![]() ![]() Price also denied "willfully and knowingly voted for contracts in which he had a financial interest." Price filed a demurrer - a motion to have the charges against Price dropped or at least revised - in October, before Price had entered a plea, saying that the first set of charges were based on "connections between Councilmember Price and the City’s purported contracts with developers Thomas Safran & Associates and GTM Holdings that are gossamer-thin," noting that the resolutions to approve the developer's contracts all passed unanimously without controversy. If you look at the dates 2013 to 2021 2022 - and I'll just leave it at that." Quite frankly, if you look at the evidence, this is a long pattern. ![]() I’ve seen ethics violations for this type of activity." Price has been removed from committee assignments, but he has not been suspended, as Ridley-Thomas and Huizar had been.Īfter the hearing Monday, Deputy District Attorney Casey Higgins responded to that argument, telling reporters, "I know that various people out in the public and the city council have made those allegations. Price's city council colleague Marqueece Harris-Dawson told the Los Angeles Times in October, "I’ve not seen a felony charge for this type of activity. And some have suggested the charges appear more like ethics violations and not what you'd normally associate with felonies. He is being charged not by federal prosecutors, but by the local District Attorney, George Gascon. Price is only the latest in a long line of LA city councilmen to face corruption charges, following in the wake of Mitch Englander ( pleaded guilty to obstructing a federal probe), Jose Huizar ( sentenced to six years for bribery) and Mark Ridley-Thomas ( sentenced to the 3 1/2 years for bribery).īut the charges against Price appear different. When news of the apparently accidental bigamy broke in 2017, Price chalked it up to an oversight. There was just one problem: Price was married to a different woman at the time, making Richardson very much not his wife. Secondly, Price received more than $30,000 in medical premiums from the city between 20 by claiming his wife, Del Richardson, as a dependent. By failing to report the conflict of interest on city ethics forms, according to prosecutors, he committed perjury. Firstly, that he voted to approve affordable housing projects built by, as well as the sale of land to, a developer - Thomas Safran & Associates - who had paid his wife's company, Del Richardson & Associates, as a consultant. The charges stem from two broad patterns of behavior. Price, a former state legislator and councilman representing part of South LA, was charged in June 2023 with five counts of grand theft by embezzlement, three counts of perjury and two counts of conflict of interest. That's why your support your attendance is so very, very important." ![]() And we're gonna be fighting tooth and nail to prove our innocence, and to prove that we're here to serve other people. After the hearing, Price told them, "We have done nothing wrong. LOS ANGELES (CN) - Los Angeles City Councilman Curren Price pleaded not guilty to criminal charges of conflict of interest and embezzlement on Monday after a Superior Court judge denied his motion to dismiss those charges.Ībout 100 of Price's supporters, many of them union activists, packed the hallway of the Clara Shortridge Foltz criminal courthouse in Downtown Los Angeles. ![]()
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