and was subsequently leased by a car wash. The Los Angeles Times reported that Rizzo and former General Services Manager Eric Eggena negotiated its purchase for $1.35 million, despite its appraisal of $612,000. "This is a real estate deal that ran amok", said Larry Kosmont, a Los Angeles real estate consultant. "Essentially, they cooked the books on this". Civil rights violations The FBI has begun investigating the accusations of violating some citizens' civil rights, particularly whether Bell officials violated the civil rights of Latino residents by assertively towing targeted cars and charging residents extortionate fees to retrieve their vehicles. A memo titled Bell Police Department Baseball Game lists "points" for officers to ticket for various targeted infractions. Police officers in Bell said in interviews in August 2010 that they frequently spent their shifts pulling over vehicles for small infractions hoping that they would be unlicensed drivers. "Although officers didn't look exclusively for immigrants, it was clear that the majority of the drivers pulled over turned out to be illegal immigrants", Officer Kurt Owens said. "We'd look for younger guys in their 20s and 30s, guys with junkier cars, broken lights, loud music or tinted windows", Owens added. Bell's budget shows that the city was generating increased income from fees and taxes over several years. Bell's records show that the city made nearly a million dollars just in impound fees in fiscal year 2008–09, which works out to be about $10 per citizen in this small town. Bell was charging $300 for unlicensed motorists to recover their cars, three times what Los Angeles County and neighboring cities charge. "All of this was just a means by Rizzo to nickel and dime the community to death to get more money out of them", Cristina Garcia, a community activist, said. Demands for additional business fees The Los Angeles Times reported on November 1, 2010, that for at least a decade, officials in Bell arbitrarily required some businesses to make payments to the city totalling tens of thousands of dollars annually, and in at least one case threatening a business owner with closure if he failed to comply. The Oregonian editorialized that "Local businesses were shook down, Sopranos-style, just to stay open." "Breast Cancer Awareness" funds The City of Bell raised a reported $100,000 from multi-year breast cancer awareness fundraisers. Former vice-mayor Teresa Jacobo was one of the leaders of those campaigns and the