Whipped Cream Difficulties

LA City Council member Curren Price was charged yesterday with:

... five counts of grand theft by embezzlement, three counts of perjury and two counts of conflict of interest.

There are a couple of things going on here.

The district attorney’s office alleges that Price’s wife, Del Richardson Price — founder of the consulting company Del Richardson & Associates — received “payments totaling more than $150,000 between 2019 and 2021 from developers before he voted to approve projects.” The perjury charges stem from accusations that Price failed to list income Richardson Price received on government financial disclosure forms, according to the release.

…

According to the complaint, Del Richardson & Associates received six checks from companies either incorporated or co-owned by affordable housing developers whom Price later voted to fund projects for or sell city property to.
In 2021, Price voted to slash the price of a property sold to GTM Holdings from nearly $1 million to $440,000 six months after a company incorporated by GTM Holdings wrote a check to his wife’s firm for about $51,000, court records show.
In 2019, according to the complaint, Price voted to fund a $4.6-million real estate project involving developer Thomas Safran & Associates after his wife’s firm received checks totaling about $35,000 from a company incorporated by Safran.

The second thing that’s going on involves health insurance, believe it or not.

Price is also accused of bilking the city out of roughly $33,000 in medical premiums by listing Richardson Price as his wife on city forms from 2013 to 2017, according to the complaint. Prosecutors allege he used public funds to pay for her healthcare despite the fact that he was still legally married to Lynn Suzette Green. The council member and Richardson Price did not legally marry until 2018, records show.

Noted:

Price is the fourth current or former council member to face criminal charges in four years.

…

This year, Councilmember Mark Ridley-Thomas was found guilty of conspiracy, bribery and fraud for extracting benefits for his son from USC while voting on issues that benefited the school.
Councilmembers Mitch Englander and Jose Huizar also pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges in recent years after an FBI investigation.

Previously.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 14th, 2023 at 12:27 pm and is filed under California Über Alles, Law, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.