By FRED SHUSTER

City News Service

Former Los Angeles County politician Mark Ridley-Thomas is expected to ask the federal appeals court on Thursday, Nov. 21, to grant him a new trial or reverse his fraud and bribery convictions for voting to support county charters that favored USC while accepting aid. for his son from university

Ridley-Thomas’ attorneys will appear before a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena to present their arguments, while federal prosecutors will present their objections.

Thomas, 70, was sentenced to three years and six months in federal prison for his March 2023 conviction on single counts of conspiracy, bribery and honest services mail fraud and four counts of honest services wire fraud stemming from his time serving on the county board. Your controllers.

Arriving on their fifth day of deliberations in Los Angeles federal court, jurors acquitted him of a dozen counts of fraud. U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer later granted the longtime politician’s bail offer pending appeal.

Thomas was a member of the Los Angeles City Council at the time the decisions were made.

Defense attorneys argue that the 9th Circuit should either reverse the convictions or hold a new trial based on the allegations made in the brief.

“Dr. Attorney Paul Watford stated that Mark Ridley-Thomas is not guilty of either federal program bribery or honest services fraud. “The government’s Dr. His prosecution of Ridley-Thomas contained none of the hallmarks of traditional bribery: no special enrichment, no intent to influence, and no material to deceive potential victims. His beliefs cannot stand.”

Ridley-Thomas’ attorneys argue, among other things, that the process of selecting jurors was flawed because government lawyers engaged in discriminatory conduct by using two peremptory strikes to remove all Black women from the jury.

Defense attorneys also argue there is no evidence of a “mutual” agreement between Ridley-Thomas and Marilyn Flynn, the former president of the USC School of Social Work who has pleaded guilty to bribery charges in the case.

The defense insists there is no evidence that Ridley-Thomas, while on the Board of Supervisors, took “formal action” in favor of expanding the Telehealth contract with the county Department of Mental Health, which prosecutors allege could potentially bring the school of social work into millions of dollars in new revenue .

The appeal challenges honest services fraud allegations on the grounds that the government failed to prove that Ridley-Thomas was involved in a deception that was important to her constituents. At trial, the government argued that Ridley-Thomas deceived USC, but the fraud was not made public, according to appellate attorneys.

The government’s theory is not only unprecedented, it risks turning ordinary exchanges critical to representative government—from ribbon-cutting ceremonies to honorary degrees—into grounds for federal investigation. Ridley-Thomas’ attorneys wrote that unless rescinded, the order would have a chilling effect on routine government operations.

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment.

Flynn, the 85-year-old former dean of USC’s school of social work who pleaded guilty to bribing Ridley-Thomas, was sentenced in July 2023 to 18 months of house arrest and a $150,000 fine.

Federal prosecutors based their case on a long series of emails and letters that they said showed Ridley-Thomas “used his public privileges to cash in on his elected office and seek benefits for his son,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Evidence showed that $100,000 from Ridley-Thomas’s campaign committee account was quietly transferred through USC to Policy, Research and Practice, a nonprofit spearheaded by her son Sebastian. Prosecutors said Flynn arranged the transfer to please Ridley-Thomas.

Ridley-Thomas served on the L.A. City Council from 1991 to 2002, then was a member of the Assembly and State Senate before being elected to the powerful county Board of Supervisors in 2008, where she served until 2020 when she returned to the City Council.

“The entire community has been victimized by the defendant’s crimes,” Fischer said during the sentencing hearing, adding that Ridley-Thomas “committed serious crimes, denied responsibility and showed no remorse.”