Ridley-Thomas trial draws toward end with sharply conflicting portraits of politician

In their last words and phrases to jurors who will decide the fate of suspended Los Angeles Metropolis Councilmember Mark Ridley-Thomas, federal prosecutors and the lawmaker’s defense lawyer thorough sharply conflicting portraits of the male and the circumstance from him.

To Assistant U.S. Atty. Lindsey Greer Dotson, Ridley-Thomas was a job politician who savvily conspired with a USC dean to get a slew of benefits for his troubled son in trade for assist with coveted Los Angeles County enterprise. There was no express arrangement involving Ridley-Thomas and the USC dean, Marilyn Flynn, according to the prosecutor, but “winks and nods.”

“He leveraged his electric power to extract privileges for his son,” Dotson reported. “Public officers do not get to monetize their public provider. As a politician, you operate for us, you function for the taxpayer.”

To guide defense legal professional Daralyn Durie, nevertheless, the rates towards her customer ended up the fruit of a sloppy investigation, a person that observed crimes where none existed and a single that jumped to conclusions just before turning about every single stone.

“Everything that transpired at USC was lawful,” Durie explained to jurors.

She observed that the L.A. County votes at situation in the circumstance ended up extended-running assignments that Ridley-Thomas publicly backed and assigned several staffers to perform on. The projects — for a probation instruction system, a reentry facility and a distant mental well being clinic — were being central factors of his plan agenda.

“Nobody would consider he needed to be bribed to do it,” Durie stated.

The 19 counts towards Ridley-Thomas consist of conspiracy, bribery, and straightforward expert services mail and wire fraud. If convicted, the 68-calendar year-outdated could shell out many years in prison. Jurors won’t get started deliberations until Friday after the governing administration completes its remaining arguments.

The allegations of the governing administration center on a interval from 2017 to 2018 when Ridley-Thomas allegedly conspired with Flynn, then the dean of USC’s social work method, to get hold of gains for his son — a scholarship, admission to graduate school, a professor’s career and a donation to a nonprofit.

At the time, the application was struggling financially, and Ridley-Thomas’ son, Sebastian, was a state Assembly member going through a continue to-private sexual harassment investigation.

“The defendant was in a exceptional situation: He could come to the two their rescue at the very same time,” Dotson told jurors.

Dotson directed jurors to a wintertime 2018 e mail in which Flynn sent “an exceptionally vital ask for for a contract amendment.” Ridley-Thomas replied, “Your desire is my command,” and blind-copied his son.

Next, the e-mail was forwarded to Ridley-Thomas’ workers. “He’s advising his team to do certain factors,” Dotson explained to jurors. “That’s an official act.”

Among the positive aspects Ridley-Thomas gained: routing $100,000 from his marketing campaign account by USC to a nonprofit operate by his son.

Dotson explained that it would be simple to donate revenue immediately to his son’s nonprofit, but that Ridley-Thomas experienced to cover his tracks.

“He’s acquired to funnel the dollars and thoroughly clean his link,” Dotson claimed, reminding jurors that an earlier donation from Ridley-Thomas to his son’s nonprofit was rejected immediately after a dad or mum nonprofit objected to the nepotistic optics. Dotson invoked a geographic analogy: “If I’m likely to travel from downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica, I’m not going to push via Bakersfield.”

Soon after the dollars arrived, Ridley-Thomas messaged his son, “My piece is accomplished,” with a fist bump emoji.

A linchpin of the government’s case is now-L.A. Mayor Karen Bass’ complete tuition scholarship and Flynn’s reviews on it. In a 2017 email, Flynn experienced described her program to supply Sebastian Ridley-Thomas a scholarship and said she did “the exact for Karen Bass — whole scholarship for our funds.”

“It’s not rocket science what Marilyn Flynn is wanting for below,” Dotson explained, laying out a easy approach to curry favor with public officers for federal government contracts.

But Durie highlighted that then-U.S. Rep. Bass was in no way charged about the electronic mail. If Bass was not a criminal, the identical should hold real for her customer. If the email was genuine, it means “Karen Bass, the recent mayor of Los Angeles, would be a prison.”

Durie also pointed to the “for our funds” as a typo — that Flynn meant “from” our money. 1 slide proven in court compiled all of Flynn’s typos in e-mails that jurors noticed — misspelled words and phrases, rapidly created messages.

“Dean Flynn was like 80 decades outdated, which is super extraordinary,” Durie stated. “But her typing competencies, significantly like her financial administration abilities, have been not her sturdy level.”

A long-managing effort and hard work of the defense has been to chip away at the prosecution’s situation by laying into the credibility of the direct investigator, FBI Exclusive Agent Brian Adkins. During the trial, quite a few witnesses who worked at L.A. County testified that they weren’t questioned by the FBI, and Durie got Adkins to accept that email messages at L.A. County weren’t subpoenaed during the investigation.

“This is a legal situation. If you are heading to provide charges, you far better be sure that you are ideal — and you much better do your homework,” Durie reported.

The protection legal professional pointed out shifts in Adkins’ testimony: that he in the beginning mentioned he reviewed additional than 400,000 paperwork in the circumstance, then mentioned possibly he or other brokers reviewed them. Durie reminded jurors of an episode in the course of Adkins’ testimony when she cross-examined him, and the lawyer appeared to recognize an mistake in his timeline in excess of whether or not Sebastian Ridley-Thomas was interviewed in the sexual harassment investigation.

“This complete scenario is about timing,” Durie reported, including, “That will make it definitely essential not to get it blended up.”

Durie pointed to other lapses: Investigators appeared incurious about how the county government labored and even misstated the character of the merchandise that make up the “quo” in the quid professional quo — two of the three merchandise ended up “studies” in which even further investigation would be accomplished for supervisors, not contracts per se.

“Who did the governing administration current to you as witnesses? By and huge, they introduced you people from USC,” Durie informed jurors.

A centerpiece of the government’s circumstance is a summer time 2017 assembly with Ridley-Thomas, which Flynn later on memorialized in a letter. The letter was hand-delivered to Ridley-Thomas’ workplace, and it outlined Flynn’s requests of the politician regarding county organization.

Dotson explained the letter was evidence positive of Flynn and Ridley-Thomas mixing Sebastian’s incredible benefits at USC with county enterprise.

Durie solid question on the letter: “Someone observed that letter, noticed that it experienced been hand-shipped, and believed, ‘Aha!’”

As an alternative, Durie mentioned, the multi-web site letter was hand-shipped simply because of specially sensitive content: a demographic breakdown of the members of a exploration initiative on homelessness. The letter mentioned harshly that the committee was mostly white and had no associates with “lived expertise,” which jeopardized the legitimacy of the exploration.

Prosecutors located the sexual harassment allegations in opposition to Sebastian Ridley-Thomas — and the will need to maintain the brewing scandal tranquil — as a driving pressure in the conspiracy. But Durie, in a voice that was noticeably calmer and slower than her argument, puzzled aloud if jurors had friends or relations who’ve been accused of misconduct.

“Mark Ridley-Thomas is on trial,” Durie stated. “He’s absolutely not on demo for anything his son did.”

In her remaining lines to the jury, Durie issued a plea.

“I inquire you to return this man to his get the job done, to his residence, to his group and, on each demand, render a verdict of not responsible.”