Mark Ridley-Thomas found guilty in corruption case

Mark Ridley-Thomas, one of Los Angeles County’s most prominent politicians, was found guilty Thursday of federal corruption charges related to special benefits his son received at USC.

The verdict, which jurors reached in their fifth day of deliberations, marks a devastating fall for a man who for more than 30 years was a power broker in L.A. politics and a vocal advocate for civil rights and racial justice.

Ridley-Thomas, 68, now faces the possibility of years in federal prison and the permanent loss of his seat on the L.A. City Council, from which he has been suspended for 17 months.

Of the 19 counts against Ridley-Thomas, jurors found him guilty of seven: conspiracy, bribery, honest services mail fraud and four counts of honest services wire fraud.

The split, according to the jury foreperson, stemmed from differing views among the jury about the illicit conduct in the case. There was disagreement over whether admission of Ridley-Thomas' son to USC, his scholarship or his job was part of the alleged scheme. Ultimately, the foreperson said, the routing of money through USC — and Ridley-Thomas' emails about the transaction — persuaded jurors to convict.

"Many of the jurors believed that there was no connection between [Ridley-Thomas] and the USC things, and it came back to the $100,000 donation," said Kirsi Kilpelainen, 36, who served as foreperson for the jury.

The verdict is the most high-profile in a string of victories for a team of public corruption prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles. That team secured guilty pleas from two other L.A. City Council members and won the conviction of U.S. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry in an illegal campaign contribution case. It has also unraveled a corruption scheme involving L.A.’s Department of Water and Power and sent a wealthy and connected Beverly Hills developer to prison for bribery in a case involving leases with L.A. County government.

Thursday's verdict also validates the work of FBI Special Agent Brian Adkins, a well-regarded public corruption specialist whose investigative steps were repeatedly attacked by Ridley-Thomas’ defense attorneys as they sought to sow doubt in jurors' minds about the case presented to them.

To convict Ridley-Thomas, prosecutors and the FBI pored over reams of emails, phone records and internal USC documents to stitch together a timeline of the lawmaker’s dealings with Marilyn Flynn, the former dean of USC’s social work program.

Prosecutors outlined a conspiracy that began around May 2017, when Ridley-Thomas’ son Sebastian Ridley-Thomas, then a member of the state Assembly, began expressing interest in attending USC’s graduate social work program.

In emails, Flynn expressed eagerness to enroll Sebastian, describing her plan to give him free tuition and saying she did “the same for Karen Bass — full scholarship for our funds.”

Prosecutors found the email about Bass, now L.A.'s mayor, a brazen example of Flynn’s agenda — using scholarships as a means to secure government contracts.

“It’s not rocket science what Marilyn Flynn is looking for here,” Assistant U.S. Atty. Lindsey Greer Dotson told jurors in her closing argument last week. Bass was never charged, but as a member of Congress representing L.A. at the time, she had sponsored a bill that, if passed, would have expanded federal funding to social work schools.

To show Ridley-Thomas' role in the conspiracy, prosecutors weaved together months of emails, phone calls and other correspondence between Flynn and Ridley-Thomas, who was then a member of the L.A. County Board of Supervisors. The prosecutors pointed to a June 2017 meeting in which the pair discussed USC’s requests for action on key issues before the board. Flynn later memorialized the meeting's discussion in a confidential letter she had hand-delivered to the politician's office.

To prosecutors, the letter was the blueprint for the conspiracy — proof that Sebastian's path at USC was discussed in the same breath as Flynn's wish list for government business.

A plan marked by “winks and nods” between Flynn and Ridley-Thomas turned to “pushes and shoves” in December 2017, prosecutors said. That month, a sexual harassment investigation into Sebastian Ridley-Thomas was launched by lawyers at the state Capitol.

With scandal threatening to blight the Ridley-Thomas political machine, prosecutors argued that he leaned on Flynn and she in turn moved quickly to supply Sebastian with extraordinary benefits. Among them were admission and a full scholarship before he had even finished his application; a part-time professor's position; and later, the funneling of $100,000 through USC to a nonprofit run by the younger Ridley-Thomas.

Through the duration of the alleged conspiracy, Mark Ridley-Thomas voted on three agenda items before the Board of Supervisors that directly related to USC’s social work program and were coveted by Flynn. Her verbal responses to these votes were among the most damning evidence against Ridley-Thomas.

“MRT is really trying to deliver here,” said one email from Flynn to another USC colleague about a matter Ridley-Thomas later voted on. “I met with the supervisor recently,” Flynn told a colleague before another vote, adding, “This is exactly what I had hoped would happen.”

Defense attorneys sought to chip away at prosecutors’ elaborate and detailed outline of the case, emphasizing that Sebastian Ridley-Thomas had resigned from the Assembly for legitimate health reasons. The first witness for the defense was Sebastian's physician, who vouched for his illnesses and said he recommended his patient find another career.

Sebastian, they said, was also qualified in his own right to attend USC and receive a scholarship. Defense attorneys pointed out that he had been thrice elected to the state Assembly before the age of 30 and had sponsored dozens of bills in Sacramento — making him a shoo-in for admission and a marquee student in USC's graduate program.

Next, the defense team attempted to establish that there was no need for or upside to bribing Ridley-Thomas. They emphasized that the lawmaker's longstanding and public support for the key votes in the case — on a reentry center for those recently released from prison; a probation training program; and a remote mental health clinic — all aligned with the politician's key policy goals.

The defense wanted jurors to contemplate why anyone, let alone a social work dean, thought they had to offer bribes to accomplish these measures.

Ridley-Thomas did not testify in his defense, and throughout the trial, he quietly watched testimony and occasionally gestured to dozens of supporters who filled the courtroom each day. As jury deliberations continued this week, he greeted and hugged friends and former staffers in the halls and cafeteria of the 1st Street U.S. Courthouse.

Flynn, who was ousted as dean of USC's social work program in 2018, pleaded guilty in September to one count of bribery. She did not testify during Ridley-Thomas’ trial and is awaiting sentencing.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.