafter, the California Attorney General began investigating whether CalPERS was unlawfully awarding contracts at the behest of influence peddlers called “placement agents.” Believing plaintiff to be “associate[d] with several businessmen and individuals” under investigation, defendant Joseph Dear,…