By JOHN ROGERS
FILE – This Jan. 24, 2013 file photo, former Bell, Calif., city officials appear for a massive city corruption trial in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom. Verdicts have been reached in the trial of six former elected officials of the tiny Los Angeles County city of Bell. A Superior Court spokeswoman says the verdicts will be read Wednesday, March 20, 2013. The former mayor and five other ex-officials are accused of misappropriation of public funds by giving themselves enormous salaries. (AP Photo/Los Angeles Times, Francine Orr, Pool,File)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The former mayor of the tiny California city of Bell has been convicted and five charges in a massive corruption case against him and five other ex-elected officials.
Former Mayor Oscar Hernandez has also been acquitted of five charges in verdicts being read Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior Court. Numerous other verdicts have yet to be read.
The former mayor and City Council members were charged with misappropriating funds by paying themselves inflated salaries of up to $100,000 a year.
Prosecutors brought an extensive case involving about 100 counts.
An audit by the state controller’s office found the city had illegally raised property taxes, business license fees and other sources of revenue to pay the salaries. The office ordered the money repaid.
One in four residents of the city of 36,000 people live below the poverty line, according to the 2010 U.S. Census. As population in the Los Angeles suburb has decreased in recent years, the poverty level has increased markedly.
The current jury deliberated since Feb. 28, when one member of an original panel was replaced and the judge told the reconstituted group to start talks anew.
The officials on trial were Hernandez, former Vice Mayor Teresa Jacobo, and former council members George Mirabal, George Cole, Victor Bello and Luis Artiga. All except Artiga served as mayor at some point.
The trial was the first court proceeding following disclosures of massive corruption in the gritty town.
A lawyer for Hernandez said during the trial that his client was unschooled, illiterate and not the type of “scholar” who understood the city’s finances.
“We elect people who have a good heart. Someone who can listen to your problems and look you in the eye,” attorney Stanley Friedman said.
The scandal that rocked Bell raised the curtain on a fiefdom established by powerful former city manager Robert Rizzo. City records revealed that Rizzo had an annual salary and compensation package worth $1.5 million, making him one of the highest paid administrators in the country.
His salary alone was about $800,000 a year, double that of the president of the United States.
To fund his and other officials’ salaries, prosecutors say, Rizzo masterminded a scheme to loot the treasury of $5.5 million. He and his assistant city manager, Angela Spaccia, face their own trial later in the year.
Witnesses at the former council members’ trial depicted Rizzo as a micro manager who convinced the city’s elected officials that they too deserved huge salaries.
He was said to have manipulated council members into signing major financial documents, particularly Hernandez who could not read what he was signing.
After the scandal was disclosed, thousands of Bell residents protested at City Council meetings and staged a successful recall election to throw out the entire council and elect new leaders.
Jurors heard more than three weeks of testimony and saw numerous documents. But when it came time to deliberate, things did not go well.
A juror who claimed she was being harassed by others on the panel acknowledged she had done research on the Internet about her jury service and discussed it with her daughter. The judge found she had committed misconduct and, after five days of deliberations, the weeping juror was dismissed from the panel.
