LOS ANGELES — The company that provides Los Angeles County with coronavirus testing said it plans to sue Sheriff Alex Villanueva for defamation over claims the sheriff made alleging the company has links to the Chinese government.
Fulgent Genetics, the Temple City company contracted to administer tests and track the vaccination status of county employees, alleged that Villanueva orchestrated a briefing with FBI agents a day after Thanksgiving “in a last-ditch effort” to avoid complying with the county’s employee vaccine mandate, according to papers the company’s lawyers filed in court Friday. After the briefing, Villanueva claimed in a letter to elected county officials that FBI agents had called the meeting to warn him about Fulgent. The Times obtained a copy of the letter the same day Villanueva sent it.
Villanueva “made these and other false claims about Fulgent even though the FBI neither accused Fulgent of wrongdoing nor alluded to any evidence that Fulgent provided or would provide private medical information to China,” Fulgent attorneys said in the filing. They alleged that the FBI “never even mentioned Fulgent’s name” during the meeting.
