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Therapist says she had grave concerns about boy's family before his death
By City News Service
Nelson Rising, a Los Angeles-based real estate developer and political insider who helped shape the city's skyline and history, has died at age 81, his family said Friday.
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Rising died Feb. 9 at his Pasadena home of complications from Alzheimer's disease, his family said.
During a career spanning more than five decades, Rising led the development of such projects as Los Angeles' U.S. Bank Tower — which for 28 years was the tallest skyscraper west of Chicago — and Playa Vista, a mixed-use neighborhood and commercial tech hub in the Westside area.
Rising was also an advocate and player in the rebirth of downtown Los Angeles, restoring dilapidated commercial spaces and upgrading the area's infrastructure to meet hightech needs.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement that Rising "spearheaded iconic developments that transformed neighborhoods across California."
His "dynamic leadership and problem-solving brought together stakeholders from across the board to accomplish monumental feats," Newsom said. "I send my deepest sympathies to his loved ones and many friends."
Rising was an important behind-the-scenes figure in California politics, perhaps best known in political circles for his longtime association with five-time Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley.
Rising served as Bradley's campaign chairman in each of his mayoral victories beginning in 1973, as well as in a tight gubernatorial defeat in 1982.

"Tom was an unbelievable person," Rising said in a 2020 podcast episode recorded with his son, Christopher. "He and I were extremely close."
At the time of his death,
Atherapist who was sent to do an assessment at the Lancaster home of a boy less than four years before his death testified Tuesday that she had grave concerns about the way his mother behaved toward her children.
Wendy Wright said she called a child abuse hotline in October 2014 to report her concerns about Heather Maxine Barron because she felt a social worker was not taking her seriously and was going to close the case against the woman, whom the prosecution witness described as "very detached" and "very cold."
Barron, 33, and her boyfriend, Kareem Ernesto Leiva, 37, are charged with one count each of murder and torture involving the June 2018 death of Barron's 10-year-old son, Anthony Avalos, along with two counts of child abuse involving the boy's half-siblings, identified in court as "Destiny O." and "Rafael O."
Rising served as chairman emeritus of Rising Realty Partners, a real estate investment and operating company headquartered in Los Angeles.
In addition to his real estate concerns, Rising served in a host of civic and philanthropic roles. He was chair of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, chair of The Real Estate Roundtable think tank, a California Institute of Technology trustee, and a W.M. Keck Foundation board member.
He was part of the Rebuild LA effort after the 1992 riots, chairman of the Grand Avenue Committee — a downtown revitalization project — and a board member of the Irvine Company.
Rising is survived by his wife, Sharon; sons, Christopher and Matthew; three grandchildren; and a sister, Charlotte Conway.
A private memorial service will take place in the near future, his family said.
The murder charge includes the special circumstance allegation of murder involving the infliction of torture. Over Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Hatami's objection, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office dropped its bid for the death penalty against the two after the election of District Attorney George Gascón, who issued a directive that "a sentence of death is never an appropriate resolution in any case."
Leiva and Barron now face a maximum of life in prison without the possibility of parole if they are convicted as charged in the non-jury trial before Superior Court Judge Sam Ohta.
"It was just a constant barrage of negativity," the marriage and family therapist testified Tuesday about what she witnessed of Barron's interaction with her children. "It was striking ... This is still striking."
Wright, a marriage and family therapist who worked at the time for the Children's
Center of Antelope Valley, said she informed the social worker that she believed Barron had no intention of following through with services and that she desperately needed parenting classes. She noted that the woman called one of her younger sons names and accused her daughter of "faking it" when she cried while her mother ripped a brush through her tangled hair.
The judge also heard testimony from four social workers from the county's Department of Children and Family Services who responded to a series of calls to the child abuse hotline involving the boy's mother, including the call from the therapist, along with a social worker who responded to Leiva's parents' home following the 911 call made by Barron about Anthony a day before his death.
Social worker Shane
Bulkley told the judge that Barron acknowledged she had wielded a belt on the children and used hot sauce as a disciplinary measure in the past, but that he and his supervisor found there wasn't sufficient evidence to corroborate the concerns expressed by the therapist in her October 2014 hotline call.
A former social worker who was assigned to investigate three hotline calls made in September 2015 testified that there had already been seven prior referrals involving the family.
Ikea Dayshell Vernon said she spoke with Anthony, who informed her while he was living with his aunt and uncle that his mother locked him and his halfsiblings in their rooms, that she and Leiva hit them and that he was never going to see his mother again. But Vernon said the boy and his half-siblings subsequently recanted after they moved back to his mother's home. She said there appeared to be a feud between the boy's mother and her brother and his wife, and said that the children wound up staying with their mother after the results of the investigation were inconclusive.
She said she did not seek a warrant to remove the children from their mother's custody.
Another social worker, Anna Sciortino, testified that she wound up serving a warrant to remove Antho- ny's half-brother, Angel, from his father's home after Barron reported that the man had injured her ribs during a confrontation and that Anthony expressed fear of his half-sibling's father. She said she had initially responded in April 2015 to a hotline call made about Angel, who had told a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy that Barron caused an injury to his ear in an allegation that she said was subsequently determined to be unfounded based on documentation from a day care facility.



A third social worker, Lusine Khachatryan, said she visited Barron after a call of suspected abuse was made to the hotline in April 2014 and that she denied physically abusing her children, although she said Anthony — who was then 6 years old — reported to her that his mother was engaging in physical discipline with a paddle and a belt and that she was locking him and his siblings in their bedroom.
The social worker testified that she also informed the woman that it was inappropriate to allow her then3-year-old son, Rafael, to take an unsupervised bath during her visit to the home. Barron admitted that she was five months pregnant at the time, but refused to provide information about Leiva or the father of one of her other sons, according to Khachatryan.
She acknowledged that she allowed Anthony and his half-siblings to remain with Barron after speaking with her supervisor and determining that they didn't have enough to file a case with the dependency court.
Retired social worker Jasmin Carrillo told the judge that she went to the home of Leiva's parents in Rosamond after Anthony was taken to the hospital in June 2018 and and was handed a document in which Leiva had authorized his rights to his three youngest children to his parents and his sister.
When he returned to the