A Los Angeles County judge ruled Wednesday that a corruption case against L.A. City Councilman Curren Price can move forward to trial, ensuring the misconduct scandal will hang over the veteran politician\u2019s final year in office.<\/p>\n
L.A. County Superior Court Judge Shelly Torrealba determined that prosecutors had provided enough evidence to move forward on four counts of voting on matters in which Price had a conflict of interest, four counts of embezzlement and four counts of perjury.<\/p>\n
Price, who is set to leave the City Council after reaching his term limit at the end of the year, declined to comment after the hearing. <\/p>\n
The councilman, who has represented South L.A. for more than a decade, was charged in June 2023. Prosecutors allege Price repeatedly voted to approve sales of land to developers or funding for agencies who had done business with his wife, Del Richardson, and her consulting company. Some of the votes involved funding and grants for the L.A. County Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the city housing authority. <\/p>\n
Price, 75, is also accused of perjury for failing to include Richardson\u2019s income on disclosure forms and embezzlement for including her on his city health insurance plan before they were legally married. He is due back in court in March, Torrealba said. <\/p>\n
Richardson was named as a \u201csuspect\u201d<\/a> in the district attorney\u2019s office\u2019s initial investigation in 2022, according to documents made public last year, but she was never charged with a crime. She has been among a group of Price\u2019s supporters who have been in court for the past week. The two wore matching burgundy suits during Wednesday\u2019s hearing.<\/p>\n Much of the weeklong proceeding centered around whether Price knew of potential conflicts of interest before casting votes, or intended to hide his financial stakes in them from the public. Delphi Smith, a former staffer for the councilman, and Price\u2019s deputy chief of staff Maritza Alcaraz took the stand to explain the process they used to flag problematic council votes for Price and insisted they made their best efforts to highlight agenda items linked to vendors or agencies who had worked with Richardson. <\/p>\n \u201cIf the Councilman voted on something that was a potential conflict, he did so without knowing,\u201d Alcaraz testified Wednesday. <\/p>\n L.A. County Deputy Dist. Atty. Casey Higgins, however, said Price is ultimately responsible for disclosing conflicts of interest and argued blaming his subordinates was not a defense to corruption charges. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not only hiding. It\u2019s trying to create a wall around himself, to create this plausible deniability,\u201d Higgins said. \u201cIt\u2019s this ostrich with his head in the sand approach.\u201d<\/p>\n Higgins said Alcaraz and Smith were \u201ctrying to jump in front of the bus\u201d and that it was impossible to believe that Price had no knowledge of the conflicts. The dealings allegedly took place between 2019 and 2021 \u2014 after a 2019 Times investigation<\/a> revealed he voted on decisions involving at least 10 companies in the same years they were listed as providing at least $10,000 in income to Richardson\u2019s firm.<\/p>\n Price\u2019s defense attorney, Michael Schafler, has argued there is no evidence that Price knew of the conflicts, and claimed payments to Richardson had no influence on Price\u2019s voting decisions. All of the votes referenced in the criminal complaint passed with overwhelming support, and Price\u2019s vote made no difference in the final result.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s been no evidence presented that Mr. Price acted with any wrongful intent. No testimony from any witness \u2026 who said Mr. Price acted with willful intent,\u201d Schafler said Wednesday. \u201cI\u2019ve never seen a public corruption case like that in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n There were enormous sums of money on the line in each vote referenced in the criminal complaint. Richardson took in more than a half-million from October 2019 to June 2020 from the city housing authority before Price voted in favor of millions in grant funding for the agency, according to an amended complaint filed against Price last year.<\/a> <\/p>\n Prosecutors also alleged Price wrote a motion to give $30 million to the L.A. County Metropolitan Transportation Authority during a time frame when Richardson was paid upward of $200,000 by the agency.<\/p>\n After Torrealba\u2019s ruling, Schafler said he was \u201cdisappointed\u201d but thought the evidence presented over the past week revealed that \u201cthe prosecution\u2019s case has a lot of gaps, a lot of holes, it\u2019s based largely on speculation.\u201d<\/p>\n Some of Price\u2019s City Council colleagues have said Price\u2019s alleged crimes were tantamount to paperwork errors, and should have been handled by the city\u2019s Ethics Commission. <\/p>\n While questioning former employees of Price and Richardson, Higgins sought to paint a more nefarious picture. He repeatedly scrutinized the way that Price\u2019s staff and a former employee of Del Richardson & Associates compiled a list of the firm\u2019s projects that could represent conflicts and communicated about them. <\/p>\n Much of the conflict information was placed on a flash drive and given to Smith in person by Martisa Garcia, an employee of Richardson, Higgins said. Updates to the file were then made over the phone, and not discussed via e-mail, according to Higgins. When Smith and Alcaraz discussed votes in which Price might have to recuse himself, they did so on personal phones rather than city-issued devices, according to evidence Higgins put forth. <\/p>\n Higgins suggested Price\u2019s staff was trying to hide the conflicts of interest. <\/p>\n \u201cWas the thumb drive used to avoid public records requests?\u201d Higgins asked Alcaraz, who curtly replied \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n Generally speaking, California Public Records Act requests for an elected official\u2019s communications will only capture what is contained on government devices, not personal phones or e-mails. A spokeswoman for Price, Angelina Valenica, said there was no \u201cintent to avoid PRA requirements\u201d on the part of Price\u2019s staff.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Councilmember was not involved in the handling, transport or storage of this information,\u201d she said. \u201cHe relied on and trusted his staff to handle the matter appropriately and to seek guidance as necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n