6 Charged In Bell Corruption Case Reject Plea Deal

by Jeff Gottlieb, Corina Knoll and Christopher Goffard - February 7th, 2011 - Los Angeles Times

Lawyers for six current and former Bell leaders said their clients would not accept plea deals that would have sent them to prison for two years and forced them to pay back hundreds of thousands of dollars allegedly looted from the city treasury.

[Snip]

The two-year deal offered to the defendants may not have amounted to much of a concession by prosecutors. Sanford Perliss, a lawyer who represented a Temple City mayor charged in a recent bribery case, said his client rejected a two-year plea deal but ultimately pleaded no contest and received a 16-month sentence from a judge.

And that is the problem. Trivial sentences are traditional in these types of corruption cases, primarily because our court system is as corrupt as the legislative and executive branch people being charge. The judges apparently want to establish precedents that will protect them if it ever becomes their turn.

It is interesting that these 6 each got at least about $100,000 a year they were not entitled to, while the worst offender in the corruption got $1.5 million a year. Perhaps they are counting on the idea that though they stole from the people, they were not the major thieves and their punishment should reflect that.