By FRED SHUSTER
LOS ANGELES — Jurors on Wednesday asked several questions in their fourth day of deliberations in the case of suspended L.A. City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, who faces a slate of federal charges.
In notes passed to U.S. District Judge Dale Fischer, the panel expressed confusion over the elements and definition of bribery counts alleged by prosecutors to be at the heart of the complex case.
Jurors also questioned whether taking “an official action where one of the motives is to influence county business” is unlawful. As an answer to several queries, the judge told panelists to “refer back to the jury instructions previously given.”
It seems that not even Fischer wanted to try and divine what the panel is thinking. At one point in a previous session — out of the presence of the jury — she said she had given up trying to predict what the questions suggest about those asking.
The panel announced that it wished to deliberate Wednesday until 4:30 p.m., two hours beyond its usual stop time, hinting that perhaps a verdict is near.
Ridley-Thomas, 68, of South Los Angeles, faces federal counts of conspiracy and bribery, and multiple counts of honest services mail and wire fraud. If convicted as charged, he face years behind bars. He did not testify in his own defense.
Although prosecutors alleged that the longtime local politician, while serving as a county supervisor, “put his hand out” and accepted perks from USC to benefit his son, Sebastian, the defense put up an equally strong attack, suggesting to the jury that there was enough reasonable doubt to acquit.
Federal prosecutors based their case on a long string of emails and letters to bolster allegations that Ridley-Thomas and the former dean of the USC School of Social Work, Marilyn Flynn, had a quid pro quo arrangement during 2017 and 2018 in which the then-dean arranged for Sebastian’s admission to USC, a full-tuition scholarship and a paid professorship in…
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