Attorney general's lawsuit against Bell officials could be in jeopardy; Rizzo's attorney says case is 'dead'

Portions of a sweeping lawsuit alleging that eight current and former Bell city leaders conspired to misappropriate millions of dollars from the city will have to be revised in order for the lawsuit to go forward, a judge ruled Thursday.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Ralph W. Dau questioned whether the suit, filed at the height of Atty Gen. Jerry Brown’s run for governor, was more about politics than law.

Dau, at a hearing Thursday, warned that although he was not ruling at this stage on the underlying right of the attorney general to seek compensation from city officials, the state's case could be flawed.

Among other things, the suit seeks an order to nullify the contracts that inflated the salaries and retirement packages of city administrators and current and former councilmembers in Bell.

Lawyers for the attorney general's office told Dau they believed their office had the authority to pursue a civil claim on behalf of residents and taxpayers.

“There is a real question of authority here,” said Dau during a hearing in downtown Los Angeles on Thursday. “You say they're looting the city and you can enforce it, but where is the case that says the attorney general can enforce it?”

Dau added, “So I'm wondering, is this just a political lawsuit?”

James Spertus, an attorney representing former City Administrator Robert Rizzo, predicted the state's case would be dismissed.

“This case is dead. … The complaint is not going to proceed,” Spertus said outside the courtroom.

Brown, who was elected governor Tuesday, is seeking to force Rizzo and seven other current and former city officials to return hundreds of thousands of dollars to the city and reduce pension benefits that could cost the working-class community millions in years to come.

Dau said he had no doubt that the lucrative salaries paid to Rizzo and others were outrageous and that he understood that residents were upset. But he said the place to resolve those concerns should be at the “ballot box and criminals courts.”

Criminal charges have been filed against Rizzo, Assistant City Administrator Angela Spaccia, Mayor Oscar Hernandez and five other current or former council members by the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.

Dau also rejected an effort by Spertus to prevent the city from obtaining Rizzo’s private e-mails. The city already had received about 4,000 e-mails from Rizzo’s private e-mail provider.

About 10 of those e-mails involved potential attorney-client-privilege issues, attorneys told the judge.

City Atty. James Casso agreed to delete one e-mail involving Spertus and Rizzo, but the city will be able to retain e-mails between Rizzo and Tom Brown, a former attorney for the city, about the city manager's recent DUI.

-- Richard Winton

Photo: Robert Rizzo after his arrest. Credit: Los Angeles Times

 

Comments

[bill]

LA times should do a side story on all the arrogant quips both Rizzo and Rizzo's atty emits when ever there's a chance for public comment - these can easily be used for sentencing considerations when Rizzo gets convicted on the many criminal charges. remorse is not part of that vocab

[alex]

Great, now the Bell Citizens committee can proceed with indictments under the Private Attorney General Act. Indicting ALL top level govt employees of Bell, and thier "enforcement branch" the police department, under RICO as an organized crime entity, for conspiracy to defraud the public, extortion under color of authority and about 200 other related charges, once the state declines to prosecute private prosecution will proceed. We can't wait to send our private security people to arrest them all and hold them for civil/criminal trial. Another great thing about prosecuting them all under PAG is that "truth at trial" applies in civil court but not criminal, so EVERYTHING they have done will be admissable in the civil proceeding.

[J. Priest]

Spertus is spurting again, somebody get a mop.

Does anyone take defense lawyers' statements about the probity of their clients as truth?

[Redrider63]

Politricks at work. Now that you elected Brown as Governor he doesn’t care about Bell and the inept residents. Alex, what are you babbling about, sending your “private security people” to “arrest” them? Are you kidding? No private security has public arrest powers. What enforcement branch. You people in Bell are so funny, it’s like watching cartoons.

[Common Sense]

The City of Bell should be completely shut down, and turned into an unincorporated area of Los Angeles County. The corrupt Bell PD should be completely disbanded, and replaced with LASD. The County should then appoint a civilian administrator (similar to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq).

[Jennifer555]

There are at least two fundamental problems with the Attorney General's case:

(1) There is a concept in law called "fiduciary duty", meaning in layman's terms the obligation to put the organization way ahead of one's own self interest. It's a duty not to manipulate the organization for your own benefit or that of your friends, let alone a duty not to rip it off. In California, there is no statute creating a fiduciary duty between a high level public employee or elected official and the city, county or other public agency which they manage or manipulate. In contrast, that fiduciary duty exists with respect to commercial corporations and charity corporations. The reality is that all across California, there are breaches of fiduciary duty by public officials of cities, counties, school districts, school district fundraising committees, water agencies, redevelopment agencies and the like BUT there is no law to stop it. Given the fact that the Legislature is mostly made up of former local public officials, the chance of the Legislature enacting a blunt fiduciary duty statute for elected officials, senior public employees and influential volunteers at public agencies is slim to none.

Example: A city defrauds FEMA by falsely claiming that millions of dollars of earthquake damage has occurred in a public building. The City Council votes to use the FEMA money to buy a different building from their friends. FEMA finds out, and demand/sues the city to get the money back. Eventually, the city has to borrow money to pay FEMA back. Is there any way to force the City Council's friends to give their profit on the sale of the building back to the City? No. Is there a way to force the City Council members and senior city staff who set up the deal to use their money to pay FEMA back? No.

(2) Second, under a California court procedure statute, Code of Civil Procedure Section 860-870.5 the statute of limitations to file a lawsuit to invalidate a city or other public agency's contract, because there is an underlying unlawfulness, is only 60 days. The courts have said it's 60 days from the first time a public agency's board approves the contract, not 60 days from when it's signed. As a result, even if the contract's terms are illegal, when a public agency is a party to the contract, there is a strong argument that third parties cannot step in and break the contract.

