Jury begins hearing closing arguments in trial of former Bell mayor, council members

LOS ANGELES - Six former Bell city officials gouged taxpayers by collecting exorbitant salaries in a "city turned upside down by a culture of corruption," a prosecutor told jurors today, but attorneys for two of the ex- city council members said their clients were dedicated public servants who had been wrongly accused of misdoing.

A former mayor of Bell and five ex-City Council members are accused of combining to steal more than $1.3 million from the city by collecting what Deputy District Attorney Edward Miller called "outrageous salaries" for serving on various city agencies, although defense attorneys contend their clients were being compensated for full-time service.

Former Mayor Oscar Hernandez, 65, and ex-council members Teresa Jacobo, 55, and George Mirabal, 63, are each charged with 20 counts of misappropriating public funds between January 2006 and July 2010.

Former councilman Victor Bello, 54, is charged with 16 counts of misappropriation between January 2006 and December 2009, while ex-councilman Luis Artiga, 52, is charged with 12 counts of misappropriation between January 2008 and July 2010 and former councilman George Cole, 63, is charged with eight counts of misappropriation between January 2006 and December 2007.

The prosecutor contended during the trial that the defendants paid themselves illegal salaries for sitting on four boards -- the Community Housing Authority, Surplus Property Authority, Public Financing Authority and Solid Waste and Recycling

Authority.

Defense lawyers are set to continue their closing arguments Thursday morning. They have maintained that their clients relied on the city attorney and an independent auditor who never questioned their salaries, and said the defendants honestly believed the money reflected a reasonable amount given the time they spent doing city work.

The prosecutor countered that the defendants collected more than $100,000 a year, when the legal salary for their positions was around $8,000.

"There was no authority of law for these outrageous salaries the defendants paid themselves," Miller told the seven-woman, five-man panel during his closing argument. "... There's none, zip."

"The defendants in this case believed they were above the law and carried out their duties with a criminal disregard ...," the prosecutor said. "This was a city turned upside down by a culture of corruption."

Miller showed jurors an organizational chart of the city, with the electorate at the top. He then flipped it over, saying the defendants didn't have residents at the top of their chart.

"The electorate was at the bottom," he said.

The prosecutor told jurors that the council members should have gone to the public to tell them what they thought they really deserved to be paid for kissing babies and cutting ribbons rather than being paid for service on a "series of sham authorities."

The deputy district attorney said he was "talking about taking big money, money from poor people" for years while using "creative financing as their justification to get around state law and even the city's charter."

The prosecutor said council members had taken 12 percent raises per year for three years "when our country was going through an economic meltdown."

Miller told jurors that Bello "got a great deal by retaining his council salary by taking a volunteer job at the food bank" after leaving the council, saying that those who received aid from him during his work at the food bank were "looking at nothing more than a charlatan, a fake, a phony" and a volunteer who was being paid $100,000 annually.

The prosecutor urged jurors to hold the six defendants "accountable" by convicting them.

Jacobo's attorney, Shepard Kopp, countered that "the prosecution has utterly failed to show that the payments received were made without legal authority" and said his client was never advised by the city attorney that the salary increases were illegal.

"She had every right to rely on him for that opinion," the former councilwoman's lawyer said.

In urging jurors to acquit his client, Kopp told jurors the vast majority of his client's work was "not done within the confines of a city council meeting" and said the government's case was "based on a fundamental misunderstanding."

"They've been focused all along on the meetings and only the meetings and that's not where the work was done," Kopp said, calling Jacobo a "person who was deeply dedicated to her community."

Cole's attorney, Ronald Kaye, said, "George Cole is innocent. He's innocent of these charges. He's innocent of this prosecutor's accusations."

He called his client "a decent, hard-working and honest human being" who worked tirelessly on behalf of the city and "relied on professionals" to advise him if there was a problem with the council members' salaries.

Kaye said his client believed the salary increase could bring in council members who didn't have independent wealth, and questioned the prosecutor's assertion that council members did not do any work on the boards.

Cole's attorney said the former councilman -- who stopped taking a city salary in 2007 -- voted in 2008 to increase the salaries of his fellow council members "because he feared his programs would be attacked by Robert Rizzo," who was then the city manager.

"He voted for the increase out of fear, fear of this vindictive control freak," Kaye said, telling jurors that Rizzo had banished Bello from going to city hall and treated Jacobo like a child. "He never thought it was illegal, ever."

"The prosecutor's thrown George Cole's life into crisis. He's done nothing wrong ... They want to take away his freedom," his attorney said. "Give George Cole back his life and bring back a verdict of not guilty."

Jacobo, Mirabal and Cole all testified in their own defense during the trial, insisting in part that they were paid in accordance with the amount of work they performed for the city.

Rizzo and his then-assistant, Angela Spaccia, are awaiting trial in a separate corruption case. More than 50 counts of fraud have been filed against against Rizzo, seen as the ringleader of the alleged effort to loot the city's treasury by paying bloated salaries to himself and other officials and arranging illicit loans of taxpayer money.

Source: http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_22632033/jury-begins-hearing-closing-arguments-trial-former-bell?source=rss

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