Susan Shelley: California politicians sure keep the lawyers busy

L.A. City Councilman Curren Price is headed to trial on charges of public corruption after a judge ruled there’s enough evidence for a dozen felony counts.

“This case is not going to be this kind of public corruption case where there’s strippers and cocaine and bags of cash in Las Vegas,” Deputy District Attorney Casey Higgins admitted. He said it’s more like “a long, secret corruption.”

Curren Price has had a long, public career. The South L.A. representative is term-limited, serving his final year on the council, and is 75 years old. L.A. County District Attorney Nathan Hochman charged Price for putting his wife on the city’s health insurance plan while he was still legally married to another woman – the charge is embezzlement of about $33,800 of city funds for medical benefits over four years – and for failing to recuse himself on votes to award big contracts to Metro and the city Housing Authority, which had paid his wife’s solely-owned consulting firm more than $800,000. 

Prosecutors also got him for lying on financial disclosure forms and voting to give $2 million in federal COVID funds to a nonprofit that rented office space from another nonprofit where Price is the CEO.

Curren Price could face 11 years behind bars. Or not. Price says he is innocent and his attorney pointed out that “there was no evidence presented that Mr. Price acted with any willful intent. Not any email, no recording.”

And no strippers, cocaine or bags of cash in Las Vegas.

In other words, if Hollywood had an awards show for public corruption trials, this case would be at home watching it and moping that it didn’t get nominated. 

There would be plenty of nominees, though, and many from the L.A. city government. Former councilman Mitchell Englander went to prison for obstructing an FBI investigation into his acceptance of $10,000 in cash in a casino bathroom, plus $1,000 in gambling chips, $34,000 in bottle service, an expensive dinner and at least one female escort. Englander also accepted $5,000 in cash, in an envelope, at a golf tournament in Palm Springs.

Another nominee for award-winning L.A. corruption would be former city councilman José Huizar, now serving a 13-year sentence in federal prison for racketeering, conspiracy and tax evasion. As a council member and the chair of the powerful Planning and Land Use Management (PLUM) Committee, Huizar had power over major real estate developments throughout the city, and the bribes were spectacular: cash, casino chips, prostitutes, flights on private jets, luxury hotel stays, expensive meals, tickets to concerts and sports, and of course, campaign contributions.

Huizar was swimming in so much cash he could even route $600,000 to quietly settle a sexual harassment lawsuit.

There probably wouldn’t be an award for the corruption case against former L.A. City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, a former county supervisor, who was convicted in 2023 on federal charges of bribery, conspiracy and fraud for arranging a USC scholarship and professorship for his son, and steering county contracts to the university. Ridley-Thomas has appealed his conviction to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. No ruling yet. 

Another politician who benefited from one of USC’s VIP scholarships is L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, who accepted the gift when she was a member of Congress. The House Ethics Committee decided it was fine.

There was a long-running and very flashy series of corruption scandals involving the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and the City Attorney’s office under Mike Feuer. A class action suit on behalf of ratepayers was manipulated and settled for maximum legal fees and minimum compensation for overcharged customers. Four high-powered individuals eventually pleaded guilty to various bribery and extortion schemes involving millions of dollars in kickbacks. Feuer wasn’t charged but may have run into trouble with the State Bar of California.

Then there’s Oakland mayor Sheng Thao, indicted for bribery along with some of Attorney General Rob Bonta’s major donors. Bonta recently spent almost half a million dollars from his re-election campaign account to pay lawyers to help him respond to inquiries from federal investigators. 

And speaking of campaign accounts, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s former chief of staff Dana Williamson was arrested and charged in November with 23 counts of bank fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy, obstruction of justice and false statements in connection with a scheme to drain hundreds of thousands of dollars from an extra campaign account belonging to former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, who is currently a candidate for governor. 

So far, Becerra’s former chief of staff Sean McCluskie and Sacramento lobbyist Greg Campbell have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire and bank fraud. Both are said to be cooperating with prosecutors. 

Pay-to-play is the foundation of campaign fundraising, so it’s not easy to be convicted of bribery in politics.

In 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court said Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell and his wife were not guilty of bribery, even though they had accepted $175,000 in gifts, loans and luxury items from a businessman and hosted events to promote his dietary supplement. Setting up meetings and hosting events were routine political activities, the court held, and did not rise to the level of an “official act” needed for a bribery conviction.

And then in 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a federal anti-bribery law does not prohibit state and local officials from accepting a gratuity for actions they have already taken. The decision overturned the conviction of the former mayor of Portage, Indiana, who had been sentenced to 21 months in prison for accepting $13,000 from a truck company that had recently been awarded a $1 million city contract for new trash trucks. The case is Snyder v. United States. 

That decision might save Mark Ridley-Thomas, but it probably won’t help Curren Price, who is facing state, not federal charges. Price will have to rely on the California doctrine: Corruption without strippers, cocaine and cash is never going to keep the jury awake.

Write Susan@SusanShelley.com and follow her on X @Susan_Shelley