Suspended Los Angeles City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas sold his vote while serving as a county supervisor for a series of benefits for his son, a federal prosecutor told a downtown jury on Thursday, March 23, but a defense lawyer countered that nothing the longtime politician did was illegal.
“This was a case about power, privilege and lies,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Lindsey Greer Dotson said in her closing argument, telling jurors that the trial dealt with “one of the most powerful politicians in Los Angeles who leveraged his power — and all the lies he told to cover it up.”
Daralyn Durie, one of Ridley-Thomas’ lawyers, told the panel in her argument that the government’s case against her client “was fundamentally about optics” and that the investigation was “not thorough enough.”
“I don’t think the evidence that was presented by the government was the whole story. I think they left out some pretty important pieces,” Durie said.
Ridley-Thomas — then a member of the county Board of Supervisors —is accused of routing county contracts to the USC School of Social Work in exchange for benefits to his son.
Prosecutors alleged that Ridley-Thomas in April 2018 arranged for the former dean of the school, Marilyn Flynn, to funnel $100,000 from his campaign account through the school to a nonprofit operated by his son, Sebastian, who had recently resigned from the state Assembly amid a sexual harassment probe.
Prosecutors contend the politician wanted to provide the money to support his son’s nonprofit, but didn’t want the funds linked to him or his campaign. So he agreed to provide the money to Flynn, who sent $100,000 in university funds to the nonprofit, known as the Policy, Research & Practice Initiative.
Flynn and Ridley-Thomas concealed the arrangement from USC, knowing it would have violated university policy, prosecutors said.
“If you’re going to bring charges, you better be right and you better do your homework,” Durie…
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