Just In: Jury reaches guilty verdicts in corruption trial of longtime LA politician Mark Ridley-Thomas.
Federal prosecutors based their case on a long string of emails and letters to bolster allegations that then-County Supervisor Ridley-Thomas and the former dean of the USC School of Social Work, Marilyn Flynn, had a quid pro quo arrangement during 2017 and 2018 in which the then-dean arranged for Sebastian's admission to USC, a full-tuition scholarship and a paid professorship in exchange for his father's support for county proposals that would ostensibly shore up the school's...
As for the contention that Ridley-Thomas participated in a secret scheme whereby Flynn funneled $100,000 ``seed money'' from the politician's campaign fund through the school to the Policy, Research & Practice Initiative, a nonprofit operated by his son who had recently stepped down from the California Assembly, Durie argued that nothing the politician did was illegal.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Morse told the panel, however, that Ridley-Thomas made the alleged exchange to benefit his son, who had resigned from the Assembly amid an internal sexual harassment probe that was about to go public at the peak of the #MeToo movement. Flynn, 84, of Los Feliz, pleaded guilty in September to one count of bribery, admitting that she agreed to disguise and funnel $100,000 from the then-supervisor to USC, then to United Ways of California, which ultimately passed the money on to Sebastian's nonprofit. The longtime dean of the USC School of Social Work, who departed in 2018, is scheduled to be sentenced June 26.in the case, and her plea agreement did not require her to testify at the Ridley-Thomas trial.
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