Thottam has confessed to petty theft, had his law license suspended and has been connected to the 9/11 Truther movement.
Thottam's checkered past has come up often in recent weeks on blogs and in the media. The 40-year-old activist blames the political establishment and members of Occupy Los Angeles for digging up dirt and trying to silence him and his movement.
"Occupy is a group of a lot of people who are angry at the police and there is never consensus on anything," Thottam said. "Occupy L.A. is upset that I didn't get a formal General Assembly endorsement."
Thottam said he received
Pete Thottam, spokesperson for Occupy The Rose Parade at Singer Park in Pasadena Thursday, December 30, 2011. (SGVN/Staff Photo by Walt Mancini)
informal rather than formal support to "occupy" the Rose Parade in November. The end-around left some in the movement bitter, but was necessary since Thottam said he was pressed for time."If I had to do this in six weeks through the (general assembly) it would have never happened," Thottam said.
Thottam's Occupy action will trail the official Rose Parade this morning. Marchers will carry a large copy of the U.S. Constitution and a human octopus. The latter represents the "stranglehold" corporations have on the country.
Thottam has long been active in the type of political theater he has planned for Monday.
Sources close to other Occupy groups are less concerned with Thottam's legislative maneuvering and more concerned with his organization skills.
In recent days occupiers speaking on the condition of anonymity have labeled Thottam "a fraud," called him "disorganized" and questioned whether "he knows what he is doing."
Closer to home, Occupy Pasadena won't endorse the impromptu protest because they believe Thottam's action will inappropriately disrupt a traditional family event, that has frowned upon fringe political statements since its inception.
What also galls traditional protestors is the fact that Thottam has held 20 hours of meetings with the Pasadena Police and the Tournament of Roses. That kind of collaboration irritates many in a progressive grassroots movement who say Occupy doesn't solicit permission from the authorities.
"There is a lot of anger within Occupy L.A. toward the police," Thottam said. "I support the idea that we don't need permission to make this happen, but this is a media messaging effort. I am using the media to get the core messages out."
Thottam wants to leverage the spectacle of Occupy the Rose Parade to beam the progressive group's message into living rooms of middle America this morning.
Tuesday's spectacle won't be the Berkeley-trained lawyer's first grand political statement.
For example, he was arrested in Ventura in 2008 for confronting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi over the Iraq war, according to the Ventura County Reporter.
Thottam founded two anti-war organizations called the White Rose Coalition and Los Angeles National Impeachment Center. He was interviewed on local television at a protest at the 2008 Rose Bowl Parade wearing a Dick Cheney mask.
And where compromise has cost Thottam support of Occupy, his challenges to authority have cost him support in the Democratic Party.
Thottam said he has grown accustomed to attacks on his political beliefs.
In 2010 an article published by the Torrance Daily Breeze reported his run-ins with the law and alleged mismanagement of a family trust fund.
A court subsequently ruled the allegations leveled by Thottam's siblings to be unfounded.
Thottam admits to losing thousands in the market, but said the money he lost was from his own personal finances.
Thottam said the article was pushed by Democratic operatives, trying to drive him from the 2010 race for Assembly in the 53rd District, which includes Venice.
"That was a hit piece," Thottam said. "They don't want me to draw attention to they way things really work in the Democratic Party."
It was the second time Thottam ran for office, the first being a state Assembly run in 2006.
Thottam said state Democrats tried to marginalize him during the race and have been more vociferous since April when he penned an article detailed financial ties between Bowen and controversial energy giant Enron.
The Daily Breeze article also included information about Thottam's three arrests: one in the 1990s and two in the past 10 years, for petty theft.
He pleaded guilty to the last charge in 2004. Thottam failed to report the arrests or the charges to the California Bar Association and had his license to practice law suspended for 90 days.
"(My brother) dug up everything in my entire life and brought it before the State Bar Court," Thottam said.
The State Bar noted that Thottam admitted to a "miscarriage of judgment" because he was suffering a "great deal of stress and sleep deprivation" related to his mother's serious medical problems at the time.
She died in July 2004.
The bar also noted the "aberrational nature of the conduct and the lack of any likelihood that such conduct will be repeated."
At the core of his beliefs is a strong sense that the official account of the 9/11 terrorist attacks is misleading.
Like many of those in the Truther movement, Thottam fixates on the circumstances leading to the collapse of Building 7 near Ground Zero.
"I think there were a lot of unanswered questions, especially with Building 7," Thottam said. "I don't believe the official government version."
Despite the questions, Thottam predicts as many as 1,000 protestors will gather at Singer Park at 7 a.m. to march behind the Rose Parade.
That alone justifies his role as a leader and adds weight to the statement he thinks his protest will make.
"All the things in my past don't matter," Thottam said. "What really matters is that the world is upside down right now and we have to do something about it."
brian.charles@sgvn.com
twitter.com/JBrianCharles
626-578-6300, ext. 4494
Source: http://www.whittierdailynews.com/news/ci_19656317?source=rss
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