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| Five former Bell City elected officials listens to the judge as a guilty verdict is read in their trial on Wednesday, March 20, 2013, in Los Angeles. The five former elected officials were convicted of multiple counts of misappropriation of public funds, and a sixth defendant was cleared entirely. Former Mayor Oscar Hernandez and co-defendants Teresa Jacobo, George Mirabal, George Cole, and Victor Belo were all convicted of multiple counts and acquitted of others. The charges against them involved paying themselves inflated salaries of up to $100,000 a year in the city of 36,000 people, where one in four residents live below the poverty line. |
LOS ANGELES
(AP) -- Five former elected officials of the small, blue-collar
California city of Bell were convicted Wednesday of multiple counts of
misappropriating public funds by paying themselves huge salaries while
raising taxes on residents.
Former Mayor Oscar
Hernandez and co-defendants Teresa Jacobo, George Mirabal, George Cole
and Victor Belo were all convicted of multiple counts and acquitted of
others.
Former Councilman Luis Artiga was cleared entirely.
The
charges against the officials involved paying themselves inflated
salaries of up to $100,000 a year in the city of 36,000 people, where
one in four residents live below the poverty line.
An
audit by the state controller's office previously found the city had
illegally raised property taxes, business license fees and other sources
of revenue to pay the salaries. The office ordered the money repaid.
The
guilty findings were related to the appointment of the defendants to
the Solid Waste and Recycling Authority, an agency that prosecutors had
argued during trial served no purpose other than to pay them a salary.
All
were cleared of charges that they illegally tapped public money while
serving on the city's Public Financing Authority. The waste authority
was never created legally and met only once in 2006, which boosted pay
by about $13,000 per member.
Artiga was found not guilty of a dozen allegations. He was the only defendant who had not served as mayor at some point.
Artiga
wept as the clerk read the not guilty verdicts against him, and he
thanked members of the community who believed in his innocence.
"I feel righteous and I also feel nothing in my heart against the people that yell at me. I love `em," he said.
His attorney, George Mgdesyan, said Artiga was not involved in the committees where the corruption began.
"We
were not there. We did not vote for these authorities, we did not vote
for these raises," Mgdesyan said. "My client was there every day working
for the city of Bell."
Prosecutors brought an extensive case involving about 100 counts.
After
the verdicts were read, Judge Kathleen Kennedy noted there were 10
deadlocked counts and asked the foreman if the panel had exhausted
efforts to reach decisions.
He said that was
correct, but four other jurors told the judge they thought a verdict
could be reached if they received more direction.
Kennedy ordered more deliberations after the lunch recess.
The
current jury deliberated since Feb. 28, when one member of an original
panel was replaced and the judge told the reconstituted group to start
talks anew.
The trial was the first court proceeding following disclosures of massive corruption in the gritty town.
A
lawyer for Hernandez said during the trial that his client was
unschooled, illiterate and not the type of "scholar" who understood the
city's finances.
"We elect people who have a
good heart. Someone who can listen to your problems and look you in the
eye," attorney Stanley Friedman said.
The
scandal that rocked Bell raised the curtain on a fiefdom established by
powerful former city manager Robert Rizzo. City records revealed that
Rizzo had an annual salary and compensation package worth $1.5 million,
making him one of the highest paid administrators in the country.
His salary alone was about $800,000 a year, double that of the president of the United States.
To
fund his and other officials' salaries, prosecutors say, Rizzo
masterminded a scheme to loot the treasury of $5.5 million. He and his
assistant city manager, Angela Spaccia, face their own trial later in
the year.
Witnesses at the former council
members' trial depicted Rizzo as a micro manager who convinced the
city's elected officials that they too deserved huge salaries.
He
was said to have manipulated council members into signing major
financial documents, particularly Hernandez who could not read what he
was signing.
After the scandal was disclosed,
thousands of Bell residents protested at City Council meetings and
staged a successful recall election to throw out the entire council and
elect new leaders.
Jurors heard more than
three weeks of testimony and saw numerous documents. But when it came
time to deliberate, things did not go well.
A
juror who claimed she was being harassed by others on the panel
acknowledged she had done research on the Internet about her jury
service and discussed it with her daughter. The judge found she had
committed misconduct and, after five days of deliberations, the weeping
juror was dismissed from the panel.
