Los Angeles City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas pleaded not guilty on Wednesday, Oct. 20, to federal charges that while a county supervisor he conspired with a USC official to steer favorable county contracts toward the university in exchange for a job and a teaching position for his son.
Related: Mark Ridley-Thomas suspended by LA City Council colleagues
“Not guilty, your honor,” Ridley-Thomas told U.S. District Court Judge Rozella A. Oliver. A jury trial was set for Dec. 14 in the courtroom of District Court Dale S. Fischer.
Ridley-Thomas, dressed for business-as-usual, appeared virtually for his arraignment Wednesday, standing before a podium in his attorney’s Los Angeles office.
His lawyer, Michael J. Proctor, presided in the foreground and carried much of the back-and-forth with the judge while Ridley-Thomas stood behind him, chiming in every so often.
Proctor, arguing that Ridley-Thomas posed no flight risk, painted a picture of the councilman as a caring family man who would never use his position as a councilmember in self-interest.
Earlier Wednesday, Ridley-Thomas’ fellow Los Angeles City councilmembers voted 11-3 in favor of suspending him as a councilman. While Ridley-Thomas had received numerous calls of support during the city council’s public comment portion, his arraignment was much more contained, with only a handful of reporters in the courtroom.
Ridley-Thomas, 66, has called the bribery and conspiracy charges — leveled in a 20-count indictment on Oct. 13 — “outrageous” and has vowed through his attorney to fight them, as he steps back from his duties on the council dais, where he represented the L.A.’s 10th Council District.
“Today marks Day One of due process for Mark Ridley-Thomas,” Proctor said. “While some have rushed to judgment, perhaps for political gain, we all win when we afford our brother and sisters the constitutional entitlement to the presumption of innocence. Our lifelong public servant Mark Ridley-Thomas said today in Court that he is innocent; I invite our community to breathe life into that right.”
It was clear Proctor would be emphasizing that service in this case, as he chronicled Ridley-Thomas’ L.A. roots and his decades in L.A.-area public office to pursuade the judge that Ridley-Thomas was not a flight risk nor a danger to the community while outside of federal custody.
The judge agreed, allowing Ridley-Thomas to be free with a $50,000 bond — half of what prosecutors were seeking — on conditions that he not interact with witnesses or victims in the case or with the co-defendant.
In arguing for the higher bond, prosecutors pointed to what they described as the gravity of the allegations.
“These are very serious charges against Mr. Ridley-Thomas,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Ruth C. Pinkel, of the Department of Justice’s Major Frauds Division. “It’s not a issue about flight” but rather about “economic danger to the community,” she said.
“These are very serious charges about a politician bartering millions of dollars worth of taxpayer money in order to get what he wanted personally and for the benefit of this family. And yes, he’s been a very powerful politician in this community and he deserves some respect for that. But at the same time, he got very used to what that power could do for him.”
The co-defendant, Marilyn Louise Flynn, 83, the former dean of USC’s school of Social Work, is expected to be arraigned on Monday, on the same charges. Flynn too, through her attorney, has denied the charges.
The two are accused of working out an agreement four years ago in which in exchange for his son Sebastian Ridley-Thomas’ admission to the school’s graduate program, Ridley-Thomas supported contracts involving the School of Social Work, including contracts to provide services to the county Department of Children and Family Services and Probation Department, as well as an amendment to a contract with the Department of Mental Health that would bring the school millions of dollars in new revenue.
The indictment also chronicles a series of meetings and agreements that involved a handful of unnamed officials from the university and from the county in a contract process that alarmed county officials enough that on Tuesday the Board of Supervisors called for a probe of all such service contracts with the county. The Board itself signed off on the contracts at issue in the Ridley-Thomas case.
The activities occurred in 2017-18, beginning when Sebastian Ridley-Thomas was the subject of an internal sexual harassment investigation in the Assembly, likely to resign from elected office and significantly in debt.
Sebastian Ridley-Thomas resigned from the Assembly in 2017, although he insisted at the time that his departure was due to health reasons, not a sexual harassment probe.
Sebastian Ridley-Thomas later became a professor of social work and public policy at USC — despite lacking a graduate degree. He was later terminated over questions about his original appointment and university concerns about the $100,000 that was donated from his father’s campaign funds to the School of Social Work, then directed to a nonprofit run by Sebastian Ridley-Thomas.
Ridley-Thomas, a mammoth figure in L.A.-area politics for decades, vacated his supervisorial seat last year to run for a post on the City Council, which he won.
The City Council’s vote to suspend him came despite protests from Ridley-Thomas’ attorney and the councilman’s wife.
Earlier, city Controller Ron Galperin has vowed to cut off Ridley-Thomas’ salary payments and benefits, should he be suspended.
“I am humbled by the support of my colleagues who did not rush to judgement and disappointed in those who did. 11 members of this Council have stripped the constituents of the 10th District of their representation, of their voice and of their right to the services that they deserve,” Ridley-Thomas said in a statement after of the vote. “They have removed from action a member – and his team – who together are among the most productive and effective advocates on the crisis of homelessness. I will continue fighting to clear my name, and I remain confident that such will be the case. But in the interim, the council has disenfranchised the residents of the 10th District.”
Ridley-Thomas is the third L.A. City Councilman since March 2020 to be indicted, following federal investigations into allegations of wrongdoing in connection with the public duties.
Ex-City Councilman Mitchell Englander, who represented the council’s northwest San Fernando Valley seat, pleaded guilty to one felony charge last year, while admitting he plotted to prevent federal investigators from learning about cash and other freebies he received from a Southern California businessman. In an act the sentencing judge called an “elaborate and clandestine scheme,” Englander was sentenced in January to 14 months in federal prison for lying to federal authorities about his dealings with the businessman who provided him $15,000 in secret cash payments and a night in Las Vegas.
And Ex-City Councilman Jose Huizar pleaded not guilty in December to bribery and other federal charges after he was indicted on racketeering charges alleging he took at least $1.5 million and other benefits from developers who sought favorable treatment at City Hall. His trial is set for May.
Staff writer Elizabeth Chou and City News Service contributed to this story.
