Mark Ridley-Thomas faces 19 federal counts, including conspiracy, bribery, and honest services mail and wire fraud. He has denied any wrongdoing.
sold his vote while serving as a county supervisor for a series of benefits for his son, a federal prosecutor told a downtown jury Thursday, but a defense lawyer countered that nothing the longtime politician did was illegal.
"I don't think the evidence that was presented by the government was the whole story. I think they left out some pretty important pieces," Durie said. Flynn and Ridley-Thomas concealed the arrangement from USC, knowing it would have violated university policy, prosecutors said. "Funneling the money was legal under campaign finance law," Amram told the jury, adding that none of the $100,000 "went into Sebastian's pocket."Dotson on Thursday said Ridley-Thomas "monetized" and abused the power of his office and lied to cover it up in order to give his son an alternate story for why he resigned from the Assembly -- and save the family name.
The defense attorney, though, insisted that two of the three contracts were approved by the board before Sebastian even heard he was the subject of a sexual harassment probe, and the third was a project Ridley-Thomas had already planned to support.
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