Ugarte \u2014 who did not respond to a request to be interviewed for this article \u2014 has defended Price\u2019s record as a legislator and denied that the council member committed any crimes. Ugarte recalled joining Price when he had his fingerprints taken for the criminal case.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was just heartbroken,\u201d Ugarte said in November on the podcast \u201cWhat\u2019s Next, Los Angeles?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re going to find him not guilty and he\u2019s going to be exonerated of everything,\u201d Ugarte added.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1769177356_206_.jpeg\")
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Jose Ugarte is running for Los Angeles City Council District 9.<\/p>\n
(Jose Ugarte)<\/p>\n
The case could also complicate Price\u2019s legacy. <\/p>\n
He has survived a tumultuous and scandal-ridden time in City Hall,<\/a> marked by colleagues getting marched out of office following federal prosecutions, a leaked racist recording and the continued success of young and progressive challengers unseating politicians of his generation. A conviction could see his name forever associated with peers taken down by allegations of graft. <\/p>\n The veteran politician, who served as a member of the Inglewood City Council and in the state Senate and Assembly, has called himself a \u201cprogressive, positive, inclusive\u201d leader. He has supported higher wages for low-income workers in the city and has close ties to organized labor. <\/p>\n In an interview this week, Price reiterated that he never intended to do anything wrong and questioned the fairness of a prosecution over what he said was essentially a paperwork error.<\/p>\n \u201cThese offenses are built around the intent to do wrong and I had no intent, no knowledge of us doing anything wrong at the time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n No matter what happens in court, Price believes city residents will remember him for bringing jobs and affordable housing to the district, rather than the corruption charges.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve got a sophisticated constituency. They certainly know the work we\u2019ve been doing around housing, around economic development\u2026 I think I\u2019m going to be judged on how those programs have changed the atmosphere and the temperature in the district,\u201d he said, referencing his work on green space initiatives, boosting wages and the construction of BMO Stadium during his time in office. <\/p>\n Curren Price speaks at a news conference on the L.A. Convention Center expansion along with local union members in Los Angeles in September 2025.<\/p>\n (Carlin Stiehl\/Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n Price, who grew up in South Los Angeles before attending Stanford, faces 12 counts of violating state conflict of interest laws by voting on city matters in which he had a financial interest, perjury and embezzlement. <\/p>\n Prosecutors allege Price repeatedly voted on items before the City Council that benefited agencies and companies that had previously done business with his wife, Del Richardson, and her consulting company, Del Richardson & Associates. <\/p>\n Richardson\u2019s company received hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments from LA Metro, the city housing authority and land developers before Price voted to approve projects, grants and funding for those businesses and agencies, prosecutors allege. <\/p>\n The perjury charges stem from Price\u2019s alleged failure to disclose Richardson\u2019s income on state forms. Prosecutors say he committed embezzlement by claiming Richardson as a dependent on his city-funded healthcare plan despite them not being legally married at the time. The insurance flub cost taxpayers roughly $30,000.<\/p>\n Price\u2019s attorney, Michael Schafler, has maintained Price had no knowledge of the conflict and the payments to Richardson had no effect on his votes. All of the votes cited in the complaint passed by wide margins, meaning Price did not swing any council decisions. <\/p>\n In court this week, Schafler continually tried to paint his client\u2019s alleged crimes as little more than clerical errors.<\/p>\n While cross-examining the top attorney for California\u2019s Fair Political Practices Commission, Schafler pointed to disclosure forms where Price declared he\u2019d received income from a developer in the same exact amount he\u2019s alleged to have failed to disclose in one of the perjury counts. <\/p>\n The count, Schafler argued, related to income from a business that the developer, Thomas Safran, owns. <\/p>\n Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman dismissed Schafler\u2019s attempts to downplay the charges in an interview earlier this week, noting Price was made acutely aware of the conflicts when The Times published a 2019 investigation into his record of voting on matters related to Richardson. <\/a> <\/p>\n \u201cHis brazen conduct, even after the L.A. Times brings this to public light, is that he keeps doing it. His explanations might be to blame his staff, to blame Del Richardson\u2019s staff, to blame lawyers, to blame basically everyone but himself,\u201d he said. \u201cBut when you have these myriad criminal violations, all roads lead to just one person who is responsible.\u201d<\/p>\n Witnesses in the preliminary hearing \u2014 which began on Tuesday and is expected to end next week \u2014 included former members of Richardson\u2019s company and Price\u2019s City Hall staff.<\/p>\n On Wednesday, longtime Richardson employee Maritsa Garcia and Deputy Dist. Atty. Casey Higgins sparred on the witness stand over what information the consulting firm provided to the councilman\u2019s office about possible conflicts. At one point, Higgins noted that Garcia had an attorney in the room, paid for by Richardson, and suggested her testimony might be \u201cbiased.\u201d The attorney, Michael Freedman, declined to speak with a Times reporter.<\/p>\n Mike Bonin, a former city councilman, said he believed Price\u2019s alleged malfeasance should be handled by the city\u2019s Ethics Commission \u2014 not criminal prosecutors. One of the votes at issue was about a project in Bonin\u2019s district that sailed through the council, with Price\u2019s vote unimportant to the project\u2019s outcome.<\/p>\n \u201cUnlike every other homeless or affordable housing project in my district, this one had no objection. It went straight through. There was absolutely no controversy,\u201d Bonin said.<\/p>\n Bonin said the criminal case never \u201cpassed the smell test\u201d to him, and that it didn\u2019t seem as serious as crimes committed by other city councilmembers like Mitch Englander and Jose Huizar. <\/p>\n Englander pled guilty in 2021 to obstructing a federal investigation into whether he improperly received gifts from developers while in office. Huizar pleaded guilty to conspiracy and tax evasion two years later, after federal prosecutors accused him of taking in millions in bribes and perks in what they described as a pay-to-play scheme.<\/p>\n \u201cI felt like for whatever reason they wanted to find something against Curren,\u201d Bonin said.<\/p>\n An employee from the L.A. City Ethics Commission \u2014 which accused Price of a litany of violations in 2024<\/a> \u2014 testified this week that Price would still have a conflict of interest even in votes that passed by wide margins.<\/p>\n![\"Councilmember](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1769177357_266_.jpeg\")
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