Bell Officials Ordered To Stand Trial

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Six current and former officials charged with ripping off millions of dollars from the blue-collar Los Angeles suburb of Bell were ordered Wednesday to stand trial on fraud charges.

Superior Court Judge Henry Hall ordered the six to trial following a preliminary hearing.

Mayor Oscar Hernandez and former council members Luis Artiga, Victor Bello, George Cole, Teresa Jacobo and George Mirabel also were ordered to stay away from City Hall and no longer participate in Bell's civic affairs.

Each made about $100,000 a year for service on a City Council that meets once a month and other agencies.

Earlier in the day, defense attorney Ronald Kaye told the judge the officials were innocent victims who were wrongly ensnared in what had become an infamous municipal corruption scandal.

The officials were hard-working, honest individuals who had no idea city employees were being paid enormous salaries through contracts prosecutors said were illegal, Kaye said.

Prosecutors have accused the officials of being involved in the looting of $5.5 million from the city where one in six people live in poverty.

Kaye indicated that if anyone was responsible for the scandal, it was the city's disgraced former city manager Robert Rizzo.

Authorities say Rizzo paid himself an annual compensation package of $1.5 million through a series of illegal salary contracts. He and his former assistant, Angela Spaccia, who was paid $376,288, face a preliminary hearing next week. Both have pleaded not guilty.

Kaye said the outrageous salaries of Rizzo and other Bell employees brought so much media attention to the city that prosecutors felt compelled to bring charges.

"This is an unfair, politically motivated and unjust prosecution and it should stop today," he said.

The six officials had no idea what Rizzo was paying himself or some of the other employees, Kaye told the judge.

Meanwhile, the defendants earned their salaries and could have been voted out of office if voters disagreed with the payments, he said.

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)