Courthouse News Service: Ninth Circuit ponders overturning veteran LA politician’s bribery conviction

The panel appeared puzzled by the government's theory that the $100,000 USC passed on from Ridley-Thomas to his son's nonprofit amounted to a bribe.

Edvard Pettersson | November 21, 2024

PASADENA, Calif. (CN) — The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday took up longtime Los Angeles politician Mark Ridley-Thomas's bid to overturn his bribery conviction for soliciting favors for his son from the University of Southern California in exchange for his support helping the university win contracts from LA County.

The appellate panel in Pasadena, California, at times struggled with the government's theory that the $100,000 Ridley-Thomas had provided from his ballot committee to the university's School of Social Work, only for the school to pass it on to the nonprofit his son Sebastian had set up, amounted to a "thing of value" to sustain a bribery conviction.

The "funneling" of the money by Marilyn Flynn, at the time the dean of the School of Social Work — done to avoid the appearance of nepotism if Ridley-Thomas had directly donated the money to his son's nonprofit — can't serve as the predicate of a bribery conviction, Ridley-Thomas's attorney Alyssa Bell told the court.

"Flynn's assistance didn't personally enrich Ridley-Thomas," Bell said. "And personal enrichment is the hallmark of traditional bribery."

"The funneling is not a thing of value," the attorney said.

This line of argument appeared to resonate to some extent with the panel who asked Assistant U.S. Attorney Lindsey Greer Dotson to explain how the "funneling" can be understood as a thing of value.

"Every time that the government referenced 'funneling,' that is inherently a reference to securing that $100,000 check," Dotson said. "That is the whole point of funneling the money, to get USC to issue that check."

U.S. Circuit Judge Morgan Christen, a Barack Obama appointee, however appeared puzzled about how the payment itself, as the government lawyer argued, amounted to a bribe, since it was the politician's own money.

And U.S. Circuit Judge Anthony Johnstone, a Joe Biden appointee, wondered how USC's otherwise legal movement of Ridley-Thomas's money from his ballot committee to his son's nonprofit had some financial value.

"We have said in some of the cases that there has to be both financial and subjective value," Johnstone noted. "The pie is not getting bigger in this case."

Third on the panel was U.S. Circuit Judge Johnnie Rawlinson, a Bill Clinton appointee.

A federal jury last year found 70-year-old Ridley-Thomas guilty of bribery and conspiracy as well as several counts of honest services wire fraud. A federal judge sentenced him to three and a half years in prison but allowed him to remain out on bail until his appeal was resolved.

Prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney's Office in LA accused Ridley-Thomas of scheming in 2017 and 2018, while he served on the LA County Board of Supervisors, with Flynn to get a prestigious position for his son, Sebastian Ridley-Thomas. According to the government, he wanted to deflect attention from his son's abrupt resignation from the California Assembly in 2017, claiming health issues, amid a sexual harassment investigation into staffers' complaints revealed later by the Los Angeles Times.

In exchange for Ridley-Thomas's support in getting the School of Social Work lucrative contracts with the county, Flynn provided Sebastian Ridley-Thomas with admission to the school's master's program in 2018 and a full-ride scholarship to the private university — a more than $100,000 benefit — according to the government, as well as a paid professorship to teach at USC while he was a student.

Flynn admitted as part of a plea deal that, at Ridley-Thomas's request in April 2018, she agreed to have USC serve as a conduit for a $100,000 payment from Ridley-Thomas' campaign account to the School of Social Work — and to then facilitate a nearly simultaneous $100,000 payment from USC to the United Ways of California for the benefit of the Policy, Research & Practice Initiative, a new nonprofit initiative led by Sebastian Ridley-Thomas.