Preliminary hearing in LA city councilman's corruption case gets underway

LOS ANGELES (CN) — In the second day of a preliminary hearing over if there’s enough evidence proceed to a jury trial for LA City Councilman Curren Price, prosecutors pushed the idea that the councilman should have known and disclosed a conflict of interest related to his wife’s business.

Price, who represents a large chunk of South LA, was first charged in 2023 with 10 counts of embezzlement, perjury and conflict of interest related to accusations he voted on city contracts that benefitted a consulting business run by his wife, Del Richardson.

Prosecutors added two new charges earlier this year, accusing the lawmaker of voting to steer more than $800,000 in payments from the city’s housing authority and the county’s public transit authority to his wife’s business.

On the stand Wednesday, Maritsa Garcia, a former longtime employee of Richardson, said it was her responsibility to provide a list of her boss’ clients to Price’s office on a regular basis, so as to inform them of potential conflicts of interest.

Richardson’s firm provided “relocation consultation” to private developers and government entities on how many businesses and residents might need to be relocated for certain projects, and what the costs and mitigation measures might be.

By law, Price had to recuse himself from voting on any contracts that benefited Richardson’s firm financially.

Garcia told the court that the client list was provided to Price’s staff not by email, but by thumb drive, at least initially, and was then updated by in-person conversations. A council staffer would drive to her office in Inglewood, every two weeks or so, to receive the brief updates.

“Not once did he request the information be emailed to him?” asked Deputy District Attorney Casey Higgins, implying nothing was emailed so as to stay under the radar of public records act requests.

“No,” Garcia said, but adding that no one ever expressed concerns about such requests, or told her not to email anything.

Higgins also tried to make hay of the fact that Garcia had brought an attorney with her to court, and that the attorney was paid for by Richardson.

Prosecutors have also accused Price of receiving medical benefits for Richardson before they were married, when he was still married to another woman.

The hearing began on Tuesday and has featured relatively little in the way of drama. Indeed, Price himself has struggled to keep his eyes open at times.

During his cross examination of witnesses this week, Price’s attorney, Michael Schafler has suggested that Price didn’t know he had to disclose certain conflicts — that he didn’t know that certain conflicts of interest even existed.

On Tuesday, David Bainbridge, General Counsel for California’s Fair Political Practices Commission, told the court that it was a politician’s responsibility to know if a certain vote posed a conflict of interest.

“You can’t recuse yourself if you don’t know,” Bainbridge said.

On Wednesday, a staffer at the city’s ethics commission testified that Price had attended at least three training sessions on ethics and transparency in the years between 2016 and 2020.

Price is the latest in a long line of local politicians to be accused of public corruption, including Mitch Englander, who pleaded guilty to obstructing a federal probe; José Huizar, who was sentenced to six years for bribery; and Mark Ridley-Thomas, who was sentenced to 3 1/2 years for bribery.

Those officials were charged by federal prosecutors. Price is being charged by LA County District Attorneys — first by George Gascón and now by his successor, Nathan Hochman. Critics say that the charges leveled against Price are minor ethics violations dressed up as felony counts, though prosecutors say otherwise.

“Price has failed repeatedly by lying about his marriages, lying on political disclosure forms, engaging in flagrant conflicts of interest and illegally obtaining financial benefits,” the LA County District Attorney’s office claimed in a court filing in December. “Though he may try to blame his lawyers, advisors, wife, or staff for all the lies, omissions, and criminal conduct, at the end of the day the evidence will show there is only one person ultimately responsible for all these criminal offenses: Curren Price, Jr.”

Prosecutors are expected to argue that Price was on notice, starting in 2019 at the latest, of a number companies that his wife had business dealings with — meaning that he was obligated to recuse himself from any votes on awarding contracts to those companies.

“Yet despite being put on notice not to vote on projects of developers from which Richardson was receiving compensation, Price voted on Safran and GTM Holdings projects between August 2019 and December 2021,” the district attorney’s office wrote.

If convicted of all charges, Price faces a maximum sentence of nine years in state prison and two years in county jail — but it’s not clear if prosecutors would even seek jail time for the 75-year-old politician, who has held public office nearly continuously for more than 30 years and has never been charged with a crime.

It’s also unlikely the case would go to trial before the end of the year, when his final term in city council is over.

Price’s preliminary hearing is expected to last another four to six days, and will feature testimony from a number of his former staff, who may be able to shed to light on what the councilman knew about his ethical obligations.

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