In terms of civil lawsuits, it's likely that the common though perhaps extreme problem created by the City of Bell's decision makers will be unwound, in terms of making someone other than the taxpayers pay. Will the Legislature take a hint, and create a meaningful law creating a fiduciary duty for public officials, whether elected or hired as employees? Not likely.

[iyeee]

These guys are definitely slimy, corrupt, and deserve anything bad they get... However, when you compare the City of Bell to similar nearby cities; you find that Bell has a budget surplus, lower crime rate, higher property values, better public facilities, and superior infrastructure maintenance. I'd almost put up with these jerks if they ran my city as well.

[312capri]

These people would be better off in a court room with civil justice than outside at night with vigilante justice! I recommend they take their chances in a court of law! Just one person's opinion!

[Joseph]

It will be humorous if all these officials get to keep their pay and pensions. I laugh at how stupid people are there. My brother makes more from his pension in retirement than he made at the police force there. And he retired at 52. People make $50 a year but the last year make $100K due to lenient overtime rules for soon to be retirees. That inflates their pension. And taxpayers from across CA have to pay.

Taxpayers are being soaked. Or "water boarded" would be a better term. Let the taxes go up. People in CA cannot look to the feds or the states to bail them out. Enjoy your soon to be high taxes.

Look at the university professors. They don't work very much but will get a big pension. Much more than they made.

[dev]

Jennifer555:
Very interesting, and sad. Is it just California? Do many other states have statutes establishing fiduciary duty for public officials?

[Mike G.]

Why wasn't this bungling by the Attorney General; namely Jerry Brown, reported yesterday? Thanks for nothing.

[Paul K]

Gee, this would have been very good news about 5 days ago, BEFORE moonbeam was elected again...............

[mikeohara]

Of course it was purely politics. The people of Bell have the valid claims, not the AG.

[Nero's Fiddle]

WAS a political lawsuit. Jerry Brown got what he needed. Now California residents gets what they deserve.

[Grabit]

Mike G: Why do you assume that the Attorney General's office bungled it and the judge is right?

[D. Orange]

And so it begins.... I lived through Jerry Brown and am old enough to remember his father as Governor (talk about a deadbeat family living on the taxpayers) too! Jerry has no direction and constantly shoots from the hip. Hear a rumor that when anxious Jerry went to file charges on Bell, he ran to the polling place instead to the courthouse to file the briefs!!!

Ahhhhh... the late, great California!

[Raymon]

We all knew that Brown was just in this for himself the case will more than likely be tossed. And the State will be in worse shape once moombean starts giving the UNIONS their pay for play and you thought that only happened in Chicago welcome to the new order.

[Pissed]

Are you kidding me

time for a riot!!!
the fact that these people can get away with this is beyond me!!!!!!!

RIOT RIOT RIOT

it seems to be the only way people listen

[morethanme@yahoo.com]

Isn't this the suit that BASTA Attorney Aleshire joined as well. The documents have his involvement. So, BASTA and the AG did this for political reasons, is that what the article is saying!

[al]

i remember moonbeam(jerry brown) too he screwed up so bad the firat time, but my personal opinion is that he did the lawsuit against Bell, for his personal benefit & that was to become Governor of Calif. He's now looking at Four retirement packages from the people of Calif, 1.first Governorship 2.Mayor of Frisco 3.Attorney General of Calif4. now has Governor of Calif
again, he's has bad has those officials at Bell. One thing is clear in my mind is that i didn't vote for him, but some very ignorant people here in Calif wanted him in,but watch out when he starts stepping on these people and starts screwing up again,u'll see alot of these snibbing crybabies complaining, that's when i get to do some laughing

[jsa26]

Dau added, “So I'm wondering, is this just a political lawsuit?”

Of course it was pure politics. If not it would have been a criminal case not a civil lawsuit.

The problem here is that Bell did not do anything that every other local California government does not do. They just did more of it, carrying it to such an extreme that the people are outraged.

If you say they paid themselves illegally large salaries, where do we draw the line?

If you say taxes were collected illegally, I'm sure we can find other cases.

I'm sure it's a nightmare in Sacramento, a public relations nightmare.

[Ron Ranft]

Who is this Judge to be asking whether this care is politically driven? Was he appointed by Reagan or Bush. If the State's Attorney General cannot bring these obvious criminals to court, who can? Look at the facts of the case, not what you think happened to cause the case to be brought before you!

[Jennifer555]

In defense of the career lawyers who work at the Attorney General's office, with respect to the problems in Bell, they're doing the best they can with whatever legal theories they can think up, given the bad hand the Legislature has dealt them.

Jerry Brown is not he lawyer litigating the case against the Bell officials, nor is he the one who is charged with figuring out what to try to do.

Was this a politically motivated lawsuit? If the Attorney General's staff lawyers didn't file a lawsuit, he would have been criticized. Since the Attorney General's staff lawyers have filed a lawsuit, he is criticized. Politically, it was a "no win" decision.

[Tehachapian]

Hmm. Wonder who Dau voted for?

[Zippy]

Dau is an older judge, and he is very much by-the-books. I've been in front of him many times, and while he is not the friendliest judge Downtown... he always gets "it" right.

While nobody disagrees that the Rizzo Crew are bad people... Prosecutors made the same mistake they always make in high-profile cases like this... they over-reach. And when they over-reach they lose credibility... and it would appear that Jerry Brown's office has very little credibility with this judge at least in terms of this particular case.