L.A. City Councilman Curren Price challenges perjury, embezzlement charges
In the most full-throated defense yet against charges of perjury and embezzlement, a lawyer for L.A. City Councilman Curren Price has argued that a shoddy investigation by prosecutors failed to prove the veteran Democrat had a conflict of interest in votes he cast between 2019 and 2021.
In a 16-page court filing made public Friday, attorney Michael Schafler said prosecutors failed to show payments from housing developers to a consulting company owned by Price’s wife, Del Richardson Price, had any influence on Price’s votes to approve the sales of city property to those developers.
Schafler said the district attorney’s office could not say Price knowingly violated laws governing conflict of interest “after conducting a superficial investigation in which it neglected to interview Councilmember Price, his wife, or even the members of Councilmember Price’s staff who screen agenda items for conflicts.”
In June, Price was charged with five counts of grand theft by embezzlement, three counts of perjury and two counts of conflict of interest, the latest in a string of city officials to face public corruption charges in recent years.
The councilman has denied all wrongdoing and described the charges against him as “unwarranted.” But he has yet to enter a plea in the case, and his arraignment was again delayed into December after a brief court hearing on Friday morning.
Prosecutors allege Price voted to approve the sale of land to, or fund projects for, developers who had paid his wife’s company, Del Richardson & Associates, for consulting work on multiple occasions. He then committed perjury, authorities said, by failing to identify those income sources on governmental financial disclosure forms.
The district attorney’s office asked for further work because of shortcomings in the LAPD’s initial investigation, according to two law enforcement sources familiar with the case.
Price was also accused of five counts of embezzlement because he listed Richardson as his wife on city forms from 2013 to 2017, collecting more than $30,000 in medical premiums for her despite the fact that he was legally married to another woman at the time.
Price’s lawyer called the connections between Price and the companies who had paid Richardson Price “gossamer thin,” noting in his court filing that the votes in which Price is charged with having a conflict were not controversial. Each measure would have passed with or without Price’s vote, records show.
“The complaint is devoid of any allegation whatsoever that [Del Richardson & Associate’s] work or the developer’s payments had anything whatsoever to do with the approvals of the contracts, which were non-controversial and unanimously approved on the consent calendars,” Schafler wrote.
The attorney also argued prosecutors cannot charge Price with embezzlement because he did not have control over the funds used to pay for Richardson Price’s healthcare, which is a required element of the crime under California law. Price’s conduct might meet the definition of grand theft, Schafler wrote, but the statute of limitations for that crime had long expired.
The document Schafler filed is a challenge to the legal basis of a criminal filing but not an outright motion to dismiss the charges. L.A. County Deputy Dist. Atty. Casey Higgins, who is prosecuting the case, said Friday he believed the motion “will fail.”
Higgins said prosecutors had no reason to interview Price’s staff, as any “implication that his staff dropped the ball” or failed to warn the councilman of a potential conflict of interest “is not a legal defense.” He also said Schafler’s argument that prosecutors missed the statute of limitations on any charges was inaccurate, since they had four years from the date they discovered the misconduct to file charges, not from the date of the actual crime.
Schafler’s concerns echoed those raised by some of Price’s allies on the City Council. Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who replaced Price as the No. 2 on the Council shortly after the charges were filed, said the charges left him and other elected officials “scratching their heads.”
“It’s just unclear. I’ve not seen a felony charge for this type of activity. I’ve seen ethics violations for this type of activity,” Harris-Dawson said. “So it leaves me curious.”
No other council member has publicly spoken out in defense of Price.
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