Suspended LA Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas convicted in federal corruption trial

By Fred Shuster, City News Service

Los Angeles County lifts

COVID-19 emergency declarations

By City News Service

Los Angeles County’s local emergency declarations due to COVID-19 were lifted at the end of the day Friday, resulting in the closure of county-run virus-testing centers and prompting a warning for Medi-Cal beneficiaries to ensure their case information is up to date.

Medi-Cal coverage did stop on Friday, but the LA County Department of Public Social Services will be reevaluating cases to ensure people are still eligible for the program, which provides health coverage for those with limited income and resources.

“Therefore, it is essential that beneficiaries ensure that the department has their most updated contact information, including names, addresses, telephone numbers and email address,” according to a statement from DPSS.

County officials said local beneficiaries will be receiving renewal forms in the mail, and residents should complete and return them as quickly as possible.

Roughly 3.7 million Los Angeles County residents are covered through Medi-Cal.

With the county’s emergency declarations ending, the Department of Health Services closed its COVID-19 PCR testing centers at the end of the day Friday.

“The COVID-19 testing centers were established to provide residents with free and easy access to COVID-19 PCR tests, at the early stages of the pandemic when testing supplies were extremely limited,” Dr. Christina Ghaly, director of the county Department of Health Services, said in a statement.

Suspended Los Angeles City Councilman Mark

Ridley-Thomas was convicted Thursday of federal bribery and conspiracy charges, along with mail and wire fraud, stemming from his time serving on the LA County Board of Supervisors.

Ridley-Thomas showed no reaction as the verdict was read late Thursday morning in a packed downtown Los Angeles courtroom. He was convicted on single counts of bribery and conspiracy, along with one count of honest services mail fraud and four counts of honest services wire fraud. Jurors, who reached their verdict on their fifth day of deliberations, acquitted the Southland political giant of 12 other fraud counts.

The charges stemmed from what prosecutors called a quid pro quo arrangement between Ridley-Thomas and a former head of the USC School of

Social Work, with the politician accused of steering county contracts toward the university in exchange for benefits provided to Ridley-Thomas’ son, former Assemblyman Sebastian Ridley-Thomas.

U.S. District Judge Dale Fischer set sentencing for Aug. 14. Ridley-Thomas has been suspended from the LA City Council since the indictment was announced.

Ridley-Thomas, 68, of South LA, has vehemently denied any wrongdoing. He did not testify in his own defense, but his attorneys argued throughout the trial that nothing he did amounted to a crime.

Prosecutors alleged that the longtime local politician, while serving as a county supervisor, “put his hand out” and accepted perks from USC to benefit his son, Sebastian. Federal prosecutors based their case on a long string of emails and letters to bolster allegations that Ridley-Thomas and the former dean of the USC School of Social Work, Marilyn Flynn, had a quid pro quo arrangement during 2017 and 2018 in which the then-dean arranged for Sebastian’s admission to USC, a full-tuition scholarship and a paid professorship in exchange for his father’s support for county proposals that would ostensibly shore up the school’s shoddy financial picture and save Flynn’s job.

However, defense attorney Daralyn Durie countered that nothing Ridley-Thomas did was illegal, and a series of defense witnesses contended that the “paper trail” was not what it seemed.

Although the government argued that RidleyThomas accepted help for Sebastian in exchange for his support of USC contracts, including a Telehealth program, that would’ve helped Flynn’s school financially, Durie said the thensupervisor had already been in support of the proposals, so he could not have been bribed.

As for the contention that Ridley-Thomas participated in a secret scheme whereby Flynn funneled $100,000 “seed money” from the politician’s campaign fund through the school to the Policy, Research & Practice Initiative, a nonprofit operated by his son who had recently stepped down from the California Assembly, Durie argued that nothing the politician did was illegal.

Ridley-Thomas’ support of the contracts that prosecutors claim would’ve helped remedy the troubled financial situation at Flynn’s school, had nothing to do with his son’s ambitions at

“Today, COVID tests are widely available. Rapid antigen tests are available at most pharmacies, through primary care providers and urgent care locations, and in a variety of other community locations. Health care providers also have the ability to perform PCR tests for patients when needed.”

Ghaly noted that over the last nine months, there has been a 94% decrease in demand for in-person testing at DHS testing centers.

“While the worst of the pandemic is behind us, we do ask that you continue to take simple and effective preventive measures to mitigate the spread of the virus,” she said.

DHS-operated hospitals and clinics will continue to offer testing for people without insurance.