When a Qatari sheikh came to live in L.A., an entire economy sprouted to meet his wishes. 'His highness doesn't like to hear no,' one associate told a professor.
Los Angeles has long enjoyed a reputation as a playground for the rich, but the handsome teenage prince who arrived nine years ago operated on a different level.
Sheikh Khalifa bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the son and, later, brother of Qatar’s emir, eventually graduated from the University of Southern California and returned to the Middle East. He became an officer in the country’s internal security service and has cultivated an image as a jet-setting heartthrob. His Instagram account, with more than a million followers, has featured the dashing, goateed royal yachting, driving priceless autos, skydiving, and occasionally cuddling with baby tigers.
“Would you be asking these questions if a white student allegedly did not show up to his college class, or was pulled over for speeding? Would you ask these questions if a white student’s parent allegedly donated money to a university toward its betterment?”The prince was raised in a family that prized higher education. His mother, Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, is a world-renowned advocate for university learning who established an enormous college complex in Qatar.
A community college set among the tract homes of Sylmar, Mission has an overwhelmingly Latino and low-income student body. Nearly 60% of students are considered “food insecure,” and more than 1 in 10 are homeless. When Al Thani moved into the Beverly Wilshire, Jourieh flew to L.A. and took up a role somewhere between fixer and babysitter. Among his responsibilities was to approve bills before they were sent on to the Qatari government, according to interviews with former staffers and invoices reviewed by The Times.It was not always a straightforward process. The prince and his friends didn’t want people back home knowing all of their American exploits.
In any case, the overcharges created a slush fund that was used in part to pay for whatever the prince wanted kept off the books, according to former Chief Financial Officer Mohamed Diakite and other employees familiar with the Qatari account.Over six weeks in 2014, the car agency laid out $300,000 for the prince and his entourage to spend at the Wynn Resort and Casino during trips to Las Vegas, the records show.
In an interview, the car rental partner who oversaw the prince’s account, David Sajasi, acknowledged that he concealed expenses that Al Thani and his entourage “didn’t want [their] parents to know” by listing them as “other bills” in the invoices.After Al Thani returned to Qatar, the gush of money dried up, and the company went out of business.
“I told them repeatedly that first of all, as a dean, I did not handle admissions at all; and that we cannot admit somebody because of some special status.”Gleeson told an administrator that the son of Qatar’s emir was interested in political science, and suggested that if UCLA played its cards right it could be in line for a substantial donation, according to an email the administrator wrote afterward.
C.L. Max Nikias was then in the middle of a $6-billion fundraising campaign, one of the most ambitious capital drives ever in higher education, and both people in the room that day knew Qatar was in a position to give generously to USC. Once classes began, Al Thani displayed little enthusiasm for his studies, according to people who worked for him. He spent much of the day in his suite at the hotel, playing video games with his entourage and working out with a trainer, former employees said. He passed many evenings chatting with friends at Urth Caffe. On infrequent and brief trips to campus, he liked to stroll the grounds and visit dining establishments, the employees said.
“He said, ‘There are going to be times he’s going to be out of town,’” Lamy said. “I said, ‘Professors are sovereign. You have to work it out with them.’”At mandatory meetings with his political science department advisor, the prince arrived with Cortes, and the grad student took an active role in mapping out Al Thani’s course schedule, advisor Paul Kovich recalled.
Campus police were not informed of any threats related to Al Thani, and Lamy, the former vice dean, said he was normally told of legitimate safety concerns. “I would’ve had a briefing. I got no briefing,” he said.Eight people who worked at Beverly Hills Rent-A-Car said they were told by Sajasi, his assistant or others at the company that a person was being paid to do the prince’s schoolwork. None was informed of the person’s name.
Approached outside his Occidental office last year, Cortes said he did not know anything about a USC student aiding a Qatari prince.“You should really talk to the [political science] department,” he said, before ending the conversation abruptly. He declined subsequent interview requests and refused to answer detailed questions submitted in writing.
The next year, the same driver delivered the Rolex again; this time, the prince refused to take it back. Al Thani never showed up to his arraignment — even after prosecutors sent a notice to the Beverly Wilshire. There is still an active warrant for his arrest. “Gift for DMV rep,” a company accounting log read. The same day, an employee in the Long Beach branch signed off on Al Thani’s request for the KHK plate, according to DMV records.
Khaled was a competitive bodybuilder from Lebanon nicknamed “the Puma.” He had worked as a personal trainer in Doha before joining the prince’s L.A. entourage, and referred to Al Thani on social media as his “boss.” He lived at the Beverly Wilshire and trained to compete at Venice’s famed Muscle Beach.
Agabus, the former chauffeur, and two other ex-employees said the man who provided the kidney was paid to go through with the transplant, though they did not know the exact source of the money. Al Thani’s lawyer, Keyko, refused to answer questions about the prince’s role in the transplant, but said any suggestion he had paid for the organ was “a serious allegation which appears to be unfounded and lacking in both evidence and connection to our client.”Shortly after Khalifa Al Thani returned to Doha in 2015 with a bachelor’s degree, Cortes visited USC’s Annenberg School and inquired about the possibility of the prince getting a master’s degree, according to a school official.
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