In their final words to jurors who will decide the fate of Los Angeles City Council member Mark Ridley-Thomas, federal prosecutors and the legislature’s attorney detailed starkly contradictory portraits of the man and the case

archived

against him.

To Assistant US Atty. Lindsey Greer Dotson, Ridley-Thomas was a career politician who cleverly conspired with a USC dean to get a slew of benefits for his troubled son in exchange for helping with coveted Los Angeles County cases. There was no explicit agreement

here

between Ridley-Thomas and the USC dean, Marilyn Flynn, according to the prosecution, but winks and nods.”

He used his power to enforce privileges for his son, Dotson said. Civil servants cannot monetize their public service. As a politician you work for us, you work for the taxpayer.

For attorney Daralyn Durie, however, the charges against her client were the result of a shoddy investigation, one that saw crimes where none existed and one that jumped to conclusions before every stone was turned over.

Everything that happened at USC was legal, Durie told the jurors.

She noted that the LA County voices at issue in the case were long-running projects that Ridley-Thomas publicly supported and had multiple staffers assigned to. The projects for a probation program, a return facility and a remote mental health clinic were central to his policy agenda.

No one would think he had to be bribed for that, Durie said.

the

charges against Ridley-Thomas

19 count against Ridley Thomas

in total incl

includes conspiracy, bribery and

different counts of

honest services postal and telegram fraud. If convicted, the 68-year-old could spend decades in prison. Jurors will not begin deliberations until Friday after the government completes its final arguments.

The government’s allegations span from 2017 to 2018 when Ridley-Thomas allegedly conspired with Flynn, then the dean of USC’s social work program, to obtain benefits for his son: a scholarship, admission to graduate school, a job as a professor and a donation to a non-profit organization.

at the time

Flynn’s social work

the program was struggling financially, and Ridley-Thomas’ son, Sebastian, was a member of the state assembly and faced a still-confidential sexual harassment investigation.

The defendant was in a unique position: He could come to the aid of both of them at the same time, Dotson told jurors.

Among the official acts Ridley-Thomas did within the alleged conspiracy:

Dotson directed jurors to an email from the winter of 2017 in which Flynn made an extremely important contract change request. Ridley-Thomas replied: Your wish is my command, and blindly copied his son.

Dotson noted that Sebastian Ridley-Thomas had no part in County’s affairs, but had to be kept informed within the conspiracy.

The email was then forwarded to Ridley-Thomas staff. He advises his staff to do certain things, Dotson told jurors. That is an official act.

One of the perks Ridley-Thomas received: the forwarding of $100,000 from his campaign account through USC to a nonprofit run by his son.

Dotson said it would be easy to donate money directly to his son’s nonprofit, but Ridley-Thomas had to cover his tracks.

He needs to funnel the money and clean up his connection, Dotson said, reminding jurors that a previous donation from Ridley-Thomas to his son’s nonprofit was rejected after a nonprofit objected to the

poor poor,

nepotistic view. Dotson invoked a geographic analogy: If I’m going to drive from downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica, I’m not going to drive through Bakersfield.

After the money arrived, Ridley-Thomas sent a message to his son, My piece is done, with a fist emoji.

A linchpin in the government’s case is now LA Mayor Karen Bass’s full scholarship and Flynn’s comments on it. In a 2017 email, Flynn had detailed her plan to offer Sebastian Ridley-Thomas a scholarship and said she did the same for Karen Bass, a full scholarship for her money. It’s not rocket science Marilyn Flynn is looking for here, Dotson said, laying out a simple plan to curry favor with government officials for government contracts. But Durie stressed that then-US Representative Bass was never charged over the email. If Bass wasn’t a criminal, the same should be true of her client. If the email were true, it means Karen Bass, the current mayor of Los Angeles, would be a criminal. Durie also pointed out the for our funds as a typo that Flynn meant by our funds. A slide shown in court collected all the typos in emails jurors saw misspelled words, hastily written messages. Dean Flynn was about 80 years old, which is super impressive, Durie said. But her typing skills, like her financial management skills, were not her forte.

A long-running effort by the defense has been to weed out the prosecution’s case by questioning the credibility of the lead investigator, FBI Special Agent Brian Adkins. Trial questions highlighted the fact that several witnesses working in LA County were not questioned, and Durie got Adkins to admit that LA County emails were not subpoenaed during the investigation.

This is a criminal case. If you’re going to sue, you better make sure you’re right and better do your homework, Durie said.

The defense attorney pointed to shifts in Adkins’ testimony: that he initially said he reviewed more than 400,000 documents in the case, then said he or other agents reviewed them. Durie reminded jurors of an episode during Adkins’ testimony when she cross-examined him, highlighting an error in his timeline about whether Sebastian Ridley-Thomas had been interviewed in the sexual harassment investigation.

This whole thing is about timing, Durie said, adding, “That’s why it’s really important not to mix it up.

duria

marked

pointed out other shortcomings: researchers seemed uninterested in how the provincial government operated and even misrepresented the nature of the items that

include

make up the quo in the quid pro quo two of the three items were studies

Where

in which further research would be done for regulators, not for contracts per se.

Who has the government presented to you as witnesses? They generally brought you people from USC, ‘Durie

told jurors

.

A centerpiece of the government’s case is a meeting in the summer of 2017

between

with Ridley-Thomas, whom Flynn later memorialized in a letter. Delivered personally to Ridley-Thomas’ office, the letter contained Flynn’s requests to the politician regarding county affairs.

dots son

is noted

said the letter was evidence that Flynn and Ridley-Thomas mixed Sebastian’s extraordinary benefits at USC with county affairs.

Durie doubted the letter: someone found it, saw it had been personally delivered, and thought, “Aha!”

“

Instead, Durie said, the multi-page letter was hand-delivered because of particularly sensitive content: a demographic breakdown of the members of a homelessness research initiative. The letter harshly noted that the committee was largely white and had no members with “lived-in experience,” jeopardizing the legitimacy of the investigation.

Prosecutors saw the sexual harassment allegations against Sebastian Ridley-Thomas and the need to hush up the brewing scandal as a driving force behind the conspiracy. But Durie wondered aloud if jurors had friends or relatives accused of misconduct, in a voice noticeably calmer and slower than her argument.

Mark Ridley-Thomas is on trial, Durie said. He’s certainly not on trial for anything his son did.

Jurors will return Friday morning to hear further rebuttal arguments from prosecutors. In her final lines to the jury, Durie made a plea.

I ask that you send this man back to work, to his home, to his community and, on every charge, be declared innocent.