Robert “Ratso” Rizzo has just been sentenced to 12 years in prison.
This is breaking news: watch this space for updates and links.
Edited to add: link with more details.
In addition to the prison sentence, Ratso will also have to pay $8.8 million in restitution to the city of Bell: but he will get credit for “money he and the city’s former police chief have already returned to the city”.
The LAT also states that Ratso will be allowed to serve this sentence concurrently with his 33 month sentence on tax fraud charges. One of the LAT‘s editors tweets:
When will we see #Rizzo again? Here's the brkdwn: 33 months in federal prison, then off to state prison. Likely out in 6 years, maybe less
— steve marble (@StephenMarble) April 16, 2014
In other news, Superintendent Jose Fernandez of the Centinela Valley Union High School District was paid $674,559 last year. For comparison purposes, the head of the NYC schools made $412,193. The head of the LA school district made $393,106.
Isn’t that kind of “Here, let us give you some money so you can end up taking even more money out of our pockets?”
The FBI may be investigating. Or at least asking questions before they start an investigation. (I’m not sure what laws may have been broken: being paid a lot of money isn’t a crime by itself.)
Doesn’t that still seem kind of high? The Centinela school district has “6,600 students, five high schools and a $70-million budget.” There seems to be an argument being made that Fernandez pulled the district out of possible bankruptcy; but at the same time, there are also claims that teachers were being laid off while he was getting paid to purchase more seniority in the retirement system.
Edited to add 2:
On a completely unrelated note, there’s an iPhone app called “Tiny Violin“.